YIPPIE!!! WE HAVE TICKETS HOME!!!
Our plane leaves Kyiv on Monday morning at 6:45 (ouch, that's gonna hurt) and arrives at Dulles at 3:10pm the same day! I am so glad for no overnight flights or more international hotel stays! :) Brian promises to take me to Red Robin for a huge big juicy cheeseburger before we get home and I'm putting him on notice today that he'll be making me one every night for the next week!
D having dinner at the buffet place
Brian & I liked so much the last time we were in Kyiv!
Looks like he likes it, too! :)
Looks like he likes it, too! :)
By the way, using this blogger program it's way easier to just add a new post rather than edit a new one, especially if adding more photos. I figured my post from earlier today was long enough anyway!
D and I just hung around the apartment for a while this afternoon. I did some laundry and D played with toys and listened to the ipod. We called Brian and the kids before they went to school this morning. We also skyped with my parents and Brian's mom for a few minutes before we went to dinner. Then I got the email back from our agent about the tickets!!!
Our feast!
No we didn't finish it all
I let D pick out everything he wanted at dinner. I had no idea if he actually knew what he was getting, but there wasn't much Brian and I didn't like at that place, so I figured something would be decent! I also got borscht and rolls, sorta hard to mess that up. He took one bite of the large meat roll he picked and made a face ... I thought he was going to spit it out! He was a good boy though and just shook his head at me and pushed it away. It was so bad that he had to have a drink of his orange Fanta before he could do anything else! I was a bit scared to try it, but it was really good - I think it was the dill sauce on the top that he didn't like.
The interesting decor at the Ukrainian/Italian buffet
Right outside the apartment lights and camera crew were setting up when we got back from dinner. I have no idea what's going to go on here tonight, but I hope it's quite so we can get some much needed sleep after last night on the train. A man had just come in from walking his bull dog and it liked Dennis! :) I gave it a pet, but it wasn't interested in me. I pulled out my camera and asked the man if I could take a photo. He agreed. The dog kept sniffing D's leg so I thought we might want to get outta there before it started to do something else to his leg! :)
Oh, and I forgot to mention in the previous post that on the way to the apartment this afternoon, N showed me where the president's administration office is located - it's walking distance! She said the scuttlebut is that he bought a chopper that is more $$ than Obama's! :) The Ukraine economy is so bad here that they just shut down several ministries, had to lay off a bunch of government employees, and move the SDA to a different ministry to save money ... but the prez does this?? Hmmm ... what's wrong with this picture?
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I think the kids don't get much variety in their diet. It took our girls a while to try different foods. They would always smell their food first! lol
ReplyDeleteI believe I know that buffet place, but can't really tell you without seeing the outside. It was so hard for me to sleep on the way back to the US because it is light all the way back. Not that I can sleep on a plane full of people anyway. lol
BTW -- If I remember right, you took a picture from the room of a hotel window you stayed at in the beginning, right? Well, I don't know if you are still staying there, but right across the street is a 5 or 6 story department store called 'Zoom' if you need anything to do. It's interesting to look around in there, though it's not cheap.
June
Yep, same place. That is good to know as the facilitator said to go to the department store across the street to get shoes for Dennis and Melissa wasn't sure which place that is.
ReplyDeleteThe name of the store looks kind of like the word Gym. I think it's really 'Tsoom' like the letter for center that is the 'ts' sound in Cyrillic. It's right on the corner. I can look at the picture on FB and comment to make sure she knows it's the right place.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I also saw a comment where you mentioned to send copies of the passport for registering your child with the Ukrainian Embassy here in the US. If you remember, in the 'Letter of Obligation' that was part of the dossier sent to the SDA, the first statement is a promise to register your child with the Ukraine Embassy (Consulate, whatever it's called) within 30 days of arriving home. Registration requires sending the passport, a copy of the court decree in Ukrainian plus the form the American Embassy in Kiev gives you. They will mail the passport back to you if you include an envelope. We got both our girls passports back.
I know that you and Melissa have closely followed the moratorium legislation. If families don't meet their obligations, then future families may not be able to adopt. The SDA has limited adoptions in the past when families haven't sent their annual reports.
I'm truly sorry if I am making people mad, but we have to remember the children left behind. They need families too.
Remember, we've BTDT, twice:)
June
@June: No issue... have every intent to register and I heard the same thing about people not following up being one of the pain points. Shoot, we intend to be going back ourselves in the future.
ReplyDeleteI find people are generally reasonable and if a technicality on a process needs to get delayed for the benefit of a child, no one is going to throw a fit. It's possible they will but I'll prioritize making sure my son doesn't have any stumbling blocks in his way and see if there is any push back on the process items.