Day 15, 16 and 17

"The most consequential of life's episodes often begin with the simplest of events."

Finally, we are able to make contact. Soooo, it's official we are now a family of SIX. The judge "found in favor" of us adopting Bogdan and Ruslan. Wahoo! In fact, I even yelled, "wahoo" when he gave us his final decision, okay maybe I didn't yell it, but I did say it loud enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear. Wahoo!! This adoption has been no different then our other two, full of miracles at every turn.

Facilitator Oksana finally arrived late Sunday night, whew. When we awoke Monday morning she sat down with us an prepared us for what was to happen during the court proceedings. I have to admit we were a bit nervous and overwhelmed , but as we entered the court room and the judge began to talk, we calmed down...a bit. He started off by asking a series of questions...why we would adopt these boys? Why Ukriane? Where we live? Occupation? Are we criminals? Where will they attend school?...you get the idea. After he asked us questions, he would then turn to the 2 women on his left and right, ask them if they had any questions for us and then they would ask away. Then he would turn to the SDA representative, the orphanage lawyer and the orphanage representative to see if they had any questions. This continued on for at least a good hour or so. Then he read some documents and it went something like this...sidjfiosjfoia disojf disofsodi difihsoeihvid eubsdin goos David Michael Mooooooore and Danielle Tate Mooooooore adfdksjh adifksdjklksdlkfjeien David Michael Mooooooore and Danielle Tate Mooooooore and so on and so on. Oksana didn't even translate this part for us. Then the prosecutor asked us a series of questions and THEN they brought in the boys. The judge asked Ruslan, "why would you want to go to America, aren't you going to miss your friends?" "You will miss them when you are gone, will you not?" To him he replied, " yes, I will miss them, but I have a picture of them in my head, but I want to be with mommy and poppy." Then the judge proceeded to ask Bogdan questions. One of his questions was, "what are you interested in, do you like sports?" Bogdan said, "no, I prefer to read Christian books". The judge really took to Bogdan. After ALL the questions the judge dismissed us while he and the 2 other women, who we were told were the jury, deliberated for a good 20 minutes or so. We were then invited back into the courtroom. The judge stood up, addressed us and found in favor of our adoption. At that moment everyone in the courtroom clapped and then we all hugged. Unfortunately, we were not able to get our ten days waved, so it looks like I'll be here up until about the 12th of November. Ahhhhh!!! In fact, David just left a few minutes ago to take the midnight train back to Kyiv, it's about 11:30 pm here and I am already talking to myself. I don't know how I'm going to make it through this week, my imagination is already getting the best of me and I don't think I'll sleep a whole lot tonight. Wish me luck. The boys will be with me next week sometime, so it'll be nice to have them here. After court we went out to dinner with just about everyone present in the courtroom, I think everyone was there, but the judge and the court reporter, I believe we spent half our budget just on that one dinner, but oh was it worth it. It was a WONDERFUL day.

The last couple of days were spent with the boys, they were David's last two visits and he introduced them to American baseball. It was difficult in the beginning for them to grasp which hand to put the glove on, EVERYONE of them first put it on their right. After a few tosses they finally got it. After just a few short minutes the playground was filled with boys wanting to play catch with David. We were having just the greatest time playing ball with ALL the boys until you know who showed up, the evil candy burning nurse. Man, I can't figure her out, she needs to relax a bit, but I don't dare tell her that and even if I did dare, she wouldn't understand anyway. She ran out to where we were playing and started grabbing boys by their hoodies and some by the hair on the back of their heads and hauled them back in. A couple of boys did escape her grasp, but we encouraged them to listen and get back inside. Sometimes I wish I did have a piece of poisonous candy saved JUST for her, oh no I didn't just type that did I? Today when we went back to the sanatorium she did let a couple of the boys come out and play baseball, so she did redeem herself, just a bit, in my eyes. I just smile when I see her, my goal is to get a smile in return before I leave...I'll keep you posted.
David teases me each day we leave the apartment, because you see I leave with my coat pockets full of candy in one and hot dogs in the other. No they are not for me. The candy is for the kids and the hot dogs are for the dogs. Okay, I wasn't going to bring up the dog "situation" here, but I just can't ignore it anymore. I know their plight pales in comparison to everything else, but I am going to have a nervous breakdown if I see one more dog lying dead on the side of the road. I hear them crying at night outside in the cold and it is sending me over the edge. Between the kids and the dogs I am going to lose it. There, I said what I had to say and I will not bring them up again, at least until maybe my next update.
I do have to mention one final thing. When we went to visit the boys on Tuesday, the day after court, there was something different about the them, David and I both noticed right off. They were happy. During our visit, they were more relaxed around us, they reached out to us more. When we said goodbye at the fence Ruslan hugged us for the FIRST time and told us he loved us. I wonder if they were just waiting for it to ALL be final, before they would express their true feelings...I don't know.
We love you all, thanks for your words of love and encouragement. Your comments mean so much to us. Stay in contact with ME people, I am already lonely.
Kisses!!!





After our court. The judge is standing just to my right, he was dressed so casual, it somewhat surprised us.

At the notaries office just before we headed to court. I love this lady, she has been so kind to us.

The court building and the orphanage lawyer standing in front. I love her, she has been amazing with us and so kind to the boys.

At the celebration dinner, The boys ordered ravioli with sour cream. Not my favorite meal. But oh,do they love it.

I took this picture just as we were leaving. Notice all the lights, not a single one was on and we sat in the cold.

Some of the older boys playing baseball with David.

Ruslan playing catch with his buddy.

This is truly the GREATEST yogurt on the face of this earth. My goal is to eat so much of it before I go home, so that when I do, I will be so sick of it I will never want to eat it again. It is to die for. The peach is the BEST!!!

Days 13 and 14

I have often heard the phrase, "Another day another dollar", or "Another day another back ache", well here when it comes to the life of an orphan it should be, "Another day another heartbreak". Yesterday we faced the stark reality of orphan life.
We first went to the orphanage for Wendy's Alex and also for Nanette. Alex wanted us to drop off a little package to his friend, Sasha and Nanette asked us to give a message to Nastya. When we arrived we found the children playing football, we inquired about Sasha and Nastya and we were finally able to locate them. (Alex, Sasha was sooo excited to hear you had sent him a gift, he was ALL smiles. He initially had a hard time reading your letter, but an older boy read it aloud to him and he was so happy to hear that you are well.) While he was reading the letter, I wanted to get a picture, but just as I was getting out my camera a barrel of a man ran over to me yelling, ghdskaeuihslui idehakboosh. Translation: "Stop, stop, stop. You do not take pictures of the children, in America you would never let me take pictures of your children, Stop! Don't give this child candy, in America you would never let me give your children candy. No pictures. Stop!!" After Oksana explained who the gift was from and why we were there he agreed to let Sasha keep the gift, but no pictures whatsoever. Well, I just couldn't leave without taking at least a few pictures for Alex, so when he turned his back to me, I quickly took out my camera and snapped a couple of shots. David stood between the man and I...he never had a clue, HA! Sasha gives his regards to you Alex. Also, Nanette we finally found Nastya, oh she is a beautiful, kind young lady. She literally beamed when we handed her your information she also had a message for you, "please tell her and Vovo I miss them, give them my regards," She put the note in her pocket, zipped it closed, patted it twice and walked away with a smile on her face. I also snuck a picture for you as well. Shhhh. don't tell.

After our visit to the orphanage, we needed to go and get an x-ray of David's tooth, just as a precaution. If the pain continued the dentist wanted to have an x-ray as a back up. I took a photo of the certificates that lined the dentist office, but David is still a no go when it comes to getting all his dental work done here, he won't even entertain the idea. The x-ray cost 15 grivna, just shy of $2.00. WOW!

Later we made our way over to the sanatorium and when we arrived we learned what happened after we left yesterday. Apparently one of the nurses was NOT happy with the candy we had given the children. After we left, she took the candy away, and told the children we were there to poison them and then burned their candy to prove it was poisonous. How burning the candy would prove that, we'll never know. Originally we had asked the director if we could pass out candy to the children, she agreed and had no problem with us doing so, but unfortunately she was not working yesterday. The nurse told Oksana, to tell us, to NEVER bring sweets to the children again and asked when we will be going home, she does not want us back. We were also not allowed upstairs to see the kids this time, and they were not allowed to see us either. They would sit at the window and yell things to us below, we didn't want them to get into trouble, so we quickly left, it was hard to walk away. We were still able to see Ruslan and Bogdan, but Ruslan felt terrible about what had happened, he was upset through our whole visit. Hopefully our visits to the sanatorium are winding down.

Well today, Sunday,we awoke to water running down the road in front of our building. Didn't think anything of it until we went to get ready for the day...we have no water. It is now approximately 5:30 and it's not looking good. Seriously? Tomorrow we have is our court day and David and I look like the grapes of wrath and smell just as bad, it will not be a good thing if we do not get water by tomorrow. A few nights back a woman from upstairs knocked on our door to tell us she had a pipe break in her apartment and water will soon be coming into our apartment and before we even had the door closed, sure enough we found water coming through the ceiling in Oksana's room. We are not sure if this is the reason for no water today, but it looks like something seriously broke, there is water everywhere outside. Wish us luck, we so need water for tomorrow.
We were not able to get a hold of the local missionaries to find the branch on the Left Bank and we couldn't afford to pay George the $50.00 dollars to drive us to the other branch so we had a quiet day inside.

As of right now our court date is still scheduled for tomorrow. We still haven't heard if it's still a go or not. Facilitator Oksana left last week and we haven't seen hide nor tail of her since then. We'll for sure keep you posted.

Oh, question: After court when do the boys come and stay with us? Is it right after or a few days later? Translator Oksana isn't sure when, she is usually gone right after court.

Today, has been a slow day and I'm afraid we still have more to come, but tomorrow should be more exciting. PLEASE, continue to keep us in your prayers.

Loves and kisses.





When we weren't able to see the children yesterday, they would knock on the window to get our attention. It was hard not seeing them, perhaps we'll be able to before we leave.

One of the many murals inside the sanatorium.

Front view of the sanatorium. We enter and exit through the door on the far right. The top window, just to the right of the front doors is the sleeping quarters for the boys. This is where the children would sit and wave to us from. The building continues for quite a distance to the left.

The many CERTIFICATES of the dentist, 17 in all. For all we could tell, they could have just as easily been menus to the local restaurant.

Nastya, after we gave her the note.

Sasha. The older boy was helping him read the letter.

Sasha and friends.

Sasha.

The train station. Our ticket home.

Our beautiful Translator, Oksana.

Day 12

Okay, before I get into this blog I need to clarify something. While looking through photos that are taken each day we have noticed that they are all very similar. We are ALL wearing the same thing, the weather the looks the same and our surroundings look the same. We want you all to know that we did not take tons of photos the first day we arrived here and now David and I are on a romantic cruise somewhere in the Caribbean, we are actually here and living each day to the fullest....we just wanted to make that clarification.

Well, no one can ever accuse us of not living on the edge, we know how to get things done around here. After a restless night, David decided we needed to find a dentist and stat. We found one right around the corner, next to our lovely bus stop, so handy. We walked right in and they were able to see David immediately, much to his relief, but you could tell he was also a bit nervous. Through Oksana David was able to explain the pain and the wonderful dentist went right to work. She started the procedure with a shot, and when Oksana and I saw the needle we both turned our heads, we couldn't bear to watch, unfortunately they didn't have the grape or strawberry flavored gas that David requested, poor guy. After much drilling, cleaning and more drilling the dentist finally removed the nerve, which I didn't even know was possible, she then filled the tooth with a temporary filling and he was a good as new. It was quite the humorous situation watching David answer questions from the dentist, through Oksana while his mouth was being worked on and then relaying things again through Oksansa back to the dentist. Whew, it was quite the morning. We went to pay and the whole procedure only cost us 150.00 gryvna, approximately $18.75, can't beat that. In fact I told David maybe we should get all his dental work done while we are here in Ukraine, he didn't agree. We do need go and get an x-ray taken tomorrow and then if David is still in pain we will beed to do one more follow up visit, but as I write this David is in no pain whatsoever. No more 'Groundhog Day' around here anymore
On our way home we passed our, well my most favorite find, as of yet. My friends and family who know me best will surely appreciate this...I found a SECOND HAND STORE, a Ukrainian DI of sorts. I thought I had died and gone to heaven right then and there. David moaned and shook his head when he realized what kind of a store it was. Oksana mentioned that she had never been in SUCH a store before, she didn't like them. What? Who doesn't like a good second hand store? So I quickly agreed to introduce her to the fine "art" of shopping at such a store and she had a ball, let me tell you. She was amazed at the prices and the different assortment of items. We found nails, batteries, makeup (okay I wouldn't even buy makeup used), clothes, purses, kitchen supplies and the list goes on and on. I could tell my poor David wanted to go home, so I will plan a 2nd, 3rd and possibly a 4th trip back on my own time. Boy, our apartment is in an ideal location...close to a grocery store, bus stop, dentist and now a DI...life is soooo good.

When we arrived home tonight we read your comments from our blog and many of you asked if the sanatorium also has girls living there, well we spotted them for the first time today and they are just as amazing and beautiful as the boys. They are softer and gentler, they huddle together in small groups holding each other's hands. They apparently live on the other side or maybe even on a different floor, it is hard to tell once you are inside the sanatorium We took their pictures and posted them below. When we were leaving today four little girls approached us, we gave them some candy and took their picture, oh I just wanted to grab them and kiss them all over. Afterwards as we were walking across the yard to leave we heard something yelling at us, we turned around and we saw one little girl crying as she was running towards us. She put her little hands out and asked if she too could have a little piece of candy like her friends. I looked over to David and through my tears I could tell David was crying too, he handed her the whole bag of remaining candy and told her to take them back and to share with her friends. She couldn't believe we had given her the whole bag, she was so grateful and the thing is, there were only about 10 tootsie rolls left, but she was happy anyway. She quickly ran back to her friends and handed out what was left and as we turned to leave we heard the group yelling, "thank you," we then turned around and they were waving goodbye. When we got to the fence with the boys today our emotions simply overwhelmed us, we did not want to leave. We didn't want to leave the boys, we didn't want to leave the children. The boys hugged us goodbye and told us in their broken English, "it's okay," and I have to think that one day everything will be.

Kisses!!


Bogdan at his usual place, waving goodbye and waiting for us to turn the corner.



The girls waving goodbye. The girl in the brown, hooded coat with her back turned, is the one we gave the bag of tootsie rolls to.


These are the girls that approached us originally inside the sanatorium.

This is the little one that ran after us asking for candy. She was all smiles when we gave her the bag. Beautiful!!

A gentlemen was selling this right out of his van. Just after I took this picture a lady wrapped it up in a towel and headed for home. Yummy?

David, all smiles. This was BEFORE the shot.

David and the dentist...drill baby drill.

Nice, cozy office.

Day 11, wow, really?

Day 11, in all actuality it's pretty much the same as day 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, etc...except we did it mix it up a bit today. Just to give you a little history, on the way to the airport last week a part of David's tooth fell out and it is getting progressively worse. In fact yesterday, he was getting quite sick, I don't know if the pain is making him sick or the infection from the tooth. When I touch his check, it is warm to the touch and because the pain is so bad and the ibuprofen isn't helping we decided it would be best for him to opt out of today's activities. The only good thing about him staying behind is that it gave me a chance to find the sanatorium on my own and navigate the bus system. Yes, I did have Oksana with me, but it was nice to finally figure my way around. We will try to find a dentist tomorrow, I don't think David will be able to handle the pain much longer and I am worried about the infection, we'll see how he feels in the morning.

We are starting to feel quite at home here, people are recognizing us and we as well them. The ladies at the grocery store know us quite well and when David attempts to chat with them they simply giggle, hmmm I don't get the same response, go figure. I think I now know why David likes to go to the grocery store on his own, jk.

Anyway, Oksana and I arrived at the sanatorium and the boys were quite upset to find that David was home sick, they were asking a million questions about his health, they were so concerned...sheesh, what am I? Chopped liver? Oh, they just LOVE him, and I am glad they do. PLEASE, don't any of you think I am complaining, they are just as loving with me, it's just a little "joke" David and I have with one another, it's an inside thing. I simply love to watch the "magic" that is happening before my eyes with David and the boys, it is simply wonderful.

Bogdan, is such a ladies man, he holds the door for me, holds my coat and always motions for me to go first when we enter a room, "ladies first," he states with a big swoop of his arm to move me forward, such a gentleman. Because David wasn't with us today we decided to stay at the sanatorium and play a few games my dear friend, Roseanne, gave us before we left. Bingo and Don't Eat Pete were a hit. Ruslan pulled the blanket off his bed for us to sit on and we then played the afternoon away. I wish David could have been there, it was such a FABULOUS time with them all. During Bingo Bogdan read the letters out to the boys, he would yell, "attention, B-5" then grab another chip and do the same, "attention, I-19" he was so serious. Oksana and I just kept smiling, he was way too cute for words. We brought some tootsie rolls and watermelon gum from the home to share with the boys. Once they realized I had candy, I was surrounded by grubby little hands. When I placed a piece of candy in Oleg's hand (the boy whose birthday it was yesterday) he said, "thank you" so I gave him another piece for his generosity. The other boys quickly caught on and they began to say "please" and "thank you." Ruslan was a little slow in noticing, so when I only gave him one piece he was quick to say, "pooiehosiooshka thbokspteiskehtoi," (this is what it sounded like to me) Oleg quickly reminded him to say, "thank you." Rusaln finally caught on, sheesh. Oh, that Oleg is just too adorable.

( Oh, side note...Christy, this is the Oleg that is friends with Vitaly, he asked me to send Vitaly his regards and to tell him he misses his friend. He asked me to take a picture of he and another boy, he mentioned this was a friend of Vitaly's as well. )

After the games we spent the rest of the afternoon just talking. While I was sitting there surrounded by these BEAUTIFUL children, my eyes started to fill with tears. How honored David and I are to be a part of this miracle. To be here in Ukraine at this time in our lives, amazing. Thousands of miles away from home and yet feeling quite at home here.

When Oksana and I arrived home tonight, David was no better. In fact, we will need to find a dentist tomorrow, wish us luck.

There are days we so want to go home and then there are days like today we don't ever want to leave. How do you leave these children behind? How do you go on with your daily activities knowing what you know? We will for forever be different people because of our experiences here and rubbing shoulders with these resilient, loving, beautiful children of our Heavenly Father.

We love and miss you all! Mom, please hug the kids a little bit longer for us tonight. We miss them so much!! Kisses!!


Bogdan and Ruslan stand at the fence when we leave each day. Today Bogdan walked us to the fence. This picture is taken right as we turn the corner to go home. I had to really zoom in so you could actually see him. It is hard to continually turn around as we are walking away and to see him still standing there waving goodbye.



In the boys sleeping quarters.

Some of the boys...

Oleg and his friend sending "regards to Vitaly."

Playing Don't Eat Pete. Thanks Roseanne.

Don't Eat Pete, again.

Guess what? The garbage was picked up today. It was the very first thing we all noticed when we left this morning.

Days 9 and 10

Andreas likened our days thus far to the movie, Groundhog Day and he is absolutely correct. We pretty much do the same thing day in and day out with slight variations here and there, but pretty much the same thing. Even the time with the boys is a rerun of the day before. Yesterday we did mix it up a bit, yay, we explored downtown Dnipro and had a great time. In fact, we met an Iranian gentleman that spent the day with us showing us the city. When we went went to see the boys today the first thing they asked why we "no show" yesterday. I thought they understood we were not going to see them that day, but once again things were lost in translation. They then told us they had stood by the window waiting for us all afternoon and yes, just so you all know, we did feel TERRIBLE when we heard this, Ruslan then said, "please don't no come again." We will for sure try.
They are anxious to leave the sanatorium and continually ask when we will ALL be going home. Ruslan hopes he will be home for his birthday on December 27, I told him for sure we would be, we better. We told them today that David would be leaving next week and afterwards they seemed to cling to him just a little bit more for the rest of the day. I think if they had their choice they would rather me go home instead, they have both really bonded with him. I think it's because he is big softy, he will do anything for them...they truly have him wrapped around their little fingers.
Some of you have asked why the boys are in the sanatorium. Well, a few weeks back they received their TB shots, and as I have mentioned in earlier posts they have more freedom and better food at the sanatorium, so they scratched the shot area to make it look infected so they would be sent there, clever. The sanatorium is like a HUGE doctors office, but I haven't seen one really sick child yet and I want to keep it that way, because what I see already is sad enough.
We go to court on the 18th, Monday. We still haven't received our Interpol clearance yet, but we did receive our clearance from social services and they sent there recommendation for adoption to the SDA (State Department of Adoptions). We are getting closer and closer, so if all goes well we will be in court Monday and David will return home Thursday, the 21st. Oh please, oh please, oh please. After court our 10 day waiting period will begin, this is to see if any family member(s) will come forward and deny our petition to adopt. Translator Oksana doesn't quite know what happens after the 10 days, and we are a bit unclear also. Facilitator Oksana is in Kyiv, so we are not able to ask her at the moment, we'll just have to wait and see what happens next. It's all one big roller coaster ride, some days we are high and other days we are low and then there are days we want to get off and go home.
I know we have said this already and we will continue to do so. We so appreciate your comments, love and prayers. It's nice to know we have such a huge cheering section cheering us on. Loves and kisses.

This is a friend of the boys, it was his 14th birthday today. The boys picked out Coca Cola and a Snickers candy bar for his present. He is such a quiet, kind young man, too adorable.

This is usually how we walk anywhere, the boys holding David's hands and me trying to catch up.

Best buddies, now brothers.

Our "groupies".

The view we see each morning when we walk out our apartment building.

Another view. Who knows when the garbage will be picked up, we've been here over a week now and nothing as of yet.

Day 8

We have slowed down a bit, our days pretty much consist of me waking up at 4am, then trying to wake Dave up, with no luck and then laying back in bed until it is bright enough for me to read my book. I think I will try to find a flashlight today so my reading can start earlier. We then have breakfast and then wait until it is time to visit the boys. We found the the bus depot, which is right around the corner, lucky us, and found that bus 10 will take us within a block or so of the sanatorium. While loading the bus, Dave and I realized they are not made for people who are over 6 feet. It was quite the experience trying to fit our 6'1" and 6'4" frames into the seats. I almost had to grease David down to get him out, and while getting off we both bumped our heads good and hard...ouch, yes we are quite the dorks. After returning from our visit we make dinner and then I try to stay awake until bed time, which I fail at miserably and thus the reason for me waking up at 4 am each day.
Well, I tried to do a little bit of laundry yesterday, big mistake. I poured in a liquid detergent, at least that is what the bottle said, but after the clothes had been washing for a bit and upon further investigation I realized I was washing the clothes with an oven cleaner, nice. The clothes are a little stiff this morning, but they do smell good.
Wendy, we mailed your package yesterday, YAY! You would have thought we were mailing some illegal contraband the way the woman was questioning us. She was sniffing it, rolling it around in her hands and then stamping it. She had to stamp it numerous times and because of the tape, the ink from the stamp wasn't drying, so she would sniff the package some more and then try to find a place where there was no tape to stamp it again. After the third or fourth time of her sniffing and stamping I had to turn my head away. I didn't want her to think I was laughing at her, but it was a hilarious situation and I couldn't stop giggling. Dave and I couldn't look at one another either for fear of laughing out loud. It was so nice to finally really laugh hard, we haven't done a whole lot of it since our arrival, so thanks for having us mail it. We still chuckle each time we think about it.
We had a nice visit with the boys yesterday. David brought the laptop along and when the boys realized we had it, you would have thought they had died and gone to heaven, they were so excited to play video games. A pretty uneventful afternoon, but it was good to just spend the time with them.
A lot of you have asked to describe the sanatorium a bit, so I will try. From what we can tell it is a huge U-shaped building with at least two levels. Long hallways with rooms going off into mazes. It is quite confusing to us, so we just stay close to the boys and Oksana. The boys sleep upstairs in rooms with beds that go from wall to wall. When you go upstairs to the living quarters the smell just hits you, it's a smell of body odor, urine and food, but after a while you do get use to it. The walls are painted with vibrant colors in beautiful murals and it is clean for the most part. The boys prefer it over the orphanage, they say they have more freedom and better food there. The moment we arrive we are overcome with children, they surround us just looking for any kind of affection and touch from us, it is hard to contain the tears sometimes. When we leave we walk past the "dining room" and the children all have there little faces pressed against the windows trying to get our attention one last time, it is hard not to leave with a dry eye. Each day here makes us so much more aware of all the we have at home, we are truly blesssed and have so much.
Again, we so appreciate your comments, your love and prayers. Loves and kisses.


This is a small handful of the group of boys that follow us everywhere. Just the cutest kids ever.





We took the laptop with us today, we have portable internet so the boys were able to play a couple of online games. Bogdan's smile says it all.

Our bus depot which is right around the corner from our home.

Another view of the bus depot.

Little bit of day 5, day 6 and 7

We spent the last part of the day on Friday with the boys. We went to an amusement park, but it had been closed for the winter season, the boys were quite disappointed, but it looked to us as if it had been closed since the 1950's, it was old and run down, but apparently it's quite the attraction when opened. They are always hungry when we pick them up, despite the fact they have just eaten lunch, so we usually end up buying them a little something to snack on. At the grocery store Ruslan asked for a piece of chicken and Bogdan chose potato chips, he is not a real meat eater we've noticed. There was quite the array of chip flavors, he eventually picked the salami flavor, thank goodness, the crab flavored ones looked a little nasty to us. They are open and loving when they are with us, but when we get close to the Sanatorium they are more reserved and less loving, which is okay with us, we understand. Such pressure on these little guys...
A few of you have asked where the Sanatorium is located in comparison to the the Orphanage. It is a good 20 minute drive from the Orphanage to the left bank where they are, or the right bank, or the left bank, um, hold please...okay I just found out we are on the RIGHT bank and the boys are on the LEFT. Having them there is both a blessing and a curse, they have more freedom, but we can't afford to get there daily. Tomorrow the goal is to find a bus and hopefully we will be able to spend more time with them this week. Whew, I am glad we finally found out which bank we live on.
Anyway, yesterday was pretty uneventful. We spent the day in the apartment just reading and sleeping, actually it was quite nice to not be running around all day getting documents signed and avoiding potholes. I'm sure as the days progress the reading and sleeping will get monotonous, but for now we are really enjoying it, at least I am, David is getting a bit restless though.
Today we went to church, which was so wonderful. No matter the language we felt so at home. We watched General Conference, which was great because we were not able to see it last week because of our traveling here. We originally started in the large room with everyone, but eventually they moved us to a smaller room where we were able to watch conference in English. We were in a room with missionaries that had just recently arrived and could not speak the language as of yet. We met the nicest couple from the Sandy area who had only just arrived a few weeks ago, they look as if they are still adjusting to the way of life here, just as we are. We sure didn't want to leave when it was all over...
Wendy, we will mail your package tomorrow, finding a post office is first on our list. We haven't had a chance to really explore our surroundings yet, so it'll be nice to get an idea as to where we are.
We love you all so much. It's hard to believe a week has gone by already. Some days it feels like we've been here forever, and yet it's going by fast. Please keep us in your prayers...loves!!

Bogdan and Ruslan. Bogdan chose salami potato chips over crab flavored, good choice.

A typical Ukrainian apartment building.

The boys with a couple of their buddies. The taller one is Ruslan's "protection".