Dearest Dema,
Dinner last night was great. The salad and pasta were wonderful. It was nice to have a little familiar comfort food. But in a small kitchen - clean up needs to happen as you go along! Which makes clean up quick after the meal.
This morning we were up and ready for you. We had to take the garbage out. It is at the other end of the apartment building and a little of a hike. Then we met Sasha and went to get you at the orphanage. It is Easter morning here - we heard that you were up and out to church at 7:00 am this morning (while I was still resting comfy in bed!)
We were so happy to see you. We brought you a little Easter present - not much I am afraid, but the best we could do over here. We got you a chocolate bar and a book in Russian to read. We found an Agatha Christie book in a bookstore here that we thought you might like.
We went to the seaside and walked around a little and took some pictures. Then we went to a great restaurant where they had little touch screens at every booth to order from. They had a variety of cuisine, Italian (pizzas and pastas), German (lots of sausages), and other foods. As with any other teenage boy, you ate a lot! It was funny, while we were eating at the restaurant, there were several obviously basketball players that came in to eat - they were from America. Apparently basketball is big over here and they import a lot of players. It was nice to hear English spoken again! We can’t get used to the fact that we get so many stares speaking English here. In Kiev, not so many, but I guess not a lot of English speaking tourists come here, so the stares are quite common.
After eating, we went to a park and walked around a little. Then we found a few benches and sat down while I taught you some English. I see no reason to wait - take advantage of every opportunity I say. The flash cards are great. I worried that you would think they were too babyish, but for gaining vocabulary, it is really the best way. I would highly recommend getting some at a bookstore here. I am hoping that you will learn most of the words by the time we leave, because then I will leave the cards behind.
All to soon, it was time to go and take you back to the orphanage. As usual when we stepped in, we noticed the best smells from the kitchen. It always smells like mealtime in there. We said good-bye and then came back to the apartment. Need to catch up working on my next book - it has kind of been forgotten about with all the stuff that is going on. We figured it would be a good day to hunker down and get work done since it is Easter and not much else is going on.
Tomorrow, we have some shopping to do - and I want to get you some jeans to wear. And tomorrow another family arrives so it will be nice to see some familiar faces. Also looking forward to this coming week where we can get back on track with getting paperwork done.
Love you bunches,
Bethany, G3, G4, & Amanda
Amanda and myself outside the orphanage.
Also, lots of pollution today - the steel mills are very close to town and you can smell the smoke pouring out. The haziness in the air is hard to even see through. Here is a picture from the far end of town from the mills.
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