Kherson to Kiev to Frankfurt to Newark to New York to Alpine, Utah...whew!

Vitaly was scheduled to land at Newark airport at 2:00 pm.

Our coordinator asked us to all be there by 1:00 pm -- I guess to be sure that any late arrivals would actually be on time.

Nate and I arrived and found our meeting point.  After greeting most of the other families there, we realized we were the only family hosting for the first time (later we found another).  The others had hosted 3, 4, 5 times and many had adopted several times.  We felt quite nervous and the anticipation about killed us both.

It was fun to see everyone's posters welcoming "their" kids to America and to recognize so many of the faces on the posters.  (We hadn't even thought to put Vitaly's picture on ours).

We waited FOREVER for the kids to come through customs, talking with the other families and feeling very excited and nervous....would he recognize us from our photos?  

would we recognize him?  

what if I had no clothing with me that fit him (ridiculous because I had 4 sizes of everything)?  

shoes?  I had no shoes for him.  

what if I don't actually speak Russian anymore????

what if I never did, and everyone there was just humoring me??????

Agh!  why was Jeff in Amsterdam, or Paris, or wherever he was????

When Vitaly finally did come walking down, we held up the poster through the glass and waved. 

HE SMILED AND WAVED BACK!

Hooray!

He's about Nate's height and slightly thinner, so clothing won't be a problem--hooray again!

We walked over past the roped off area and he immediately came

over to us and greeted us each with a nice hug.

Hooray again!

We had our photo taken, signed off that we were taking him and away we went.

Most families just went out to the parking lot to their cars, but Nate and I were starving (I was actually shaking a bit because I was so hungry).  We have a lot of experience traveling internationally, we're always hungry when we land in America (maybe just anticipating US food and restaurants??) and thought that Vitaly would be starving too.

We told him we were going to eat something and then head back to the hotel.  

His response?

Я хорошо ел в самолете

I ate well on the airplane!

We were starving, he didn't want to eat.  

I decided I must eat before the hour+ cab ride back to the hotel 

and so we ran up to Chili's.

I told Nate to order something small and we ate in a rush,

trying to remember all of our Russian 

and learn a little about Vitaly while we tried to eat without be too rude.

He was really quiet and I started to worry that he either couldn't understand us or 

didn't want to talk to us.

We finally got in a cab and headed out.  He seemed tired and so I told him it was okay to sleep.  He really didn't want to and was fighting to stay awake, but the warm car and long drive won out.

Both boys slept for about a half hour.

At the hotel, I had set out piles of clothing for him to try.  He took them all, found something 

to wear, and after showing him how the shower worked, which bottle was shampoo, etc, I sent him to shower.

He came out bright-eyed and smiling.

But every towel in the bathroom was dry....still trying to figure that one out.

By now it was already close to 7 pm and with our 7 am flight I thought we should eat dinner,

go on a little walk, and go to bed.

We went down to the restaurant and I was relieved when

Vitaly ordered a nice big pasta and chicken dinner.  

We also ordered some bruschetta and he happily tried it.

Suddenly, he went really still and and stopped saying much.  His dinner came and he took one bite, said it was still hot and just sat there for awhile.

I asked if he was okay and he told me that he'd been sick

and had thrown-up on the airplane.  :(  After a couple bites of bruschetta he started

feeling sick again.

So, again, Nate and I tried to finish our food as quickly as possible.

We took Vitaly's dinner and some rolls up to the room and put them in the mini refrigerator, in case he started feeling better and got hungry in the middle of the night.  After a kinda scary walk through a kinda scary part of NY, 

he happily put on pajamas, climbed into bed and after watching about 2 minutes of soccer on TV

he fell asleep--before 9 pm.  

He slept until I had to wake him at 4 am.

We went down to try eating again and he managed some yogurt, a croissant and some tea.

And then we were off to the airport.

On the plane, Nate and I were bumped up to business class.  Vitaly was on the second to last row of economy.  I did my best to get him bumped up and when that failed, I did get him moved to the 32nd row instead of the 45th.   Then I had Nate trade him seats--which he did willingly.

As we sat down, Vitaly suddenly reached in his backpack and showed me the letter he had received (on the airplane from Kiev!) from us and then he brought out a cross-stitch and told me it was a gift for our family that he'd made.  But he needed to fix something, so he put it back in his bag.

We talked for a little bit, but my 3 nights of too little sleep were catching up with me and soon I fell asleep.  When they brought our food Vitaly declined anything and I felt terrible for him.  I kept thinking how exhausted he must feel in addition to feeling sick.  He'd traveled from Kherson to Kiev by bus (12 hours).  He'd been to the embassy to get his visa.  A couple of hours later,

he was on his way to the airport.  A two hour flight to Frankfurt.  A 4+ hour layover.  An 8 hour flight to  New Jersey.  And now, an 4+ hour flight to Utah.  

All while he was feeling sick and worried about throwing up.

When we finally arrived, I needed to go get Sage and Jake (who cut his hair while I was gone!) from my brother and sister-in-law's house.  It was a 30 minute drive in the wrong direction.  Vitaly slept a bit and then again on the hour drive to Alpine and home.

And then he declined lunch.  

I made him eat one breadstick.

The weather didn't cooperate and it was cloudy, cool, and a little bit rainy, so no swimming the first day.

He did play soccer in the back yard with the kids (Sage's Facebook update "Vitaly has MAD soccer skills!") and they took him exploring around our house.  Later we had to go shopping for a few things for him (like shoes for tennis lessons the next morning) and then home for dinner.

Which he ate a few bites of.

After some evening tennis at the park, he came home and finally got to go to sleep.

And that is the end of the story for now.....his first full day in Utah starts with a  6:30 am wake-up for a 7 am tennis lesson.

P.S.  I still speak Russian :)