"No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

So, where to begin? The week (or nearly so) has gone by quickly. In the proverbial nutshell, the trip-to-date in review:

Wednesday: We got up very early, which is terribly annoying, but considering the cause we dealt with it with good humor. Gib Coleman (thanks again!) drove us to the airport and we boarded our plane sans incident. The girls enjoyed the flight to NYC's JFK airport, which provided highly overpriced food and underwhelming entertainment options. Again, good humor. The girls made a new friend in the lounge, coloring on the floor next to this little Ukrainian girl. Would have made for cute pictures if we hadn't been up so early so as to fry our "let's take a picture!" synapses. On to the plane for Kiev, again without incident. That flight introduced two minor problems: Amissa's food intolerances, and forbidden-for-the-girls movies on the "big screen." Our lovely flight attendant was kind enough to find some corn flakes for Amissa so she could have a wheat-free breakfast, thus resolving issue #1. We tried to get the girls to sleep, thus mitigating problem #2, but they were having none of it. So, sleepy and excited we landed in Kiev on...

...Thursday. We were early into Kiev, so we had a chance to change some currency before our driver arrived. Nick, our driver, then drove us to our apartment. Nick was great, and I never felt in danger. But I would have to call the traffic there...interesting. We stopped at a small market for a little food, and then hit the cozy apartment for some rest. After dinner (basically some sausage, cheese, juice and bread) we went for a walk. The girls liked the street vendor motif, and we picked up a few oranges on the way back to the apartment. It was off to an early bedtime, and after we all woke up ~3:00 a.m. (unable to fall asleep) we waited for...

...Friday. Nick and Angelina (our facilitator and all-around superstar) met us Friday morning to take us to a meeting at the Ukrainian governmental department whose name escapes me, but which handles adoption and child-welfare issues. There we met Irina, a case worker who heard our story and gave us the referral to adopt Galyna. She noted that it was unheard of for people to be invited to Ukraine so quickly after their application was submitted (we were rather surprised ourselves.) Angelina also was able to convince them to give us the referral that same day instead of having to wait for the next day - which would have been Monday. This was quite the benefit as this referral was required in order to set up a court date in Donetsk to formalize the adoption. Since the courts in Donetsk only take registrations for cases on Mondays and Fridays, losing that day would have meant another few days on the trip. So far, things are going more quickly than is typical, and everything has been going smoothly. Were I superstitious, I'd be knocking on every tree in my room! But I would be remiss were I not to thank all of ya that have been praying for exactly this type of smoothing of bureaucracy and expediting of time lines. And Angelina, with her connections and knowledge of how this all works, has been an absolute lifesaver.

After the meeting, we returned to our apartment (after one more stop at the grocery store; now that we knew the size of our refrigerator, we knew what we could buy to supplement the sausage/bread/cheese.) From here until Sunday night, we had no further obligations, so spent this Friday afternoon hanging out. We visited a wonderful little restaurant/pizzeria about two blocks from the apartment. The girls enjoyed a chicken and potato dish that was of the über-cute ilk. The dish had a chicken breast dressed up with various vegetables cut and pieced together to make the chicken look like an actual chicken, with wings, tail and head. Unfortunately, the girls were so into taking silly videos of themselves they forgot to take pictures of the food (noticing a theme yet?) The girls also enjoyed the underground shopping stalls by the subway station. Here in Ukraine there are many intersections where pedestrians cross the road underground, and they are often filled with little booths of products for sale. This day behind us we tried to sleep in preparation for...

...Saturday. Nick came and picked us up around 2:00 for a sight-seeing trip to downtown Kiev. Lots of fun here, even though cold and sleety (well, not "cold" for a bunch of Minnesotans, but cold for people from further south, like Iowa.) We saw many nice examples of Ukrainian architecture, including St. Michael's Monastery. To get there we rode the funicular which was nice because it got our little stompin'-in-mud-puddles-in-her-now-soaked-tennis-shoes youngest out of the damp for a few minutes, and because it was a rather unique experience. We also checked out the souvenirs and artwork on the streets, and had a nice Ukrainian buffet dinner. Busy, wet and fun. We then hit the apartment to watch movies on the laptop and blow the backup fuse in our transformer. Oops. So the question is, will we or will we not have power for the laptop the rest of the trip? Will we be able to charge our camera battery? (Well, since you're reading this, yes.)

This is getting to be a long post so I'll get the rest of the trip posted in a following item.

I hope all is well, and happy (belated) anniversary to Mom and Dad. We would have called or sent an email, but until today...no Internet! As soon as we refresh our Skype account we'll give you a call.

God bless -
Ron