Hi all we are back on line!!!

As promised here is what happened over the last few days:

June 3, 2007 Sunday night

After an eight hour drive and one pit stop we made it to Kramatorst (about 1 ½ hours drive from Donetsk) where two of the three children’s orphanage is. This is a smaller town but we did find the local market to buy water and snacks.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent on paperwork. We checked into the Kramatorst hotel and for about $56 (USD) we got a decent room, with air conditioning! YEAH!!!! We went to the local market to pick up some water and then we walked to a pizza chain that was just down the block, a quarter of a mile later we got there. The food was good and the pizza was almost NY style. We then walked back, no wonder the Ukrainians are slim - they walk everywhere!
A note about the hotel and the apartments - you make your own bed with sheets that they leave under the pillows. The sheets just fit the top of the bed and can not tucked in!


June 4, 2007 Monday
After many hours of paperwork chasing between the inspectors office and the notory we were given permission to visit the kids.
The 7 YO was very happy to see us and very outgoing. He came up and gave both of us a big kiss. The 6 YO girl was a little more reserved gave us a kiss and sat on her rocking horse observing everything!
The boy took turns riding 3 bicycles around the play room. He impressed us when he started putting some of the large building blocks together in a shape and crawled through them then put a round block in the middle of the others. He obliviously has an analytical mind. Our girl watched every interaction we had with her brother. She happily took a stuffed animal from Laura. We had lunch at the same pizza place, but this time we opted for ham and cheese blintzes, which were great!
We got back to the orphanage at 4:30 pm and saw our children in the play yard. Boy, did we receive a big welcome from the boy who immediately ran up to us, hugged and kissed us and grabbed Laura’s hand and lead her to the play ground pulling with all of his might. Our Girl was very chatty, laughing and playing with her brother on the slide. This was a total difference from our visit this morning. They both loved to have their picture taken and then looked at picture on the digital camera. After about an hour we left to many hugs.

Because of the late hour we decided to stay at the Kramatorst hotel again and got a small room without AC for $42 USD a night. This was much smaller and had 2 twin beds pushed together and NO AC! Tonight we walked to a “Chinese restaurant” to try something different. It was a nice place but had nothing that we would consider as Chinese food.


June 5, 2007 Tuesday
We woke early and met our facilitator and driver for breakfast at 7:30 AM. Today was paperwork day we drove to the inspectors office to pick up documents then to the notary to have the paperwork finalized. We then went to the orphanage to drop off the paperwork and see our two children. Again a big welcome and a lot of talking that we could not understand. We all had a great time.
We then drove the 1 ½ hours back to Donetsk to see our 4 YO son. We met him in the play room with a teacher and after a big hug and kiss the teacher showed us that he new his shapes and colors. He loved playing with a toy that played different music with each button that was pressed, even danced for us.