June 18, 1997

I was born to my biological parents. My mom was very sick, and my dad probably doesn’t even know about my twin sister, Angelina, and I. We were born in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

August, 1997
We lived with my biological mother for two months, but she wasn’t able to take care of us due to her illness. My biological mother lost her house, so we had nowhere to live. We were taken from our mother at 2 months. We recovered from abuse and malnourishment in a hospital and spent a year in an orphanage.

November 2, 1998
This marked the day of our adoption. Prior to this day, we were placed in an adoption agency out of Texas. Our new parents, John and Robin, were required to have extensive background checks, paperwork, and hours of lack of sleep because of this process. It took them a year and six months to fill out the paperwork. Our new parents had physicals and AIDS test, and met with a caseworker who evaluated their home and interviewed their sons, Andrew, 9, and Michael, 11. My adoption mom brought three boxes and a suitcase filled with donations of clothing for the orphanage, and another suitcase with diapers and baby clothes for my sister and me. Once they arrived in Moscow, where they piled their luggage in two cars, a police officer stopped one of the vehicles to look for drugs.

November 5, 1998
After days of waiting at the orphanage, our new parents spent 2 ½ hours in court, wait for the Russian court approval, have the agency complete numerous documents like adoption certificates, and passport applications. There was also confusion on who was who. Anastasia had a red string tried around her wrist.

November 7, 1998
We flew out to meet our new family in Florida. Our parents went through 10 time zones in 21 hours.

November 8, 1998
We arrived at our new home! Our new grandparents and godparents greeted us at the airport. Everyone was so excited to see us. My new brothers were jumping up and down to meet us. We are lucky because we have the actual video of the day we arrived showing the joy and excitement from everyone.

November, 2001
Our family drove to North Carolina for Thanksgiving. Papa was very sick, he was suffering from cancer. It was the last time we saw him.

February, 2002
Papa died February 7, 2002.

August, 2005
My sister and I were evaluated by a Psychologist, at the Dan Marino Center. We were diagnosed with ADHD and we started medication that helps us be better students.

August, 2006
My sister and I were retained in the second grade. I couldn’t read very well.

June, 2008
Our family went on a 17 day vacation to Alaska. We spent 3 days in Anchorage where we saw reindeer, moose, bears, snow, and sled dogs. We even went gold mining. Then we got on a cruise ship for seven days. We saw whales, otters, dolphins, glaciers, floating ice, and beautiful towns along the cruise. We got off the ship in Vancouver, Canada and drove to Seattle, Washington. We stayed there for three days, then went home.