Thursday, October 11, 2012
Scroll down for photos if you don't have time to read all of this!
Picking up our boy
On this day, the Amazing Sv.- our HWTM (Host with the MostJ) said as he left for work, “Don’t forget to do something special today- it’s 10-11-12”! He truly knows how to make every day an adventure.
So, we did do something special- we went out to the orphanage to get our sweet boy for the weekend! J . The amazing Director of his orphanage found out we paid $50 to the driver the first time we went out there and she declared, “that’s ridiculous! Call me next time and I’ll help you find a ride.” So she sent one of the foster Dads to get us. It was probably comical to watch us piling into his little tiny car. Weej sat in the front seat and I sat in the back with all three kids. An. sat on my lap and off we went. Traffic is HORRIBLE here, often frightening, and the driving is FAST, WINDING and JERKING side to side, front to back as they navigate pothole ridden roads and millions of other insane drivers. I have learned to carry Dramamine in my purse for the more queasy ones in the bunch!:) Before V. returned from School, we met with the director for some more information on his background, but as Weej said on the way there, “ it’s like being pregnant- he’s ours now and you take who God gives you, potential health issues and all!.” I love my husbandJ. Nothing they told us could change our decision. Fortunately, it was all pretty much minor things we already knew. (For his privacy, please don’t ask …we’ve had a lot of people ask about his past and we’d rather not have to say, “we’d rather not say.” ) Anyone who is an orphan has issues in their past or they wouldn’t be an orphan, right?
Back home for a nap! Oh, my gooooodness was I ever tired on Thursday. (‘goodness’must be said with a Russian accent- the “oo” is pronounced as in “Boo”, only longer.) I stayed up later than ever before in my entire life (5am) finishing the blog on Wed night! Then we had to get up and ready by 10:30m on Thursday to meet the driver who was taking us to the orphanage. Ahh! So I hated to be a party pooper, but I HAD to have a little nap once we got back to the apartment. The kids were occupied and Daddy was in charge, so the time was right for a little snooze.
After I woke up, we planned:
Dinner with the sweet, sweet Oxana-
We coordinated, with much confusion J , a birthday dinner for our sweet new friend, Ox. She is a server in one of our favorite places- Coffee House. She loves to practice her English and was moved to tears when she heard we were here to adopt on our first visit there. Little did we know, our friends P & J had already met her in their three weeks here before we got here. She said, “Oh, I met another couple here to adopt!” and we let her know they were our friends. We have since decided we’d all like to take her home with us and were thrilled to be invited to celebrate her birthday with her! Little did we know, Ukrainians plan their own birthdays and pay for everyone they invite to dinner! (?!) So when she called me and said, “I want to have my birthday with the Lynch and Williams families” and I told her excitedly that our host Sv., his fiancé Ir. , her daughter K., our other new friends who are here to adopt, the B. family, as well as our other Ukrainian friends, Sa. & Sl. wanted to join us to celebrate her birthday, she paused with…”let me think”…. I wondered why she was so reluctant to have a bigger celebration of HER…but fortunately through translation with Sl. we found out that she was planning to pay for us and the W. family! What??!?? A server in Ukraine- she probably only makes peanuts….pay for us. No, we told her, she was having an AMERICAN birthday….where she DOES NOT pay for herself. Her boyfriend came and really didn’t understand either why we wouldn’t let her pay for us! Ha!
So eventually we got it all worked out, after many, many, many phone calls and texts between all 17 of us!:) Sweet Ox. picked a sushi place. Why of course- sushi in Ukraine! It still puzzles me that this nation is so sushi obsessed, but Sushi it was. I have honestly never seen this many sushi restaurants, Weej doesn’t even know if there were this many in Japan!;) On every block, there are at LEAST 2 Sushi places. And if it isn’t a Sushi place, it serves sushi anyway, whether it is Italian, Ukrainian or pizza. (?!?!) Very, very strange to me. Weej, unfortunately, thinks of sushi as bait, but our BOYS were ecstatic about the Sushi plan. Little V. LOOOOOVES Sushi and has been begging since we got here for Sushi. He points out sushi, takes pictures of sushi, chants about Sushi and makes up songs about Sushi. “I love Sushi, I love Sushi, I love Sushi, I Looooooove Suuushi, “ It went on for about 20 min one night as we walked around town and we finally had to say “Enough of the sushi song.”J Ha! I think he likes Sushi! How strange that his big brother J., with no genetic relation, also LOVES Sushi, as witnessed by the Kirk family when they came to Epcot and I told them J. would be beyond excited about a tray of Sushi for lunch rather than boring Chicken nuggetsJ. And he was! Fortunately there was not an eternal song to accompany the sushiJ Also fortunately, sushi here, as with most everything else, is very cheap. (my apologies to our Essentials teachers, J. & J., for all the extra commas.:)
We think sweet Ox. had a great birthday celebration. She said she hadn’t done anything for her birthday in 7 years. How sad. We were happy she enjoyed our gigantic, enthusiastic American party of 17 in her honor! She only blushed a little when we sang Happy Birthday to herJ There were even some Ukrainians at the nearby tables who SMILED AND CLAPPED for her after our singing! I think maybe we’re rubbing off on them. I mean, why be solemn and sad, when you can smileJ?! This could be like the Grinch movie! After he finally learned how to smile, his whole world changed! Those four to six Ukrainians who SMILED and CLAPPED in the restaurant could transform the nation! They could take their smiles elsewhere and spread them around to others. Can’t you just picture the Grinch’s green face, with one corner of his mouth creeping up into a tiny fragment of a smile, then turning into a full blown smile and a renewed heart?! If you ever come to Kiev in the years to come and see people smiling, you can thank our big party of 17 smiling people (and those who have gone before usJ) Ha! Fortunately, our precious new Ukrainian friends have all learned to smile and enjoy life even before we got here, or this trip would not be nearly as much fun. (We love you S.O.S. and Ir.!!:D
Metro fun! This big unwieldy group we travel with has ENTIRELY too much fun doing things which are quite ordinary! Kindred spirits (three adoptive families and the friends who surround us) and similar faith in Christ cause immediate friendships which cannot be explained. Just waiting for the metro we were able to create several photo opportunities! We make a journey on the metro a “party in a box”J The Ukrainians on the metro, with their scowling faces, must think we are insane, but perhaps they are just jealous that they have never had so much fun on the metro. If they only broke out one little tiny smile, we’d include them in on the fun, tooJ But they seem to prefer their scowling. I know I have written about Weej breaking out into song, but he has only done that twice – once on the bus (“The Wheels on the Bus”) and once on Kreshatyk, (“Deo!”) Kreshatyk is the shopping area where there is a lot of street entertainment anyway on weekends, breakdancers, jugglers, living statues, etc. Even the people standing around watching the street entertainers are scowling. I wish this was a visual medium because if we were sitting here in person I would turn to you, with my most serious face/scowl (NOT easy for me, but try to picture it…..or picture your most serious friend instead) and say, “awesome job, man” to the breakdancer- with my scowl. Our fun is nothing more than the usual fun that a group of Americans have. Conversation, smiles and the occasional outbreak of laughter is all we are doing. It isn’t anything outrageous; we aren’t swinging from the overhead handrails on the metro (OK, maybe my boys did that ONCE on the bus- but it was empty.J), or standing on our heads, flipping, or shouting or anything we all wouldn’t do in the States, but smiling, pleasant conversational Americans are just made to feel outrageous with all of the surrounding scowls and glares. It’s all very strange. :I
Oh, by the way, busses and metros cost between a dime and a quarter and your ride is unlimited. I suppose you could ride the bus or metro all day for that quarter. Strangely on the bus here, if you enter at the back door, you pass your money for payment through the crowd, adding a verbal comment about how many passengers you are paying for-without a smile or any pleasantries, of course. (OK now, pause and say a number with a scowl….that’s exactly it) The money is passed person to person to person until it gets to the driver. Although I have never actually seen the driver making the change (hopefully he is doing it at the red lights!), the change is then passed all the way back, over peoples’ heads, around people, under arms…and somehow it gets back to the person who paid the fare. This happens over and over and it never seems to disappear or get mixed up. The people are very quiet…almost eerily quiet, and we have never heard or seen a fight break out. That part is pretty nice, actually. Being in Kiev reminds me in many ways of my days in Rome as a teenager- the sights, the smells, the Europeanness, the “ancientness” of the place. But one major difference is the joy you sense in Italy- lots of smiling and talking and laughing, and the seriousness (despair?) you sense here. It’s a little sad, really. But I truly love the Ukrainians we have had the pleasure to meet here. As an American friend who adopted from here earlier this year, said to us, “They aren’t the warmest people at first, but once you get to know them they have hearts of gold and would give you the shirt off their back.” Yes, we have made true lifelong friends here in just 3 short weeks: Ir., Sa., Sl., Ox., Ra. will always have a special place in our hearts and it will actually be very hard to leave them.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Happy Birthday Sveno!!!
We started our day with a BANG- literally! At 5:45 am the kids and I were awakened by Weej announcing, “the girls are here, Ir. is getting Sv. up to surprise him!” The night before all FOUR J of my kids had made pictures, cards, & signs to decorate the house for his birthday. They all worked SO hard on their artwork to make it special for him. The “girls” Sa. and Sl. had ridden over with Ir. with an amazing cake from the local Chocolate factory, (Roshen!:), a bouquet of balloons, and candles. They lit all 49 candles, then Ir., his fiancé, woke him up for the 6 am surprise! We had pre-planned a PJ surprise so the girls rode over in their PJ’s! We all yelled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” and sang to him before he blew out his candles. The girls had prepared “special” candles for him, which relit over and over, adding to the fun! Good thing there was no smoke detector overhead!!:D Oh, how could I forget…as we began to sing Happy Birthday in our EARLY MORNING/only half awake state, someone pulled the “plug” to an exploding canister of streamers- “POW!!!!” and nearly scared us all half to death!!! YIKES!!!! But it was festive, and colorful and LOTS of fun to have all of the swirly, glittering streamers all over.
After the girls had to leave to make it to their college classes, we all went back to bed. Unfortunately, my littlest two had other ideas about going back to bed and were now WIDE awake after the singing and EXPLODING streamers! I set them up with a movie (Happy Feet) and most of us went back to bed.
After we all woke up on Friday, we just enjoyed time together as a family hanging around the house. It was very low key and relaxing. The kids have discovered a game called “Stack the States” and “Stack the Countries” which is an electronic game that teaches all of the countries, capitals, and even bordering countries. The kids LOVE to play that game and have all learned so much! We have found by talking to others who are adopting that their adoptive kids have a near obsession with all electronics so we are really attempting to limit it. Actually all kids have that obsession if given the opportunity, so we are just doing some training on the boundaries. There is not much bonding going on when the kids’ (or adults’, for that matter) head is immersed in a video screen. So we taught them to set a 15 minute timer and all four kids have been excellent about taking turns as soon as their timer goes off. When they aren’t playing electronics, they all love to draw on their dry erase boards (best $1 I’ve ever spent at Staples!), hide and seek, cards, etc etc. V. also loves to play an English vocabulary game we found (electronic of course, but still very educational). We are so blessed that he loves to learn!
Therapeutic:
Since we got here, in THREE weeks, I have heard VERY little bickering! Wow! So, if you have ever thought about adopting and thought maybe it wasn’t a good idea because your kids bicker- this journey has actually been therapeutic. Could it be that they are seeing kids with NO family and no permanent siblings? Perhaps they are seeing the poverty and learning to appreciate what they have? Perhaps they are noticing the gratitude their new brother shows to each of us and evaluating their own behavior. They have observed little V. saying several times a day, “Thank you, Dad” “thank you Mom”, “You are my BROTHER” with a big hug,” I love my Seester.” as he hugs his sisters tight and “I love my Mama” often said as a songJ, “I love my family”. Not sure, but I love the greater peace this journey has brought to our family. And yes, we are aware that jealousy may arise from the original three, who don’t require nearly as much “maintenance” right now….so we have made a special effort to spend extra time with them as well. So perhaps our extra attention for them has helped the bickering as well. Whatever it is, I LIKE IT!:)
In the early afternoon we decided to go grab a late lunch at a tiny little BURRITO place we found!!! It is a teeny, tiny little shack, tucked away in the midst of several street vendors which sell anything from fruits & vegetables to socks and wallets. There a true flea market feel in little pockets all over the city. So, we spotted this little green burrito shack in the midst of the vendors and decided to risk our digestive fate on some “Mexican” fare!:) Now that it has been over 48 hours since those Chicken Burritoes, and we are all still well, I can highly recommend the little burrito place- which looks like “Byppitoc”!:) Our little V. appears not to enjoy Mexican food as much as we do- he opted for the hot dog in a tortillaJ. The Chicken burritos were only $2 each and quite tasty! They were unlike any burrito we’d ever had, with a type of cabbage slaw in them instead of lettuce, and diced chunks of chicken, but were really good. Even our pickiest eater ate her entire “byppito”!:) After our tasty “Mexican” lunch we ventured down the street to find the bookstore we had found on our stroll with the W. & B. families several days prior. I am happy to say, I FOUND IT!!! I am usually the navigator in this family back at home, but have grown more and more dependent on my Google maps feature in my Droid at home. Since my Droid is useless here (FUTURE ADOPTIVE FAMILY SIDE NOTE- get an iphone before you come if you want to have a mobile map feature!) Since I didn’t know this, I had to return to the early 90’s and revert to an old paper map! And since you don’t want to have a big map out in public, making it even more apparent that not only are you a foreigner but you are LOST, we looked at the map before we left and “memorized” where we needed to go. After brushing up on my skills, I was able to not only figure out where we were, but where the bookstore was based on other nearby landmarks. After being questioned by my fellow family members repeatedly as we walked along, I FOUND IT!! And I went directly to it, no wandering or wrong turns at all!! We have spent so much time here with P.&J. we have really relied on their expertise and excellent senses of direction here. In a group with a leader, I tend to bring up the rear with my picture takingJ . And in this group, I am not the navigator- I am merely following others and not paying much attention to where we are or how we got there, just the picturesque beauty of where we are. But as P. & J.’s time here draws to an end, I realize I HAVE to start paying attention or be really lost and sorry. So, again I say with triumph, I FOUND the bookstore! Upon entering the EXTREMELY HOT bookstore (Another future adoptive family tip: bring short sleeved shirts to wear under your sweaters or coats- you will be very happy you have them when you enter the buildings. Evidently there is quite a fear about being the least bit cold or consuming anything cold (including ice cream, iced drinks, etc) or even a breeze from an open window on a stifling hot bus, so plan accordingly! So back to the bookstore- we proceeded through the oppressive heat, shedding coats/hats/gloves/scarves rapidly as we went. We made our way to the English section and with the help of little V., selected a workbook, reader and book of poetry in both languages for our homeschooling adventures this year. I am glad I brought him back there as I would have selected a workbook I thought was at his grade level, which was much too difficult for him. To fast forward into our evening, after we returned from our next several hours of adventures, at 10 pm, this sweet appreciative boy pulled out his new workbooks and wanted to do some! I told him it was late, but he REALLY wanted to look at his new books. I helped him write his name and date in his book, then helped him do his first two pages. I thought he might just try one or two problems and give up for the night, but he worked and worked and worked until he completed 2 pages! He relished the time we sat side by side and I read the words to him as he repeated them. We ran into some challenges since his directions are in Cyrillic J but with him reading the Cyrillic directions, and me looking at the English problem, we were able to figure most of it out. My heart smiled when after completing his pages I gave him a little “Great” sticker and he was ecstatic! He ran into the kitchen, “Daddy! Look!” and showed his big Daddy his accomplishments! I think he should be relatively easy to homeschool!
Returning to our Friday night, Sl. had invited the kids to Youth group at the Church and said she would pick them up for us. We adults had arranged to meet P & J for some fun, so we proceeded from the bookstore to the Maidan area/Independence Square. The kids were thrilled when I popped into McDonalds and got them each a small order of fries. And I was thrilled that I ordered something from a Ukrainian restaurant by myself! Strangely, there was not a WORD of English on the McDonald’s menu (vs. the Ukrainian & Chinese restaurants- which all have English menus!) I had to decipher, using my emerging Cyrillic understanding, which word said something close to Fries- Картопля фріc (I had no idea what the first word said, but the last word I sounded out….f….r…i…s…..FRIES! That’s what I want!:) Little V. LOVES French fries!
Speaking of food, in case I forgot to mention it, I asked sweet Ir. to ask V. in Ukrainian/Russian what his favorite foods are so I can learn how to make them. Fortunately for him, his favorite foods are mainly American foods: pizza, fries, Ice cream. And so far he has eaten everything we have presented to him- not the least bit picky- YAY! Only one Ukrainian food made the favorite food running, though- Pelmeni- which I have now made with Ir. AND she surprised me with a Pelmeni maker to top all that off!! Wow! Blessings continue to flow!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Pancake breakfast:
Weej treated us all to a pancake breakfast, just like home on Saturday morning. He graciously allowed us all to sleep in until 10 since Friday had been a late night. After we ate and cleaned up, we began cycling through the one shower in order to prepare for our big even of the day:
Embassy event at the orphanage.
Several workers at the American Embassy here in Kiev volunteer their time at V.’s orphanage once a month! We heard a rumor that L. M. started that before she moved to Georgia- she truly has a heart of pure gold and more than a passing interest in these kids. Without ever even meeting us, she advocated for us as we kept in touch with V., contacted people here in Kiev for us on more than one occasion, obtained photos of V. and his baptism for us, and even helped us get in touch with our amazing host, Sv. So, we got to be a part of her legacy and tag along on Saturday! What an amazing group of Americans we met and an even more amazing group of kids. We played a name game where each person wrote their name and age on an index card, the cards were shuffled and handed out to each person and you had to find your “partner” by asking around the room “are you Svetta?” The sweet shy girl I was partnered with was 11 years old and knew a few words of English. I told her she had beautiful eyes (just those two words) but sadly she thought I meant she had something on her eyes and started rubbing them with concern. I took her to my sweet friend, Sl, who explained to her that I said she had beautiful eyes. She smiled shyly. I hope she finds a family. And the other little girl who played games with Abigail, and the other little girl who buddied up to Weej, and the other little girls who came out wearing funny sunglasses and asked me to take their picture, then put them on me and took mineJ . Oh, the sweet kids. Sadly, most of the boys sat along the wall being “too cool” for our silly games. I’m so glad our sweet boy is so young at heart. He’s a blast. And speaking of a blast, our hilarious host, Sv. and his/our friend Sl. set up another game called Chicken dance. They split the room into English speaking people on one side and Ukrainian/Russian speakers on the other side. Sl. stood with the Ukrainians, and Sv. stood with us. They started the tutorial by Sl. yelling at our side, “let me see your chicken dance” and Sv. replied ,”What did you say?!” “let me see your chicken dance!” “what did you say?” (complete with exaggerated gansta type arm movementsJ) “I said, let me see your Chicken dance.” Then they both broke out into a HILARIOUS Chicken dance circling around each other. Then the returned to their original positions and proceeded through the Sumo wrestler, the boxing brothers, and the most hilarious the Ballerina. Oh, the video I have of them Ballerina-ing around the room makes us laugh out loud! I promised them no facebookJ . So after the tutorial, we all joined in and it was a wonderfully fun way to get in motion with these kids. The pictures are blurry, but hopefully they capture a slice of the hilarity!
The world needs more people willing to give these kids a chance, meet them where they are and give them what nearly all of them wish for- a family. When asked to write their biggest wish on a balloon at Christmas, our HWTM’s fiancé said nearly every one of them wrote, “A family”. Sadly, some of the bigger boys wrote something electronic ...they have probably given up on the whole family idea. L
I am praying for beautiful families for all of these amazing kids. J
I think God says, “Pure and undefiled religion is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27) maybe even more for our benefit than for theirs.
Once you meet an orphan, you’ll never be the same.
Following the Orphanage event, we went to a Mall which was beyond belief. Even in FL, I have never seen anything like it. One of our HWTM’s birthday wishes was to go Curling. Since his fiancé surprised him with the early wake up cake, streamers and fun, then took him to dinner after work, then to a Russia Spa after that, we decided we’d go celebrate with him by Curling on Sat night. Before I explain Curling, I must add a funny line or two about the Russian Spa. Sv. hilariously described it as something he had heard of but never wanted to experience! But he was taken Friday night by his sweet Ira. The Russian spa sounds like an excessively HOOOOOT SAUNA, followed by a honey/lemon/salt scrub, followed by another baking in the Sauna, followed by a beating with a Maple branch and leaves (this is making me laugh out loud as I re-read it!!!:D), then a rinse, then a bucket of ice cold water poured down your back!!! Hahaha! I’m SURE I have those events out of order, but Sv. had us in stitches describing it!! And now, in case you don’t know what Curling is, it is a bit like shuffle board- on ice! Sadly, we were unable to go curling as the lanes were all booked. We started our evening at this crazy HUGE mall with dinner in the food court. Again ridiculously cheap…we had wings and fries- probably less than $20 for all 10 of us. As were eating the wings and fries, Sv. informs us that for an early Anniversary present (our 20th is in 3 days!) he and Ir. were sending Weej and I for a foot massage. (?!?) After their massage story…I was a little bit frightened. Fortunately it wasn’t painful, but it was DEFINITELY something unheard of in the States! They walked us down the Mall from the food court to a place called, “Fish Massage” HA! I thought, “ONLY SV!”. (for those who know him, you are thinking “of course!:)” We peered in at an Asian lady at the counter, and a row of seats off to her right. Each seat sat behind a TANK OF FISH!!!! Oh my GOOODNESS!!! I shuddered to think that we were going to be on display for the mall. A thought had crossed my mind JUST that morning- maybe I should touch up my toenails. I wear sandals ALL the time in FL, so I paint them AT LEAST weekly. But here, I haven’t been shoe or sockless in 3 weeks. So I thought…OH nobody is going to see my feet, I won’t take the time. I don’t think my feet have looked that bad in years. But here I went dangling them in CLEAR fish tanks, behind HUGE plate glass windows leading to the mall. All four of our kids were able to watch and were quite intrigued. Sv. came in with his super duper mega lens camera to ensure CLOSE UPS of our nasty feet hanging in the fish tank. It was beyond memorable. We laughed and laughed and laughed and made a memory to last a lifetime for SURE! We even make UKRAINIANS laugh out loud (I have pictures!) as they peered through the plate glass window at us- like we were in the zoo! I am sure they were laughing AT us, not WITH us, but at least they found a reason to smile! It was quite a spectacle, but thank you Sv. and Ir. It is an Anniversary gift we’ll never forgetJ
After our Fish massage, we just walked through the Mall and saw some of the amazing sights- a bumper car area, bowling, ice skating, curling, roller blading, a piano player on a transparent platform suspended 2 stories up. This mall went on an on, with different areas themed in: Western, Jungle, Asian, Hollywood, etc. In the Jungle area, Sv. recommended a petting zoo/reptile area for the kids which was only $3/child! It was awesome and yet another reminder of how similar my boys are with their love of animals and reptiles!
We completed our night with Smoothies made my our favorite smoothie girls, Sl. & Ab.! We accompanied our smoothies with an intriguing story by Sv. about his near death experience and blindness as the result of a dive accident. God was incredibly glorified through it all! Again, the most interesting man in the world! It was a great night.
Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012
Today we returned to ICA for worship. We have really enjoyed the Pastor there, worship is refreshing and the people are so wonderful!
The message was about God’s Love. Again I was reminded, as I stood with my arm around my little guy, how much God did to pursue us, find us and adopt us!! We read the scriptures about the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Son. Oh, wow, how I remember pouring over those words as I sought my missing son for so long! And there he was, by my side. Unbelievable and only God! The moments of watching my big, loud, strong husband hug him with such great care….not at all manufactured or forced- genuine. It is truly MIRACULOUS to see this man, who 7 years ago was so vociferously opposed to adoption, hold onto his new son with the same concern he held all three of his newborns. It makes me want to cry every time. This is truly God at work. I can testify without at doubt that God still moves mountains- I’m over here watching it.
After Church, we proceeded to a “cheap Chinese place” where we attempted to find seating for 10. (The 6 of us, Sv., Ir., lil K. and Sl.) One of our Ukrainian friends asked if we could push two tables together since they were all four tops and the man who was a server said sure. The minute the tables started to sqeak into place, WOW! an old Chinese woman came blasting out with a horrible scowl yelling at us in Chinese, “HHOCHEENONOSANDANNAH!!!!!” ok, so that wasn’t exactly what she said, just my memory of it;) But in no uncertain terms we were made aware that she DID NOT want us to push tables together and made us sit at three separate tables until a large party nearby was finished. Unlike the US, the customer is never right in Ukraine. J So we waited, and eventually got the big table, which was really only designed for 8. We crammed the 10 of us in, in true Ukrainian Metro style- minus the scowling. Our food was excellent and made up for the horrendous service. I may have already mentioned this, but entrees never come out at the same time here….they just trickle out one at a time. No apologies- that is just how it is- everywhere. So our food trickled out one at a time. Fortunately we had already planned to share each dish, so each person scooped a tablespoon of each thing onto their plate and ate it as each new entrée came out. It was still fun and memorable, as is everything here. Quickly after lunch, Ir. left to take Sv. to the airport for his week in Germany on business. We will miss “the Most Interesting Man in the World” while he is gone again.
After Ir. returned from the airport she took lil V. back to his orphanage since she was going out there anyway to visit with one of the girls. He was super sad to go and became very quiet and downcast in the 30 min leading up to his departure. Hopefully it won’t be long now before he can join us for good.
Tonight we just relaxed, caught up on pictures and laundry and such.
Tomorrow we have to be out of the house for the Housecleaner-all day, 9-5. But we’ll find plenty to do I’m sure!
Now here are some photos to complete the adventure!
The Dads
The Moms
Lil. V and his favorite food!
J. and his scrumptious tray of eel sushi- he loved it!
Our HWTM, Sv. and his Ir. and K.
Our amazing, incredible Trilingual friends S.O.S.!
Fun waiting for the metro! "Hey! Stop all of that ridiculous SMILING! :I"
Our happy feet!
Hilarious P! Their bus sat there forever. Our bus pulled up much later, and drove away with them sitting there! Hysterical!
Sv. 's Birthday locks
Sv. & Ir.s Anniversary treat for us!
The fish preparing to nibble on our feet- ODD sensation. I will spare you the disgusting feet images!
OK, here's PROOF- the smiling Ukrainian woman and laughing Ukrainian man staring in at fish nibbling on my feet! AH!
Look at that sly smile on Sv as they watched our "fish massage".! Love this couple!
Sv. Ir, & K.waiting for our Chinese!
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