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Snow Angels

A dedication to a few inspirational people in our lives.

  
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Here are our top two reasons behind our gravitation towards adoption.  To the left is a picture of Joe with his Mother, Jewel.  (Yes, that’s me.  OK, the picture is ten years old, but it REALLY IS me!)  And to the right is a picture of Leilani with her Grandmother, affectionately known as Nanny.  Both of these truly wonderful ladies lived in an orphanage for a number of years during their young lives.  Growing up, Leilani and I both remember hearing stories from these ladies about the trails and tribulations of life lived in an orphanage.  They were our original inspiration behind traveling this path.  As well as being a driving force behind our journey, a little story about Jewel was the inspiration behind the naming of this website.  We’ll get to that later on in this page.

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Another source of inspiration for our investigation into International Adoption is this fine lady, pictured here with her two kids and Leilani. Jackie is a neighbor and good friend of ours. Her two kids are the lovely Rita and the feisty Nicholas. Both these great kids were adopted from Russia. Jackie has been a source of wisdom, compassion and experience during our entire journey and I'm not so sure we could have gone on without her.

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Next up is the greatest adoption coordinator in all the land. Julia is the International Coordinator for the Datz Foundation. She is a wonderful woman who has helped us in so many ways throughout our journey to find Alia. I could never thank her enough for all of her hard work, kindness and calm composure throughout this entire venture. She has never once exaggerated any parts of the process to us, has always been straight forward, has been a crutch at times when necessary and always told us to try and be patient, it will happen. As always, she was right.

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Our Roza.  Our trip and our love for the country could not have been nearly as great without her.  As beautiful as she is to look upon, it pales in comparison to her inner beauty.  Her heart and soul are even more breathtaking.  To paraphrase an adage I once read, She and her family have “left footprints on our hearts that the seas of time can never wash away.”

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Our first referral, Anara.  You were in our hearts for several weeks.  We had already named you Isabella and loved you so.  Our dreams of you as our soon-to-be little girl were bashed on the return of your mother.  Our only way to survive that baseball bat to our heartstrings is to firmly believe that you are totally and completely loved by a family that includes several siblings and a mother who loved you enough to come back.  You’ll always be a part of our family and your little picture has a spot on Alia’s dresser.  I wish great things for you.

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My two favorite girls.  nuff said.
Leilani and I would also like to thank the people who are close to us who have helped us financially with this endeavor.  You all know who you are and I hope you have an idea how much we appreciate your help.  We also appreciate the kindness and generosity of our friends who put together some money to give as a donation to the orphanage where my daughter has lived for eight months of her life.  And also another big bear hug goes out to my friends Paul & Greg proprietors of Broad Street Apothecary in Philly.  They donated a huge suitcase filled with vitamins and medicine for the orphanage.  The Orphanage’s Head Doctor almost fell over in her chair at the site off all those goodies for the children of Baby House 3.

Well that’s our Angels, our inspirations and some people whose generosity overwhelms. 

Oh, wait; I think I promised a little more here.  That’s right, an explanation behind how this website’s name was derived.

Well, legend has it that once upon a time in the Yannone family, they’d celebrate Christmas Eve dinner at Joe’s Mom Jewel’s house and Christmas morning breakfast at Joe’s brother Ted’s house.  While exchanging presents one Christmas Eve with my niece (who would not be able to make the Christmas morning buffet at Ted’s), Jewel observed the vast amount of gifts being bestowed.  Jewel then mentioned that, “when I lived in the orphanage, one Christmas all we were given as gifts were two oranges each.  And we were appreciated even getting that.”

The next morning as Jewel trudged up the snowy walkway, gifts in hand, to my brother’s house, legend continues, Ted and an otherwise unknown accomplice threw a couple of oranges out in the snow towards my mother.  “Here’s your gift, just leave ours by the door!” 

Now sometimes, legend has a way of getting embellished over the years as the story is told time and time again.  But know that Jewel has a good sense of humor and Ted and his accomplice love her very much.  Fact or fiction, you decide.  But nonetheless, Oranges in the Snow is a tribute to our first two (Gram Jewel and Nanny) and last two (Leilani & the Royal Kazakh Princess) Snow Angels.