Mama Plays Catch Up

Warning: EXTREAMLY LONG EMAIL.

Catch up from Mama.

Trying to remember every thing from the last few days which feels like at least a month, will prove interesting.
2/3.
Our first outing with John and Kevin was a total smash. We had such a good time together. We took them to Caravan which was not really my first choice of things to do since our time was limited and the things to do there fun but surely a high bar to top. G. suggested that we take them into the game room and let them pick some of the games they wanted to play. Mama who is a fan of rated E for every one was having a hard time with some of the games that were available but Papa smiled and was like, this is not going to happen in America so just hang in there, and that made it all better. They chose a lot of driving games which was cool, and also reinforced our thinking that a. there would be a deep need for some hand eye coordination work, and b. there will be no driver’s licenses to worry about in our house for a while! We had pizza together for lunch (John’s pick) and it was so good. We had a real live salad with lettuce which Lori and I both remarked is so hard to find here. Kevin was ready to tell every person he saw that he is going to come to America, I think the guy at the Pizza place was thinking “Look kid, I don’t care where you go just take this huge order of stuff and move it along.” John asked for ice cream and he and Kevin and Mark (with Lori shortly to follow as John came to get her to help Papa) picked Butter Pecan as a flavor for all of us to try. Interesting and noted. We were going to take them ice skating but we had run out of time to really do that and get them back on time for us to get ready to get the train by then. Ended up that we walked through the mall on our way back to catch the trolley to catch the bus to get back and just really enjoyed hanging out together. The mall was very Western, serious high dollar labels and I was kind of sad that our first trip out was an intro into the material world just by the visual aspect. I totally dig the simple. At the kiosk waiting for the bus back to 21 I offered to get them a drink, which they accepted. They are so protective of us and followed me into the store to make sure that I knew what I was doing. We got back outside and Kevin asked if he could go back in and get a Lemon Roll. We said yes and he got one for himself and one for John. They wolfed that down, and then Kevin wanted a second one. He said he had his own money (duly noting that it was money we had previously given him) which we found humorous and we let him go back in and get a second lemon roll which he split with John. John then asked for gum. Interestingly Mark said, “No.” John, who is such a cutie pie says, Papa pezalsta, Papa… and puts on the beggar face. Which was funny and we laughed, but then Mark held to his guns because they tried to manipulate us. It was really funny because they tried me next and I stuck by Mark’s choice. Gum was not the issue, gum is not a wall we would ordinarily die on it was the idea that we needed to pick and stick to a stopping point for the things they wanted and asked for and we did. They were ok with it. We were thrilled.

We got back to 21 and John asked for money for his cell phone. We said we had to know what was left on it, we had just put 20 on it the day before. He said 4 UAH was left. We were like, no way, so Lori says let me see, and he shut the phone down. We were like it is ok that you want minutes but we need you to tell us what you have on there. He did, Kevin knew that John was busted, and when we explained we will meet your needs but you can’t lie about it. John wasn’t getting the translation, but Kevin, who is experienced at all things trouble gave him the what for and made that clear to John. John looking down said he understood and then meeting him half way we told him we would put money on his phone for him in a couple of days. We hugged on them, and it was time to go. The love that we get from those boys made leaving them at the orphanage such a hard thing. The day was so good. We walked to the bus stop, and while waiting a bunch of the boys from the orphanage came walking by, they said hello and then proceeded to run heading to who knows where to do who knows what… I was afraid they were heading for trouble and it struck me how they surely are with out a family headed for very hard times as they get older and as this country with it’s stigmas about the orphans is talking more and more about phasing them out all together. Shortly there after here came Kevin heading to join the boys. He said that he was going to go to the store, and headed across the street. It was a hard moment because I wanted him to go back to the orphanage and just stay out of trouble (I didn’t voice this because) I realized that in a way, the day was a fantasy day for them and for us… I am not legally his Mom yet. No matter how I felt, telling him to please stay out of trouble was going to sound very strange to his ears at this point. Our bus pulled up and we got on, watching Kevin run to catch up with the wild boys.

We got the metro, got off and G. was calling to say we have a train car and tickets and we need to meet him at the station at 7:30 for our train. The time now, 5pm, and location, Oshkosh from the train station, and smelly, with a great need of a shower. We booked it back to Lori’s finished packing for the third time since we were told we could not take 3 suitcases (one of which was all supplies for the orphanage). Mark crammed his stuff into my suitcase and a back pack and we thought we were pretty impressive with just two suitcases and back packs for the American circus. We took a taxi to meet G at the station (not even trying that circus on the Mootro) and successfully got on the train with him shortly thereafter.

The train was exactly what I remembered. I love the train, I just hate the bathroom on the train. We had a really interesting conversation with G. about his life, politics, thoughts and beliefs. Quite a colorful fellow G. is and knowledgeable about all things socialist and capitalist. We got an education. John called to say goodnight and he loves us and Jan tried to call and connect but we got cut off. Sorry dude!

We went to sleep and later the next day at some point I asked G. if my snoring kept him awake and he said and I quote, “It was not so loud as train.” ROFL! I was not the only one in car who was snoring! To be sure my honey and G. were both sawing some serious logs!

2/4.
We got to Zap and Nina and her husband Victor met us at the station. We went to Mac Donald’s for Coffee and to wait out some of our time before we headed to meet the local inspector in Novahnickoliveka from here on out Nova. So we did some driver switching and headed to Nova. It is a small village outside of Zap by about a solid hours drive. We got out there and met with the local inspector as promised promptly after 9. She joined us and we went to the Orphanage. We went in and we were taken up a flight of steps to a room to meet with the school’s psychologist Nadia and Sveta a teacher and social worker. The Director, a hulk of a Ukrainian, with a soft and kind heart joined us and we talked about the children and our love for them and story of why we wanted to adopt them. After our introductions they went to get Anna and Max. Ya’ll… it was so good to see them but when they came in the room Anna was in horror and she was crying. Max hugged Mark for a solid five minutes, just clinging to him crying, and would not speak or back off of the hugs he was giving to him. Anna was having a hard time with the idea of all the pressure to make a choice to go to America or not. There were too many people in the room the group decided later, and we loved on the kids and then took a break from being together. We went to a room to eat lunch and the kids were sent back to their classes. We moved our stuff into the “hotel” at the school and then had to drive back to the city to get some papers worked on.

We had to wait for a notary so G. suggested that we go and settle in at a nice Mexican restaurant and wait things out. Now, you guys know that Mark heard Mexican and was like it is on, hummm La Ha it was not. In fact we had vegetable soup, and rice with mixed veggies and “good brown bread” as G. called it. We enjoyed the lunch and the time to settle down in a quiet place before going back to the notary at 3pm. We were at that office from 3 – about 5. In this time we got the pleasure of meeting the man who will be our driver while we are here who’s name is Oleg. He looks like Rocky Balboa or Rambo in his camo jacket. He is the nicest funniest guy. We really have appreciated his being so nice to us and getting us back and forth to the orphanage.

With papers in hand we dropped G. off at Nina’s office and went with Oleg back to Nova. Oleg was driving in the dark someplace he had never been and we had only been once. Nova is like Milton in the sense that every one knows every one and is connected some how. We got to Nova and none of us knew where we were so Oleg pulled over to a Kiosk to ask. He got back in laughing and said, wow, we will be able to find it now. We were like why? He said, well, I ask this guy, you know where the internot is? He asks me, do you have American’s with you? He says at first I was little bit scared answer him, but I say why you ask, and he says, “I am the Director of the School.” Talk about God putting the right person in the right place at the right time!

We were invited to dinner moments after getting back to the school, we met a lovely well spoken lady named Valentina who is the English teacher at Nova. She is awesome you guys. She is a beautiful person inside and out. She asked how we were and what we were feeling about maybe eating in the cafeteria with some kids. Rock on! We had the best time with the kids who are in Max’s groupa especially Volya, Dasha, Sasha, and Oleg. It was so nice to meet them and to talk with them and they tried their English on us. Volya has a smile that is like Sunshine. When she talks to you she is fully engaged in you as a person. Dasha is shy but wants to know what is going on and so she sticks it out. The boys were funny and we enjoyed their company. Valentina asked if we wanted to see the children again, she knew what a hard first go of things we had, we said we did, and asked if maybe they could come and say goodnight to us. As we were leaving the cafeteria Max and Anna were coming in. Anna was shy but responsive. Max was Max. Valentina asked if they would like to come and visit us after their dinner, and they said they did want to. So after their dinner she brought them to us. We talked some and they were loosening up. She makes the suggestion, “Would you like the children to stay the night with you here?” we were like well of course if they want to! Anna was really excited to do that and of course Max was too. She left, and Anna pantomimed that she was going to go get some things of hers and come right back and Max was going to do the same. We quickly rearranged some things and they came back and we all started to get ready for bed. Anna loved her new pajamas and robe. Max was all about his hoodie and shirt. It was a good time. We asked if they snored and they said no, we told them we did and we all laughed. We went to bed with Anna on the wall to the right, Max and Mark in the next two bunks moving left and me on the far left. In the morning Anna and I were in our bunks and Mark was in his, and so was Max! He snuggled up to his Papa right away and never moved from him!

2/5.
I was glad that we had a “family” breakfast in the morning. We hung out and then the kids went to classes and we were invited to see more of the school. We went to the English class with Valentina first and then we spent two hours with Nadia the school’s psychologist looking at pictures of the children from the orphanage and were invited to take a rest before lunch. We enjoyed the time we had solo for a few minutes and talked. After lunch we went to visit every teacher in the school. We went to Physics, Math, Speech Therapy (remember this school is for children who have special speech problems that need to be corrected) Music, Art, the little kids classes and then finally a history class where we watched a video of the kids at a sports competition. The students who were in the History class are older than Anna, they have seen her and known her for the last two years. This school is very community oriented. The kids are tight with each other. All of them. They wanted to ask us some questions. We were like sure! We never knew we were about to get grilled by a bunch of 15 and 16 year olds on Anna’s behalf. The lead question from a boy named Artum was “What kind of an Education and opportunities can you give to Annastacia” if that will tell you any thing of what kind of love they have for her. Wow… we were so impressed. We were asked if we were in her shoes what would be the feelings we had about going to a new place? Would we let her come back to visit? How would we like to live in the states or Ukraine? Would we consider moving here ever instead of the states? I mean ya’ll these kids put up some major serious questions. When they had finished (more to the point when Valentina let us off the hook) we were dismissed to a private dinner. Valentina had to go home so we were on our own with the cook in a small room behind the kitchen.

We went in and ya’ll… there was raw fish on the table. Raw. I do not do raw fish. Mark does not do fish at all in general. We smiled and looked at each other and he was like, “what do we do now?” when she left the room. I stood up with out hesitation reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my tissues. I put the tissues in the opposite pocket and stuffed two small pieces of fish in the plastic tissue wrapper and shoved it back in my coat pocket and sat down quickly. As a blessing the cook noticed we really liked the mashed potato and she brought us a second helping of that and bread. Ya’ll. I have a confession. I stuffed 4 slices of bread in the other pocket to put peanut butter on later. I felt like I was stealing bread from of all places an orphanage. It was awful, but there was no way we were going to eat that fish raw. I also knew in my guts it would show up recycled some how for breakfast or in soup and sure enough it was cooked (PTL) for breakfast the next day! Cooked I could do. Raw I could not. There was a very happy cat outside our door that night!

Anna and Max eventually joined us and we talked with them using the pantomime, and the dictionaries we have and established that they want to go to America for sure. That they are happy to have us as parents, and that Papa is hilarious! He tried to say Anna wants, and ended up saying, Anna horse. Which Max picked up and ran with. Mark was laughing at his own mistake so much that he cried, which made the kids crack up all the more. It was awesome.

The next morning (after our fish breakfast OMG) we were told that we would have a new meeting with the Director and staff about the kids and they would sign papers that said they wanted to be adopted. We took some amazing photos (all of which Max accidentally deleted) of this process and there were smiles all around. It was decided that we would leave for the city after the papers were done, and the kids would join us on Friday after they had some check out procedures from the orphanage.

Not one person at Nova was with out a smile. Not one time did we hear a shout from a teacher. Never did I see or hear a child who looked unhappy to be there. Never did I see a child roll their eyes at a teacher who was there, or make a face when they walked off. That place was beautiful for the amazing staff. It needs new windows, and showers and toilets (it was a lot like Bela in that regard) and some updates for sure, but it was such a healthy positive place to be. They have spent their money on the kids, on good food for them as best they can provide, and on computers for their speech therapists. Nice new ones at that! We really are very happy with the people we met there. We can’t say enough about the Director. What a warm and caring man. Sveta their social worker is a super kind woman with a beautiful spirit. Some of the teachers have been there 30 years and still smile like this was the first class they have ever taught. There is no one that I met that was not happy. Not one “typical” dull face. Every one was bright and it was not just when we were looking. It was the whole time we were there. It was just a positive loving place to live as far as we experienced. We were so happy our daughter has been protected there.

We spent some time with the kids before having to leave. Max started acting out big time. Crying, going under the bed and crying, kicking. He had a total melt down. We thought he was angry at Anna or at us. He was freaking out. We let it play its course it lasted for 2 hours. During part of that time I went with Anna I promised to get her a phone card and we were really needing some water. We walked with one of Max’s classmates Sasha to the magazine and got water some candy for the kids and headed back across the muddy field to the school. When I got there Max was still foul and Mark was getting frustrated with not being able to find out what was wrong. Eventually Yana came back to pick us up Oleg came to drive us, and she asked Max what was wrong. He freaked again. Sobbing and finally told that he was upset we were leaving. He thought we were going for good. It was heart breaking to hear him just sobbing and crying. Nothing we were saying was making any sense to him. I laid across the bed next to him and pulled my earrings out. I put them in his hand and said, Max I will come back to get you on Friday and I want you to take care of these until I get back ok? He shoved them in his pocket and hung on to me like crazy still crying. We had to go we were meeting the landlord to get an apartment for us and the kids so we went out and he was still clinging to me. Nadia took him and they made me go get in the car and we left with him sobbing and waving good bye.

If that was not bad enough, we got less than an eighth of a mile down the road when the local village cops pulled Oleg over. Three guesses why and he first two don’t count… could it be that there were American’s in the car and they had heard they were leaving for the city tonight? Oleg was so good about it. He played them out. They were drunk as skunks. We waited in the car (freezing) for about 40 minutes until they gave up and let us go since no one was opening a wallet and offering to make any deals. We got to the city and got to our apartment. It is a nice one bedroom (one door locked we assume is another bedroom and we don’t want to know anymore about it) and a living room with pull out couch. It has a TV and DVD player which do not really read American DVD’s all that well, but hey we have the lap top it is all good! We had to pay $800 USD for the apartment for 20 days. We are told that we will meet with the Judge for pre court on Friday and Yana leaves for the night. She will call us in the morning.

We got showers and we had granola bars and bread (yes the bread from the school) for dinner. We called Lori, and tried to call the boys. Mom called and we talked to her for a while it was the best God timing you can’t imagine! Then we called the boys and got Kevin on the phone. We talked to him a while and got it through we think that Mark will be back up in Kiev after Valentines Day some time. For us to be here to get warm, get a nice shower and get sleep was a blessing.

2/7.
Which all brings us to today, and our adventure in Zap solo. We had observed that we are down hill from the Billa (Grocery) on the other side of the street. So we got up this morning, got ready, and walked up the hill over the foot bridge and up the street. We decided to try to find a place to change money so we walked up the hill toward the city and what I hoped was going to take us to the main square that I remembered. Score for the memory! We found a bank and changed money and then Mark was like isn’t there a pizza place here somewhere??? I told him I remembered it was up across the square. We went walking again and sure enough there was a café with English menus and all. We got a pizza with tomato and cheese and waters. It was so nice to just be solo and doing well. We enjoyed our pizza an we headed back into the wind a grand 32 degrees here today (not factoring that wind I mentioned…) and headed down the hill to the Billa. We were a sight as we tried to not buy too much but dude, we are like just moving in and trust me the place did not pass my inspection for clean. It would never cut it with Chelle! My kingdom for Lysol but none to be found plus you have to remember this is not like you shop at Walmart and load your car and drive home and complain about having to unload the car and groceries by yourself. No no… this is you bag your own stuff, you take those bags and you go back out in the wind and you tote those bags back to your apartment on foot. You get what you can carry and no more. Well honey when you have to get juice, and water you got a haul right there, now you add meat and veggies and some Ukrainian top Ramon and you have just successfully had this adventure that took us over 4 hours today. Now granted some of that was pizza time but the Billa will be a more daily event because you just can’t do stuff like that and drag all those groceries at once for a week. Now those of you who know me know that I hate the grocery store. Like this is a passionate hate. I go once every two weeks if I can help it, and if I have to go once a week I do it with long teeth. Here it is a way of life to go daily. Ugh. Alas we got back here about 2pm and we are going to hang out quietly tonight.

We got a call from Yana and we meet with the judge tomorrow after 11 and then we go to the orphanage to get the kids. We will have them from now on out as far as we know. We are so thankful for this gift. We are moving quickly here and we are very excited. In Kiev we G. will turn our papers in tomorrow also and we will have to wait till next week to find out who our judge is and when they feel like having court. Here we know who that judge is already, a woman, and she is as we understand a very fair and kind woman.

For now we are up to date. I am making chicken tonight for dinner and we are so staying in!

2/8
Our lives are changed forever.

We got up and got ready for the day. Nina and Yana picked us up for the trip to Nova and when we arrived we were warmly greeted by Nadia. She and Nina and Yana worked on documents and Anna and Max floated in and out of the room taking the camera to take pictures and have a good time with their friends.

Once the documents were in order Nina let us know that she would accompany us to the Judge in the region of Nova and that we would be allowed to turn in our papers. What we didn’t realize was that we were our own council!

The woman with a kind eyes that were fixed on us not to be outdone by the appearance of her stern face said, “So, I’m listening. Tell me what you want.” OMG! Mark looked at me like, it is all you wife… so I stuttered and found my name, I figured it was a safe place to start because at that instant it was all I could remember. So the Holy Spirit took over and I must have said something right because she asked us a few more questions and then as swiftly as the conversation began it was over. She literally said, “ you are done here” and we were out the door. Nina stayed behind to talk a little more to the judge and it was decided this coming Friday is a bad day for court, but talk to her on Tuesday and we might have court on Thursday February 14th! How is that for a Valentine’s Celebration!

We loaded back up and got the kids after a huge lunch (no fish this time) and then we took the hour drive with Mark, Anastacia, Max, and Mama in the back seat of Oleg’s cab. Things were good till we got about 5 minutes from the house. & Yana announced Anastacia is going to get sick. It was ever spoof movie on parenthood ever written. Here I am trying to pile out of the back of Oleg’s car and here is my daughter trying not to puke on me. You can all feel bad for her and laugh your butts off at my expense it is really ok. It was a total Mom moment. First it was a score that I didn’t puke with her, especially considering that her choice of places to just go ahead and let er rip was over the top of a dumpster behind our apartment. That smell alone would have made anyone sick. Ya’ll… I had to laugh later to keep from crying. Needless to say our victory dinner at MacDonald’s was postponed.

We are learning the huge developmental differences between the kids here and our 21 boys. Max is really bright, but seemingly so much farther behind than Kevin who is only 6 months older than he is. My youngest son has a lot of catching up to do, and I think once he is with his older brothers that will happen. We are pretty sure Kevin will be our “enforcer” while John will handle whatever he can’t with diplomacy. We are going to Market soon and so this is cut short. More on all that I have to share later.
Love from the land of Motherhood… dumpster puking and all.
Jenn

OMG… our daughter is hysterical… She is still in the, “I want to work on some things” because it is work and she doesn’t understand yet the grace she is under. She will get there. She and I are going to have a wild ride and we are going to love it. She gave me heck (totally having fun and totally serious at the same time) that she wants a ring when we get to America. This is not the first thing on her long list. Priority dictates some clothes since she left the orphanage with a pair of jeans, the pj’s we brought her, 2 pair of socks and a (ONE) tshirt. We brought her two hoodies which she loves. She will be a great dynamic in our home as she is a girly girl and a tough cookie to boot. She is bossy Bessie with Max. Which is normal and which we are shooting to slow down. She has gotten a little taller and so some of her baby face is lost, Max found it!!! For a frame of reference on his height church family Jarret is taller than he is. And again, he is 12. He is the poster child for Failure to Thrive. He is wide open from the time his eyes open till they shut at night generally after freaking out and crying because he doesn’t want to go to bed. Tough cookies kid. We found out their parents died when they were 10 & 9. In the 3 years he has been in the system he has been in as many orphanages. He a hard worker, and so is Anna. They are willing to try, but they are hopeful we will just convert America to Russian speaking I think at this point. We are thankful that they are teaching us and we are teaching them. For example, Max is learning (Anna has this pretty well) that when Mama and Papa ask you to do something you do not say, “Neyt” you say, “Dah Mama, Dah Papa” and you do it. You do not stomp your feet and have a hissy. Ya’ll know I ain’t havin any of that!(Kevin and John won’t either I am sure they will clearly let him know what is out of bounds in the pack ~ just a gut feeling) He is learning that too. I give him this look which is generally followed by him either putting his hip out and his lip with it and stomping to do what he is asked or a total melt down. (Bath time is a melt down, which tonight Papa was not having any of and so he gave him the Papa trump card look which was followed by a quazzy warm bath). Presently he is working on making bead necklaces for his brothers in Kiev. He has already made Mark and I a necklace, and Anastacia made me a bracelet. I am adorned with pink jewelry. OMG ya’ll you know what I think of wearing pink but they might make a lady out of me yet… (ok not likely but they can try). I am teaching Anastacia to belch. You know all the important things my Mom taught me! Our apartment is nice. 15 min. walk from down town (up hill both ways, so far not in the snow LOL). We will brave the elements (it snowed today while we were at the outdoor market) and go to Intoutist Hotel to blog on Monday.

We have a huge blessing tomorrow. We get to see the Williams kids and also Yana. I am expecting this to be hard and good at the same time. I love them. It will be very hard for us to not pack each of them in our suit cases and bring them home with us. Will report to you how that goes in detail Jan and Jerry! We are supposed to hook up and have pizza with them at about noon.

Gotta go our youngest son is now playing 52 pick up with the beads from his brother’s necklace off the floor… ugh…
Love,
The Beaded Mama.

2/9

OK so today was get up go to the outdoor market with Oleg and to the Ukrainian version of a mini WalMart. The outdoor Market is always a wonderful experience, I love it. I did not however enjoy it as much as I would have had it not been FREEZING with a light snow! LOL. We got some soccer, volley, and basketballs for Nova. Anna wanted a hair clip. I love that they let her grow her hair out at Nova so it is longer and it is very pretty on her.

We had a good Sat. shopping and then we ate at MacDonald’s with Oleg. The kids enjoyed their cheeseburgers, fries and sprites. We got home and unloaded all our groceries. I fixed pork chops and rice with a tomato garlic sauce for dinner and no one had a complaint. It was a good day and it was a good family day.

2/10.

So we got up, hung out, got dressed… and got ready to go meet Yana, Nina, and Yana, Katia and Petya at the pizza house. We walked up the hill and I saw my husband and youngest son playing kick the used plastic cup while our daughter had her hand in mine. It was really precious… the only thing that would make it better would be having our other two sons with us. We have not had any contact with them since the first night we were here in the city. It has been torture not talking to them or hearing their voices.

I exchanged some money and we got on our way the rest of the way up toward the pizza house. We were early so we went to Intourist to see if we could figure out the deal on wi fi for the hook up. We had heard from Chris Grace that they had good hot chocolate so I ordered some for all of us. What Chris did not mention was that it was like drinking chocolate fudge before it was set up. OMGosh! Chris, help a sister out! When it came to the table Max had no problem slurping it down. It was way rich for the rest of us. Ukrainian Hot Chocolate is NOT American LOL. It was good, but we were pinging after that.

We went to a shop next to the Pizza House where my son wanted a magnet and my daughter wanted a hair clip. For less than a dollar each this was an easy choice. Then came the hard part. We went to meet the rest of the group at the Pizza house. Yana the translator arrived first and we talked about the plans for the day. I was excited to see every one but knew this would be hell for Yana A. and Mark and I. I had tried to get it to where we could meet with out the kids, but that didn’t work out so we all swallowed hard and put on happy faces. That didn’t last long. We got through a very uncomfortable lunch and then Mark took Anna and Max back to the apartment. I took Katia, Petya, and Yana with Yana I. down this honker hill to the open market. On the way down it was evident that at some point this powder keg was going to blow. It did. Petya was doing good. He held my hand and treated me like a doll. I appreciated his kindness more than I could tell him. Katia was taking cues at first from Yana so it was really confusing for her. Later, we got to the bottom of the hill, main drag across from the open market, and I pulled a Mindi. For those unacquainted with a Mindi, that would be where you put your foot in a hole and turn the mess out of your right ankle causing you to go crashing to your left knee while pulling the muscles in your left thigh. Nicely done. I give myself a 9.99 for that one. My choice was to stand up in front of the crowd and brush it off while walking on the ankle or make even more of a show. I opted for choice one. Got up and with tears pouring down my face got it together and we moved on. Yana and I had a blow out in front of the open market. No details here that is for later stateside. We moved on.

Katia and I ended up going to buy her some jeans. Yana Yana and Petya went to get some other things. I was so proud of Katia’s, and Petya’s choices. They look great. They were so good to each other and were so sincere in their appreciation of the time that they had out and it was precious to both Mark and I to get to see them. I loved that we had that opportunity to share love and hugs with them. We told them two dear friends love them so much. We told them that they were going home as soon as ya’ll can get to them. We told them not to listen to lies to trust you and that you will come for them. Your boy looked in my face and he smiled his smile and you KNOW he understood and that he was sure you would come. He is waiting with hope. DO NOT FEAR. Your daughter just kept asking when? She knows you will come to, but she sees other things and I know she does have some fear left. She is a shy girl in so many ways. Such a beauty. Such an old soul…. And despite her new reddish color of hair still such a blonde! Ya’ll… she was told 3 times where the women’s bathroom was at the pizza house and she still almost went into the boys bathroom. Yana, Yana, Petya and I were cracking up. She was such a good girl for me at the Market and I just want you to know I believe in her as much today as I have since we met her.

As for my sweet girl Yana. I love her so much. We eventually hit a chord of loving each other. We got to a place where we made a choice to spend the time well instead of in tears and regret. I miss her and love her and am so confused about her even still. You can’t know what that did to her heart and mine to see each other. To hug each other. To fight and to make up. It was something. It still is.

As for now, it is 2/11… Our daughter just did my hair, and we are going to all get ready and make the trek back up the hill (some of us slower than others) across the park to the hotel and the kids know they will color while Mom and Dad blog and upload the pics you are seeing now.

In all things God is good. In all relationships, His heart for each of us is evident. He will grow us, heal us, bond us, and break us so there is more room for all of the above all over again. Your prayers are imperative. We covet your love and friendship. We know we have a long road ahead. Remind me some time to tell you about Max deciding he was going to run away because he had to go to bed one night. Oh yes people there is drama here and at the same time there is much grace and we are thankful to report that he took his boots back off and stayed (ROFL).

I confess, I am missing home some today. I am sure that has to do with the shower that I am not looking forward to since the water is such a crap shoot for hot/scalding, to cold frozen… and back. I am sincerely thankful especially after the conditions at Nova. I think of where my kids have been their lives and I have nothing to ever complain about again. Ever.

I love you all so much… Special Love to my soon to be sister in love… praying for you and Jon for the wedding on March 8th. Knowing I will not be there at this point and knowing so much is on your heart. Hang in there my dear it will be lovely and the memories are for a life time enjoy the journey!

Enjoying ours…
Jenn
PS no spell check so forgive the errors!