We are here!!!

We made it!!! We have arrived safely in Eastern Europe and I guess it’s time to spill on where in the world we actually are, well.......we are in Ukraine!! And we are so excited to finally be able to walk in the same footsteps as the adoptive families who have come before us and we finally get to experience the country where our sweet little boy is from. I have read and reread about this experience from other parents adopting from here and I can’t really believe it’s actually happening!! This evening we were joined by our close friends Beth and Lee Herrington, and we couldn’t ask for a better couple to be sharing this journey with. We didn’t do to much tonight but we did make it down to Independence Square and checked out the shops above and below ground that are around there, we followed that with dinner at a delicious little pizza place in one of the malls and then headed back to the apartment. Now its time to relax and go to bed. But before I go enjoy the first pictures of our trip!!:)

A view of Independence Square

David and I in Independence Square

CHEERS!! Enjoying our first of many meals together!!:)

Tried our first chocolate bar tonight!

It's Really Happening!!!!

Hi Everyone!! Sorry I haven't posted a new blog lately but I promise I have a REALLY good excuse. Life in the Chellson household has been a very busy one over the last 3 weeks. We received our travel date 2 weeks ago...aaannnddd....in less the 7 hours we will be boarding a plane to our sweet boys country!! And I can't even begin to tell you how excited and nervous and anxious and stressed we are right now! We have worked so hard for so long and the light at the end of this adoption tunnel is shinning VERY bright right now. The next couple of days are going to long and tiring but so worth every minute of it!!:) Our little boy is within our reach and we are sooo excited!!


I want to thank all of you again who keep coming back to read our blog and follow our journey. I can now promise you the best part is about to start! So stay tuned and check back often...more posts and pictures with our sweet boy in them will be coming soon!!


I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, I'm off to try and get some kind of sleep and will post more tomorrow!!

And the wait continues.........

Hi everyone, I just wanted to drop in and give a quick (and VERY short) update! I was hopping that the next post I would be writing would be about our travel date and talking all about our amazing travel plans....but I'm not! We have been waiting for over three weeks, which is typical, and I am starting to feel and sound like Dory from Finding Nemo when I tell people we are still waiting but in instead of hearing "Just keep swimming...just keep swimming...just keep swimming, swimming, swimming"....I hear "just keep waiting...just keep waiting...just keep waiting, waiting, waiting"... I know our wait is almost over and soon the post with the most exciting news IS coming but until then we will wait and get the house ready for our little guy to come home!!:)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thank you for the continued support! It really means the world to us and I promise as soon as we get any news I'll be posting about it!!

Just keep waiting......

Hi everybody! First I want to say Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!! And now for a quick little update for everyone. Tomorrow will be one week since our dossier was submitted to Aaron’s country!! This means within the next two weeks (we hope) we should be getting the date for when we need to be in his country!! Sooooo this means travel time is VERY close to being here and we are so excited and ready to go meet our boy! But for now we will keep waiting…..and waiting……until it’s time to go get him!! I hope all of you had a great Valentine’s Day and I will post as soon as I get our date!:)

Update time

Since we started this process we have often been asked “what is the dossier exactly?” Well I am so happy (and excited) to be able to post this picture to show everyone what exactly a dossier looks like!

 That's it everyone......

The above picture is what my life has been for the last 8/9 months! And I can't believe that we are DONE with the biggest part of the paperwork! We had everything apostilled on Thursday and then shipped it off to Eastern Europe on Friday!

Now the picture of all the paperwork is one I have waited to take since the day we started this process but the picture above is something that makes my heart fill with joy! This package holds the future for our little boy, it holds all the blood, sweat and tears we put into getting to this point and it holds our love for a little boy who stole our hearts 9 months ago. I have played this moment over and over in my head and I am still in shock that it has finally happened!! This "paper pregnancy" hasn't been easy but it has been so worth every bump we have encountered along the way, and we are prepared to encounter a bump (or two) when we travel but for right now we have a huge sense peace, pride and excitement while we wait for our travel date. 

So for now we wait and I am just fine with waiting! I am excited that hopefully soon I will be giving you an update with our travel date! I know I say it every post but thank again. Thank for all your support and for coming back to read our blog and for following our story! I hope you continue to keep following because I promise the best part of this journey is right around the corner and I can't wait to share it with everyone!!

Fundraiser Time...........Come Check It Out!!!!!!

HI everyone!!! The time has come where I can officially say we ONLY need 3 papers to be DONE with our dossier!!!!!!! WooooHoooo!!!! The last THREE papers will be done by Friday and then it will be off the Secretary of State office on Monday to get everything apostilled!!!! If you read my last blog post you may recall me talking about this process and how expensive it is. If you didn’t get to read the last blog post, I’ll give you a quick recap…..In the state of California it cost $20 dollars to apostille every single page in our dossier, which makes this one the MOST expensive parts to compiling our dossier!  The final price of having papers apostilled is VERY expensive and will be over $500 dollars!! Sooooo I thought a great way to help us reduce our cost and to get closer to bringing our sweet boy home, we would do a fun fundraiser!!!

Now for the fundraiser details, we asking for a donations in the amount of $20 dollars (this will pay for one page of the dossier to be apostilled)….and for every $20 dollar donation you make, your name will be written on 3 raffle tickets for the chance to win a great prize, which I will talk about next, along with the prize your $20 dollar donation will also add 10 stars to “Aaron’s Lucky Star Jar”!  Now for the fun prize, everyone who donates will have their names placed on raffle tickets and have a chance to win an awesome homemade fleece blanket (picture of the blanket will be posted at the end of this blog) and $50 dollar gift card of your choice!!!

I’m asking you to PLEASE consider helping us, we are getting closer to end and are still in great need of raising funds to bring our boy home. All donations need to be made through our Chip-In and NOT the link to our Reece’s Rainbow page. This will give us immediate access to the money for our trip to the Secretary of State office on Monday!! If you do not have a pay pal account and would rather send us cash or a check please email me at chellsonfamily@gmail.com or message me on Facebook and we can work out the details!:)

Thank you in advance for any help you can give us, we are truly grateful for everyone who has supported us in or journey to bring our boy home!!!

And now a picture of the blanket……..