About Our Family

El Paso, Texas, United States
We are James, Lisa, Patrick, Christian, Carson, and Ella Payne a military family serving our country via service in the U.S. Army. Jim and I have been married for 18 years and have 3 wonderful home grown sons -Patrick, Christian and Carson. We recently adopted our beautiful daughter Ella Grace Ana from Donets'k, Ukraine in September. Jim and I began our Army life together at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas and every assignment thus far has extended unique opportunities and challenges for our family to grow and learn; to become a stronger, committed, and a prepared Army family. Having recently lived abroad for six amazing years, we cannot express how thankful we are for the opportunity to have represented our great country and to discover the cultures and customs of other countries; to become close to the people and learn from them; to open our hearts and minds to the unfamiliar languages and way of life in other countries. Having now moved back to the United States, we are looking forward to discovering what new adventures await our family. Rest assured, wherever the Army sends us we will continue to serve you and our country proudly. Army life, we wouldn’t trade it!

August 2, 2008

Wrap Up...

It was a busy week!

Moving is always a busy time and while we always hope our belongings will arrive to their new destination without incident, it wasn't to be on this move. We had some water damage and some broken furniture issues this time. However, the inspector surveyed the damage and moved quickly with the repairs. So this week the Rick and his wife (repair folks) arrived to make repairs along with Carpet Magic who made those nasty water mark stains disappear! Thanks to both teams for a wonderful job and your quick response!

Christian and Carson had testing on Tuesday this past week for their potential acceptance into ICS. They did outstanding and were accepted on Thursday. School will begin for them in a little over a week.

We are still waiting for Patrick's transcripts to arrive to begin working on his school enrollment. Hopefully, they will arrive this week.

We had work orders (repairs) for the house at various times and days this week. Now everything seems to be functioning along the lines of normal.

Remember that Harley I won back in September? Well, it arrived and has been delivered. It is BEAUTIFUL! I'll post pictures of it soon. Speaking of pictures, somewhere in our move from the hotel to the house my camera has been 'misplaced' as we cannot locate it. Argh. Hopefully, it will show up unexpectedly.

I used the week to start laying out our items for Ukraine...books, DVD's, paperwork, gifts, 220 hairdryer, converters, peanut butter, tuna fish, crackers, Ella's toothbrush, toothpaste, sippy cups, cup of soups, clothes line, color wonder coloring, magic doodle, clothes pins, Tylenol, pepto, plastic spoons and forks and more.

We also gathered a POA (medical and dental) for my mother-in-law who will stay with our boys. Sent another POA off to the State of Texas for apostilling for me to have POA after Jim leaves Ukraine.

As you can see in the ticker above we have only 2 weeks 2 days until our interview! We will be leaving soon to begin our travels...say tuned into the blog for more info!

One last note, Adriana forwarded another $50.00 in donations to the orphanage fund. While those donation amount is anonymous, please know that we are deeply grateful for your generosity.

7 comments:

The Flying Eagle said...

hey there! Was there any special wording in your POA for when Jim leaves? Is it just in case or do you know specifically that you will need it for some events? Does your facilitator have to re-translate it or is it just for the usembassy? thanks! monicadotmassieatagedwardsdotcom

... said...

Hi!

The POA is me to handle all matters pertaining to the adoption of child(ren) after the court hearing; since he will leave after court. It is a basic statement authorizing such, notarized, and now in the process of apostilling. Yes, the facilitator will have it translated for us. I have heard of a couple of previous families doing a POA but not until in country and then, done locally in Ukrainian. Our facilitator just asked us to bring it with us.

Lisa

Michelle said...

Bring packages of spaghetti sauce and if you like mac and cheese bring the cheese. You can buy pasta there. The food is so bland you will welcome the tasty taste! I never use packaged sauces but I didn't let any of it go to waste there!!!

... said...

I've got packages of spaghetti sauce, tuna, crackers, PB, protein bars, packages of chicken noodle soup, and coffee sticks...since Jim and I are spicy food eaters, i am thinking about ziplocs with spices.
I now have lots of reading to do...I got your box! Thank you so much and I promise to try the Urinelle! LOL We laughed so hard! That was a great gift box Michelle and I thank you for sending it.

Do you have any other sustainable food ideas?

Michelle said...

Bring salt and pepper. I had to steal some from Mc Donalds because I couldn't read the labels.

Also bring your shopping list for when you get off the plane. Your facilitator should take you shopping and you are in such a fog that you won't remember what you want. Then add on top you can't read a thing!

Staci and Damon said...

We were able to buy spaghetti sauce (Barilla) here in Ukraine, but bring something to spice it up as it is very bland!! We like spicy food as well, and I'm looking forward to a little Mexican food!

There are TONS of crackers over here, so you might want to leave those at home. We were able to buy salt and pepper here as the market had a little package of both like you find in the US. You can also get lots of little soup packets here.

Pack as light as you can - you can get pretty much everything here. Let me know if you have specific questions about items available and I'll look in the local market.
Staci

Anonymous said...

She is absolutely Beautiful!!! I am so excited for you and I do hope we can meet her in the future!
Lucia, Joe, Sierra, & Rio

This is our "spot" we began at the beginning of our journey in May 2007, to adopt a child from Ukraine. In August 2008, we traveled to Ukraine to bring our daughter/sister Ella Grace Ana home; and on September 12, 2008 we did just that.

While our journey to bring her home is complete, our journey together is just beginning. We will continue to keep our spot here, posting as frequently as we can; and keeping you updated on our next journey in life...maybe a second adoption is in our future.

Please join us by following us by clicking on the "Follow" link to the left and posting your notes at the bottom of any post we have made.

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