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!

February 6, 2009

The Search...

Our search for Ella Grace's biological mother, father, and extended family hasn't been as successful as we had hoped for. However we are hopeful new information will come in and the situation will change.

Gene, our searcher, has tried his best to find Ella Grace's biological mother, father, and extended family without success. Without going into too much detail, Irina, the biological mother is still a wander and has no permanent address, thus making it difficult to locate her. Gene was able to make contact with several people within her circle who have seen her in the past few months. Contact information was left with these individuals and they have promised as soon as they see Irina they push the information forward. Until then we have a picture of her and some of Ella Grace from earlier years...


Irina (biological mother)



Ella Grace (about 12-18 months before adoption)


Ella Grace is 3rd from left (green dress/age unknown)

2 comments:

Conethia and Jim Bob said...

At least Ella will have a picture of her mother.

Missy and Kevin said...

My husband and I adopted from Ukraine in December of 2007. I would like to know about her birth mother for her also. Could you email me any info about how to go about doing this? Thank you so much. melissarmay2000@yahoo.com

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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