I'm Not Vanya, I'm John....

Well as many of you know John's birth name was Ivan, in Russia he was called "Vanya" which is another form of Ivan. Gloria and I decided to Americanize his name and in doing so changed it to the English form of Ivan which is John. We have spent a few months transitioning him to his new name and have been calling him John exclusively for the last 6 or 8 weeks or so. Yesterday in the car I was trying to get his attention and he was ignoring me. I finally said "Vanya!"...well this got his attention alright, he shot right back with "I'M NOT VANYA, I'M JOHN!" Mission accomplished with the name transition.
We had a great day yesterday at some friends of ours who live a few miles away and have a heated pool (ours is not open yet). This came just in the nick of time as our Central Air conditioner died late Saturday night and it was in the upper 80's here yesterday. The kids spent all afternoon in the pool.
Keegan's birthday party is this coming Sunday...he'll be 16 on this Thursday...Look out Illinois drivers! We will be continuing our breakfast tradition, taking him out on his birthday to his favorite breakfast place, The Country Charm...

One year ago today.......

...Our lives changed forever...We first met Kristina and John, fell in love with them and began finalizing our transition to a family of 5. We could not be any happier...We knew immediately that we found our kids and continue to grow as a family today. The pictures on the left are from our visit one year ago and the pictures on the right are the kids recent school pictures.

John doesn't really like others taking his picture. He will smile for us but not for someone he doesn't know!

One year ago today.......

.......we met "Scary T" at the MOE (Ministry of Education) and got our formal invite to visit the kids.

One year ago today.....

.......we were on a flight to Russia to meet the kids!!!!