Bad news, Good news, Bad News, Good news, etc.!

Good morning! It's 11:30 AM on Friday, and tomorrow we'll have been in Ukraine for one week. Some days (or the time of the day) it feels like longer, and some days it feels shorter.

To go along with today's posting title, here is some news, but maybe not in the order listed above. First piece of bad news: we are only bringing home Vanya and not another child too. We were told there were not any other single children available right now. You really just want to shake your head and say "what?!?!?!?!?!?" There are 200 children here at Vanya's school, and the next town over has 2 orphanages! What a disappointment! However, Tim says perhaps I can have another son a different way-- a dog son!! LOL! We'll see how well Teagan gets along with a human brother before we give her a canine one! (Hey, Shank, you adoption stalker, you-- perhaps you'll get your wish after all!!! LOL)

As I mentioned in the last post, Viktor was hopeful that we'd get a court date for early next week which was totally fine with us! He came back on Wed. evening with not such good news: our court date is next week Friday, April 3 at 3:00 PM. Bummer! 9 more days in Kotovsk. . . big sigh! Although it wasn't the earlier date we wanted, at least we wouldn't have to change our plane tickets-- Tim had to pick a return date when he booked the flights, and the date he chose was Saturday morning at 5:30 AM which would put us back to Detroit around 5:00 PM that evening. We definitely like the time zone differences on the return! :-) This means we'd have one day of spring break before back to work. :-(

Wednesday night Viktor took the scary train back to Kiev for the day. (It's my goal to avoid the scary train this whole trip!!!!) He said he'd return on Friday morning. That was a daunting thought: we would be here for a whole day with no one who spoke English!!!!! :-0 Tatiana would still be here, but her English is pretty limited. Before Viktor left, he ordered us our breakfast for the next day. Very thoughtful.

Thursday morning we met Tatiana downstairs at the cafe for breakfast around 9:30. Today's breakfast was blini's (sp???) which were filled with hamburger meat and spices and served with a dallop of sour cream. We were also served bread that had butter and like a swiss cheese on top. I am really loving the black tea (called chai, but not the chai you get a Starbucks!-- no chai spices, just plain black tea) and they always give us 5 sugar cubes and lemon slices. Do you think one sugar cube equals one teaspoon??? If so, I may have to start drinking it without the sugar! The blini's were delicious, and when Viktor called at breakfast and asked us what we wanted for lunch, we ordered them again! Major improvement over the potatoes and pork! During breakfast, Tatian was able to explain that she would go by herself to get Vanya and bring him back to us. That was good; we're getting a little tired of the taxi thing.

About 45 minutes later, she brought him to our apartment. He opened the door and said, "Good morning!" in English with a big grin. So cute! We let him watch Rugrats on Nickelodean (sp?) which was in Ukrainian, so that cracked us up! Then he wanted to color in the Star Wars coloring book we brought him; he colored two pictures and used the camera to take pictures of them. We played Tangoes-- well, I tried to play with him (even though he chose to play it!) and he just wanted to turn over the cards to see the solution. Such a cheater! Time for one more game of the dice game, SWAP, and this time he won. He was delighted that he beat his Papa!

For lunch this boy ate his borscht again, blini's like us, the cabbage salad (which we also ate), a slice of bread, and a huge container of what looked like peach juice. Smelled like peaches, but looked disgusting! He can pack it away, that's for sure. We noticed we have some work to do on the table manners, although not evident last summer, so we think they have to eat quickly at school so as not to miss out on any food.

After lunch we took a walk to a nearby park that I said reminded me of like an Edgar Allen Poe story: it was another dismal, cold day, and there were all these black birds in the trees. Tim and I were sure we'd get hit by some bird droppings, but somehow we managed to escaped that. Vanya played on a swing and climbed a jungle gym, of sorts. Very old and not in good condition. Next to the park was a soccer stadium (stadium is a loose definition--Tatiana's words, not ours-- it reminded us of maybe an elementary or local park soccer field; not many bleachers). There was a soccer club practicing on a little field next to it, so we walked by them to go on what looked like newer playground equipment. It turned out to be outdoor exercise equipment that was really pretty cool. We tried them all, and Vanya really enjoyed this. He didn't want to leave until Tatiana told him we'd go for dessert.

We walked back to the downtown part (only about 2 blocks away) and stopped in a shady looking cafe. Tatiana immediately escorted us all out and managed to convey to us that there were too many men and too much vodka!!!!! How fun is that??? Vodka in a pastry shop!!! We found a newer shop that I had noticed earlier in the week, and Vanya consumed 2 pastries while the rest of us only had one and some tea. It had become rainy/snowy again so the hot tea felt good. By the way, you could also buy boxed chocolates, yogurt, cheese, cigarettes, alcohol, sausage, fruit, and frozen novelties while you were here! A small one-stop shop!!!

After our snack, we returned to our apartment by traversing through the open-air market. The market is only open from 8:00-2:00 and it was about 3:30 now. We are very interested in it, and we hope to pick up Vanya soon and walk around there today. At 4:30, Tatiana took Vanya back to school, and we amused ourselves reading and watching "The Princess Bride" in the evening. Can you believe Tim's never seen it? It's a classic, right Stephanie?? Oh, I keep forgetting to tell you all that I've been writing in a journal (a gift from good friends for this trip) ever since we left Detroit. As of this morning, I've written 25 pages, or 50 pages on both sides. Tim says I may need to sign it out for those of you interested in hearing all the details I don't have time to write on the blog.

When Tatiana came back from dropping off Vanya, we got the best news yet! Our court date has been moved up to this Wednesday, April 1st!!!!!!!! Apparently the deputy director knows the judge and interceded on our behalf. The 4:00 PM court time means we will be back in our own beds hopefully by a week from yesterday (April 2nd). Such good news, huh? Living in Kotovsk is a little bit like having our own personal "Groundhog's Day" movie. Kind of the same thing each day! Only having to live here 6 more days seems so much better than 9!!!!

Today we are going to pick up Vanya and petition the director to have him stay overnight with us until our court date next Wednesday. We don't have any clothes for him which presents a problem in our eyes, but EVERYONE wears the same thing for several days in a row, so I guess I can live with that as long as we get him some new underwear and socks!! If you remember from last summer, he LOVES showers, so I am planning to stick him in there hopefully every day he's with us. :-) He only gets a full shower once a week at school.

You may be wondering where are all the pictures you know I've taken?! As you may know, I am a picture taking fanatic, and I've taken over 150 pictures since we left Detroit. However, because we don't have our own computer, I am a little leary of downloading the pictures onto a public computer and then transferring them to my flash drive. So, I will do that when I return and maybe while Tim is back here. It will give me something to keep me occupied when my "boys" are gone! Hopefully my descriptions help get you through not having the pictures to view.

Good bye for now! We'll try to come back on Sat. or Sun. As always, thank you for the prayers and well wishes. God has definitely sent down his blessings upon us. Though it may not be the best weather here, He has been shining down and we feel his love.