A New Day Brings Sunny Skies

Well, I'm feeling better which is a big relief to Randy. When the cranky factor gets too high Randy usually pays the price. If it gets really high, I begin to mobilize to "make things better" and that usually means a flurry of phone calls and some sort of activity designed to improve whatever is causing my crankiness. Luckily, we may have mitagated the mobilization mode thus ensuring we don't have to pack up and move the way too many things we brought to some other apartment that doesn't have garlic loving, techno music loving neighbors - at least not right this minute although I'm reserving my right to do so later.


So, yesterday we picked up Alex and Andrey early in the afternoon and went to Larisa's house for a really wonderful Ukranian dinner. Larisa really went all out for us and we appreciate it so very much. We had a dinner of borscht, pork, salmon, saurkraut, potatoe patties, pickles, pickled apples, fruit and bread. It was delicious. My Grandmother was Polish and my Grandfather was from Germany so the meal was very reminicent of dinners I had at my Grandparents house. The potatoe patties were so good - I think I ate 3 or 4!!!

The boys enjoyed getting out together. They spent most of the afternoon tweaking each others ears, wrestling and playing a video game they found on Dima's computer. All in all it was a great afternoon and we really enjoyed it.

I felt badly that I knew so little Russian as I was unable to talk with Mr. Papay, however in the face of a foreign invasion of Randy and I, he was extremely nice and courteous to us which we appreciated so much.


Alex wasn't very happy when we took he and Andrey back to the Internot. I just can't really even imagine what thoughts and feelings he has going through his mind. This is a hard, hard process. One doesn't come to Ukraine to adopt unless one is completely committed to adopting a Ukrainian child. I don't always enjoy it here, but I wouldn't change anything about this experience. I am learning much about myself, how others live, how we live in relationship to many other people, what Alex's background may have been like and so much more.

To all the folks that sent me emails - thank you! In actuality, I had only gone about a half a day without emails, but some days here, a half a day feels like an eternity. Both Randy and I DO enjoy hearing from our friends, family and those who just happened upon our blog - so keep the emails coming!!

Much love, Cynthia