Weekend

Igor, Masha, Vera and Yulia at the computer.

Sorry we didn't update this weekend. It was a busy weekend, Masha, Yulia and their friend Vera came to the apartment Friday evening. Igor came on Saturday afternoon. We spent time talking, eating, on the computer, watching a movie and going to church on Sunday. Sunday afternoon we went to the mall. We bought a sweater for Igor and gave up on finding boots for the girls. The boots we saw in the mall were of the fashion variety when we were more interested in the warm and dry variety. Judging from the icy sidewalks, we also need the good traction variety. Masha said that she knows a shopping area that would have a better selection. We will shop there next weekend when they come. All of the kids know some English, but Masha is our interpreter when the others don't understand. Occasionally, Masha doesn't understand something or quite how to say something, but we always get it figured out. On Sunday she asked Steve, when would be the time when she tells them that, Yes, she does want to be adopted by us. Hopefully we will find out today when our court hearing will be and if we will need to have two hearings or if they can be combined into one hearing. One or two, we would just like to have them, so things will be official, pending the waiting period. It still looks like the waiting period will extend into the holiday time here. That will mean that the next step for applying for passports and sending documents to USCIS in Omaha will not take place until about January 8. The girls are rehearsing for a program at the orphanage on December 27 when they will be singing and dancing. They are already looking forward to Steve taking a lot of photos and some video. We are also looking forward to it.

Yulia and Igor helping Gail with a Russian Lesson

On Saturday evening, Yulia was trying to help us learn Russian. She was going through one of the books we had and kept telling us that it was easy. Could have fooled me. So, we logged on to the Rosetta Stone website, where we have subscribed to six months access to the Russian language lessons. One of the exercises pronounces words or phrases, has you pronounce them back into the microphone then gives sound effects to let you know if you were correct or not. On one phrase, Steve must have tried 20 times before everything was correct. This produced giggles, laughter and a lot of help from all the kids.

It was a great weekend with some great kids. We are truly blessed with great kids (this includes sons-in-law Matt and Corey) and fantastic grand kids in the US and great kids in Ukraine.

Please keep Gail in your prayers. Last evening, she slipped on the icy sidewalk, fell and injured her right elbow and shoulder. It is somewhat better today, but it is extremely painful and very difficult to move her arm.