Dearest Dima,
G3 is officially on the mend. He feels much better and has had a couple of good night’s rest and is not coughing or sneezing as much. Thank goodness - we have too much at stake here not to be at our best.
We picked you up at 11:00 am this morning to spend the afternoon together. Sasha said that we were very lucky to be able to do this as he was having to take personal responsibility for you. I guess because usually he has other families to take care of and work to do, he is not available for things like this. And because you are not officially ours yet, the orphanage doesn’t like to see you away from their care. But since this is Easter weekend here and not much is going on and also because we are the only family here right now, we got lucky! Thank goodness, we are desperate to spend more time with you. We can't say enough about Sasha and how wonderful he is. We couldn't ask for any better to help us in this process.
There wasn’t enough time to do both lunch and a movie, so we decided to do a movie (since you wanted to). There was a little extra time, so we went to a local park that overlooked the sea and took some pictures and walked around a little. Then we went to the movie theatre. You wanted to see Clash of the Titans in 3D - so we did. It had been dubbed in Ukrainian but it was an action movie so we pretty much were able to follow the story line anyway. We shared popcorn and drinks so we sent you back to the orphanage well fed and entertained. I figured that once you get to America you will have to spend a lot of time watching things that you don’t understand so it is only fair that we do the same over here.
After we said goodbye to you (which gets harder and harder to do by the way) we asked Sasha to take us to a bookstore. You know us homeschoolers! A bookstore is heaven no matter what language the books are in. I was looking for some fun books for you to read in Russian and also some books to help teach you English. I figure that we are going to get a couple of hours with you everyday and there is only so much smiling and hugging we can do. And I might as well start teaching you now. So, I found the Hobbit in Russian, which I am very excited to have, and then found a picture dictionary with words in English and Russian and pictures, and a workbook with some easy exercises. Then as I was walking around I found some flashcard sets that looked great. I know they are a little babyish, but I think having pictures will help you in the beginning. Sasha thinks we are crazy, I think, but this is just the homeschooler in me coming out! I can’t stand to have time not spent in education (at least in the afternoons). In the mornings - nothing functions much before 10 am so..... (We told Dima that he gets to sleep in as late as he wants at home and he was very happy). I am really excited about the books I got though, and plan to pull them out later and start looking at them deciding where to start.
After that we came back to the apartment and Amanda and I did school work together for a while. She is going to get behind in some subjects that I didn’t want to bring books for, but in others, she will be ahead, so it will all even out. Then she had to watch several lectures for her online physics class, so G3 and I ventured out to do some shopping. I wanted to get you something for Easter and we also needed more toilet paper. The weather here is nice today - it has been overcast and rainy most of the time we have been in Ukraine so far, but today we finally got to see some blue sky (okay - a little blue sky looking through the smog). The air pollution is really bad here. It makes LA look pretty clean!
G3 and I got turned around and wandered farther than we had anticipated but it was fun. Just watching people and looking in stores. We found some Agatha Christie books in Russian, so we got those for you. We ended up at a supermarket and got some chocolate to give you for Easter tomorrow and toilet paper, and a few other things as well. We seems to always got crackers and miscellaneous stuff when we shop. We were laughing as the truth hit us - even the most mundane things like a package of crackers looks more interesting when it has a foreign label on it!
Well, I am off to cook dinner. So far it has just been simple things to eat like cheese and crackers and potatoes, etc. in the apartments, but tonight I am going to be brave and try a pasta pomodoro with salad. We will see how I do without my normal accoutrements.
We are going to get to see you tomorrow again and spend the afternoon together. We can’t wait!
Love Always,
Bethany, G3, G4, and Amanda
This is a picture of the outside of the orphanage. It is very nice and clean on the inside. It seems a very happy place (as much as an orphanage can be.)
Here is our apartment building in Mariupol - very nice. We really like Mariupol except for the pollution of course. We have an apartment on the 4th floor in the middle of the building.
Our cutie! Soon to be ours!
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