Mariana and Katya

I am happy to introduce to you, Mariana and Katya!

After traveling more than 20 plus hours, our girls arrived in Atlanta, Georgia with 27 other children and 2 chaperones.  In spite of the grueling trip, they still had smiles on their faces.  

I ran to them and gave them my long anticipated hug and they giggled quietly as I hung on to them.   

Some of the younger children were overwhelmed by the moment and perhaps a little afraid so Katya helped to comfort them.

 So very sweet!

I have to be honest... 

I have wanted to sit at the computer and share all the details of yesterday and today, all day.  But there are so many thoughts and emotions all jumbled up inside of me that I am finding it difficult to articulate.  So perhaps I will just list a bunch of random thoughts and you can do your best to put the pieces together.

• My heart still aches for the children that flew across the world without a parent to comfort them and calm their fears.
• I felt like I was going to burst with emotion when I first spotted Katya and Mariana coming up the escalator at the airport.
• Despite an hour and a half delay for our flight headed to Orlando the girls stayed cheerful.
• The greeting by the rest of the family in Orlando was AWESOME!
• The language barrier is huge!
• My new best friend is Google Translate.
• It was a late night... the girls slept in til noon time... we are hoping that their bodies will adjust to the 7 hour time change quickly.
• I have heard (via texts, email, phone calls, and facebook) from many of you and soooooooo appreciate the support.
• We did a little shopping today since the girls have so little.
• Attended our first church service altogether tonight.
• We also had some great pool time... with Ty's famous cannonballs that almost empty the pool of it's water.
• There was lots of laughing and screaming by all 6 kids.
• We had a nice family dinner on the back porch.
• Movie night... Tangled
• Bed by 10pm at Katya and Mariana's request.
• House is quiet... except for Ty's snoring.
• Trying to blog... hoping that this will do for now.