Life at River Oak Ranch

The whole time we have been with the boys the same thought has been running
through our minds... "boy dogs are easier" ;-) We have been comtemplating
why this is. We determined that the main advantage with dogs is that we have
a leash! We are able to limit them to a certain range and can easily get
thier attention. Now, the question is how can we get a leash for these boys?
We finally found it! It is called "headphones". We put some good rock and
roll in the MP3 player and plug in 2 sets of headphones. We now have the
boys on a regulation 6ft leash that limits the distance from us they go
(since we are holding the MP3 player) and instead of jerking the "leash" to
get thier attention we just hit "stop" and they both immediatly look at us.
The best part is, just like our dogs, they get incredibly excited every time
we pull the "leash" out and can't wait to put it on! Perfect ;-)

Today we had a pretty uneventful day. We went there this morning with the
intent of going for a walk but they boys were in the bath at the time we got
there, so then they had a wet head so we didn't take them out. Of course,
since we thought we were going to we didn't bring much other stuff with us
so we pulled out the "leash" and they listened to music while coloring the
whole time. It worked better than we thought. Interestingly enough they only
want to listen to the rock and roll music on the MP3 player, not the kids
songs in russian. The Rock music is a christian band called pillar, and Max
even skips the songs that start slow because he wants to listen to the heavy
stuff! Gotta love that!

We headed to the market again this afternoon. Not really because we needed
anything, but because we had little better to do. We walked around and
bought a bunch of bananas to give all the kids tomorrow at the going away
party. We headed out of the market and saw a horse next to all the cars. We
at first thought there must be some sort of parade or something, but then
looked a little closer and realized this was a work horse! He was a smaller
horse that was really sweaty from the walk in. He was tied to an old beat up
"buck board wagon" that had a couple of rags on the board that was the seat.
The two poles that attach the horse to the wagon were birch limbs that still
had the bark on them. It is pretty amazing to see the varience in peoples
life styles here, on once side we have people taking pictures with thier
cell phones, on the other we have people taking the horse into town. Wow.

We went back and visited the boys this afternoon. We brought the computer
for entertainment, thinking they would want to play the new games again.
When we got there they were just getting dressed to go outside. We decided
they should go outside a little bit, but once they realized we brought the
computer they didn't want to. Max immediately started saying it was too
cold. He said that his legs were cold mostly, and his pants were frequently
pulled up high enough so the bottoms were above his ankles, leaving a lot of
exposed skin. Because they had just taken a shower they were wearing
different clothes than they had been. Matt went up and grabbed the bottom of
his pants and pulled them down to his shoes. Max immediately pulled the
waist of his pants back up so his ankles were showing again. Now we see the
problem, his new "outside" pants are too short! Oops. This makes them match
his inside pants more because they are so tight that he has given up on
zipping them up (of course, it wouldn't be an issue if the group leader
didn't insist that they tucked in thier shirt AND sweaters to thier pants,
all the kids look like little Erkles running around).

While we were outside we ran into the Italians again. They are very nice
people and really want to talk, and are very good with other languages, as
they speak English and Russian better than we speak Russian. They asked us
more about our timeline and were wondering why thiers was so bad, We are
wondering too.. if you think it has taken us a long time, they are much
worse off. They are pretty frusterated with Ukraine in general, but have a
cute little boy named antonio that they are adopting (his original name was
Toilek (pronouned like toilet with a k at the end) which they changed for
obvious reasons. The italians were telling me how they really liked
americans and had went to a pro-american rally in italy after 9-11. They
even had an american flag at home that they took out ever year in
rememberance of 9-11. As he said it, they are "pro-western". We mentioned
that the boys wanted to go inside because we brought a computer and he said
he brought one too because he is a computer programmer. Wow, what a small
world. We talked about that for a while (he mostly does Mainframe AS400
stuff) and I gave him my business card so we could keep in touch after we
got back. We really want to know how things go for them.

Eventally we said our good-byes and the boys drug us back inside to play
with the computer. It was about that time that we realized that we had
forgotten the CDs so they couldn't play the games! They were not very
impressed with that at all. Danny told us to go back to the apartment and
get it! We let them do other stuff on it but that wasn't as fun, then the
battery went dead on the MP3 player that was occupying the boy who wasn't
playing. It just didn't go as smoothly as we had planned, and we were really
glad we spent the first hour outside. We finally had to leave and told them
we would see them in the morning with new clothes that fit and would have a
party.

We spent a lot of time packing today and are pretty close to having
everything back together to head out tomorrow if we can. Our timeline is
that we can get the papers and get the boys tomorrow morning, we will
probably have the boys by 9:30 (no one opens before 9am here) and will have
had the party and be done with everything by 11am. That will be all we can
do tomorrow so we hope to go to odessa for the afternoon and stay the night
there. Tomorrow morning our translator and one of us has to take a 3-4hour
car ride to their birth town and be there by 9am to get the birth certs.
That won't take long and then they have to go back to odessa to get the
passports. At that point we have to find a way to get to Kiev. It will be by
plane, train, bus or automobile, depending on what tickets are availible. We
HAVE to get to keiv by wednesday morning. When we are back in Kiev we have 2
things to do. First we have to get a checkup for the boys for the American
Embassy. Not sure how hard it will be to schedule that, but I think we will
call to try to make an appointment as soon as posible tomorrow, after that
we have to go to the american embassy to do the american side of the
adoption. The trick is that they are only open from 8am-11:30am on wed and
thurs, so we can't have too much for delays. After we go to the embassy,
they should have the paperwork done that evening and we can hop on the next
flight home!

We really would appreciate a lot of prayers over the next few days. We
probably won't be able to update the blog until we get to kiev, but please
pray that everything goes quickly and smoothly. If we can't get the embassy
stuff done by thursday it may mean another entire week here (not just the
weekend) because we have papers that expire on thursday. That probably is
good though because it will make us push that much harder to get everything
done (no expenses spared at this point).

Next time, LIVE FROM KIEV!

...we get wet :-(

We taught the boys a very important word to day if they want to live on our
house. It took us a while to get it across, but the both now know how to say
"FORD". Next we will work on the word "RULES".

Today it rained again. We brought the computer and they spent a lot of time
exploring what all the different buttons did. They have now spent many hours
on the computer playing with it and really enjoy it, just think how much fun
they would have if there was a game on it they could play! They are
definately getting the hang of it and are quick to learn how to make things
happen, unfortuantely they don't know what to do with them after they
happen. They can open a lot of programs but don't know how to use most of
them (especially when you can't read english). They have found the Windows
Help program and spend a lot of time clicking through there, which is the
first time I have seen Help actually be useful! Another funny thing was Max
was telling Danny what to click on, when a Dialog box would come up he would
say "Click Oak". It took us a little while to figure it out, but he was
reading OK as OAK... He isn't familiar with the term OK.

We brought a map with us this afternoon and got the really old globe from
thier group room. We showed them our path home, how we were going to drive
to Odessa, take a train to Keiv, and fly home. Max was fairly interested in
it, but it was a little to abstract for Danny to get it, he really didn't
seem to care too much, he is excited about the rides, but not so exited to
see where on a map (although he did like the idea of using the really big
map to build a fort).

We finally got permission today to take the kids off the orphanage grounds
durring our visits. Thats great, but we only have 2 days left and it is wet
and rainy out so we don't know if we will be going for many walks with them
anyway. I guess we will wait and see.

We also found out that our plans for next week have changed slightly
already. The birth certificate place in thier home town is closed on mondays
so we can't go till tuesday morning, this doesn't really affect our plans
because we were sure that we couldn't get it all done in one day anway. We
are hoping to spend Monday afternoon in Odessa (a much bigger city with a
lot of tourist stuff) and then drive from thier to the birth town early in
the morning, drive back in the afternoon, do our last paperwork and head to
Kiev. Again, it will be transportation that will be what limits the speed of
when we get home.

Today it was warm, but rained... and rained... and rained.

We had to spend the day inside so we brought the computer with us for the
boys to play with. They are starting to figure out more and have gotten the
hang of the touchpad mouse a lot better. They both understand the concept of
the start menu now and go there to find new programs to open. They usually
don't understand what the programs they open actually do, but they know what
to do in Paint and Notepad. They are always excited when something they
click on causes things on the screen to change. They found the CD player on
the side and no how to open that. Unfortunately we don't really want them
opening and closing that. After they played with it for an hour and a half,
we decided to try watching a VeggieTales movie. That worked well and they
were excited to be able to watch a movie on it, but since they didn't know
the characters, songs, or understand the language, it did not keep Danny's
attention for the whole half hour, although Max probalby would have made it.
We have some kids movies in russian too, but we are saving those for the
long rides and flights home.

In the afternoon we brought a deck of cards. That worked well and we played
numerous games. Thier favorite now is Go Fish, and Danny even gets how to
play it now. We haven't actually told them how to Win at the game yet
though, so they just keep playing until someone runs out of cards, then we
shuffle and redeal and start again. It is the only game that the don't cheat
on.

We didn't accomplish much else today since it was raining. We did manage to
pick up a few more christmas so we can check them off our list, but plan on
doing most of our shopping on saturday afternoon.

As you know, We get to take custody of Max and Danny on Monday morning. We
will go there and have a little party with the rest of the group and then
bring them back to the clinic, all while our Translator is frantically
running around trying to do all the paperwork in this town, drive to thier
birth town to change thier birthcerts and get to another town to get thier
passports. IF she can do it all in one day (she is optomistic she can, Matt
isn't so sure... prayers please) AND if we can get train tickets we could
possibly be heading for Keiv Monday night, otherwise probably Tuesday night.
We have to go to the embassy for a little paperwork and go to another place
for a health checkup. Then we need to get plane tickets and head home. If
things go REALLY well we could be on a plane a week from today, but we are
really hoping we will be on a plane by saturday at the latest. It would be
nice to beat the weekend traffic. Our flight home should be reasonabley
quick because the timechanges are with us. Our original tickets had us
leaving here at 7am (UA time) and landing at 3pm (Fargo time).

We are quickly approaching 10,000 hits on our blog site! That is a LOT More
than we expected, but we have been here a LOT longer than we expected too!
Doing the Math we have been getting an average of 190 hits a day.
Considering that we only think Matts mom is checking it about 150 times a
day (thats 10 times an hour she is awake, or once every 6 minutes) then we
can assume that we have 40 other people watching the blog regularly, wow, we
feel like superstars.... We think we can consider this our 15 minutes of
fame, although it is a lot longer than that since Matt tends to type so much
in the blog.

So, now you all know that most of the blog entries have been written by
Matt. Probably not a surprise to most of you who know us and realize that
Kristi has too much self respect to write much of this goofyness. So, Why,
you may ask, does he always refer to himself in the third person? Why not?
Bob Dole does it, and Bob Dole is cool, so why shouldn't Matt [he says as he
holds a pen stiffly in his left hand near his chest].

Today Matt realized the biggest downfall to adopting. It occured to Him that
we will never be able to use the line "I brought you into this world and I
can take you out!". Wow, that is a big dissapointment. Had he realized this
earlier he may have reconsidered the whole thing.

Enough with all the nonsense... time to talk about todays adventures with
the boys.

Today there were no adventures with the boys. It was a fairly low key day.
We spent a lot of time outside running around because the weather was nice
and we are getting tired of our little cubical room. When we were in our
little room this afternoon we had a group of kids walk through to the
"exersize" room next door. Then another, and another! Bringing up the tail
was the other Adopting family that was here from Italy. The kids were all
going in there for some sort of Dancing/exercise/social event/cult ritual.
They all stood in a big circle and a lady stood in the corner with what
looked like a toy accordian. She would play songs and they would do
different actions and dances to it. They often would walk in circles. We sat
at the door (the 2 families and 3 boys) and they would stare at us as they
walked by, which was humerous because they would be looking to the side and
walk right into the kid infront of them (consistantly). They played a few
games and eventually it was more than Max and Danny could resist so they
went in and played too. It was fun to watch all of the kids interacting.
There were 40 kids in there including the boys, and about 4 instructors.
This was the second time we wished we had brought our video camera with. Or
digital camera can also take short video clips, but we had left that at the
clinic. DOH!

Once that was done we went back to our room to do the worksheets we had so
carefully made earlier. The boys had been really antsy all night, but were
happy to do the math problems on the worksheets. Unfortunately, we were
almost out of time so Danny didn't get to finish his. Oh well. We haven't
been doing a lot of math with him because he normally doesn't want to. Now
that we know that he will gladly do it if he knows there is a reward of
connect the dots afterwards we are starting again. He does much of his
adding on his fingers still, which is really funny because he knows which
fingers he has to count (even though he holds them all out) and then touches
them to his face to count them. Matt can't wait to start giving him bigger
numbers and watch him try to touch his toes to his face ;-). Interestingly
enough, if the same problem is done twice in one sitting he remembers and
will go back to it and take the other answer, were Max never seems to notice
if he gets the same problem twice.

As of today we only have..... [Matt is touching fingers to his face] 4 more
days till we get custody! Woo Hoo!

As the child of morning, rosey-fingered Dawn, appeared we got up to start
our day. We headed to the orphange to visit the boys. We got there and the
kids were gone again. Doh! Apparently they had just headed off to music
class. We decided to wait (as if we had another choice). Kristi thought that
instead of just sitting in the dark room with nothing to do we should walk
around the neighborhood a little, besides, we knew there was a market and
another grocery store not far away, lets walk there. Matt agreed so we
headed off. We took a short cut to the street we thought everything was on
and amazingly enough we were right. We went to the grocery store because we
wanted to see if they had good bannanas (the other places had over ripe
ones) and see thier peanut butter selection. We went inside and wandered
around.

I would like to take a breif moment to describe my biggest pet peeve with
this country. When shopping in a store, especially a "western" style store
where they don't have every product under lock and key, anyone who enters
the store is considered a thief until such time as they leave the store. At
first I thought this was only an issue in Kiev, but we receive the same
treatment here also. There is no "the customer is always right", or any
thought of customer satisfaction, but instead we have the ex-soviet
mentality of "we have it, you don't, so put up with our crap or go somewhere
else". It really makes us miss the yellow smiley face guy at Walmart. So,
every time you enter the store, the "employees" (who don't even pretend to
be stocking shelfs), start giving you the evil eye and making sure you are
never out of thier sight. They alway seem to wear "black", apparently it
makes them more effective. They will keep moving and watching you so you
will become uncomfortable and leave quicker. Now, back to our story.

We saw that they had the same quality of bananas as everyone else, and that
they didn't have any peanut butter that looked better than what we had
(remember, we have peanutbutter with chocolate swirls). We looked around to
see if they had anything good that we could bring to the orphanage for a
going away party, since it was so close. We then decided we had killed
enough time and headed out. As we got to the register we remembered that we
had run out of gum so we bought a pack for the boys (they usually ask for it
every day). We paid for it (30 cents) and went to the lock box by the door
where Kristi had put her purse (because they don't trust anyone to carry a
purse or bag with them in a store). When she got it and we turned towards
the door we noticed that our not so subtle "tail" had positioned himself
awkwardly between us and the door. Apparently Roscoe P. Coaltrain wanted to
start something. We have gotten pretty good at ignoring people so we just
casually walked around him and headed outside. The not so suttle
Employee-of-the-month followed us outside. There Barney Fife decided to
confront us. Of course we had NO idea what he said, and he at this point
didn't have any idea that we didn't speak russian (we are getting pretty
good at looking like locals, maybe too good). He said it again and pointed
to his pocket and looked at Kristi. He wanted to see what was in her pocket.
She started to open her jacket pocket and he said "nyet" and something else
we didn't understand. This is when we started getting nervous. What did this
guy want, now was not the time to get into a confrontation (although Matt
was pretty sure he could take him ;-). If he called the cops, how would we
explain our innocence (or here I think they refer to it as a lack of guilt).
Our translator was hundreds of miles away, and EVEN FARTHER in Kilometers!
Kristi started focusing on what he was saying... maybe he wanted to see what
was in her OTHER pocket (he was pointing at his left pocket but since he was
facing her, she thought he meant her right pocket). She reached in and
pulled out a small baggy with 2 vitamins for the boys, and a tube of carmex.
He seemed satisfied and went back inside. Apparently he thought we were
pulling the old "buy one 30 cent package of orbits and steal a second 30
cent package". Kristi's jacket is thin and tight, so he could tell there
was nothing in it bigger than a carmex tube or package of gum. We were
relieved that he left and quickly walked a safe distance way and took a deep
breath. We then grabbed a rock and threw it through the window and RAN!
(warning, the last sentence of the paragraph may have been added for effect)

After vowing never to return to that store again in this life or the next we
continued to the orphanage to wait for the boys. They finally arrived, ate
both the package of gum we bought AND the one we stole, and we headed
outside. We had a good time playing with the balls, although they really
just wanted to fight over the soccer ball. We didn't get to play too long
since we started late and we headed back to the clinic.

Over the afternoon we went to walk to the market. We decided to take a
different route. In hindsight, that wasn't a very good idea and we managed
to get completely lost. We continued wandering knowing that we were between
2 big roads and had to get somewhere we knew eventually. We ended up heading
"back" (or at least the direction we thought was back) and after a few
blocks walked right up to the market. Oops! I guess we walked right past it
earlier. We walked around a little but since we took so long getting there
most of the booths were already closing. We did go into another "mall" and
looked around that a little, but got tired of being glared at by employees
and headed out. On our way back we noticed that it was getting foggy. By the
time we were back it was Really foggy, which gave a eary feeling when we
were walking through the woods... we thought we might have gotten lost in
Middle Earth somewhere, but then realized that middle earth wasn't covered
in garbage like this woods was (instead of burning or burying all thier
garbage, apparently they just load it in open trucks and drive around until
the trucks are empty).

We went to visit the boys in the afternoon and had a good time. Kristi was
trying to figure out how to pronounce the boys previous last name. We had
heard them say it earlier. She was reading it off the list of names on the
wall to thier group. Kristi said it and asked them if that was thier name.
They said yes, then said (in russian) "It was" and repeated thier names as
Carlson instead. That was cool. We didn't think they would have figured that
out until after we were back home, but they seem to understand it well now.

PS- Bonus points for anyone who knows what book Matt is currently reading,
the hint is in the first line and no cheating and google searching!

First we would like to talk a little about the weather here...

For all you in fargo we would like to say Naner Naner Naner!

Today it was 58 and sunny, and is expected to stay near that for the rest of
the week while we are here. That will definately make it more enjoyable
hanging out here. We will be able to do our christmas shopping in december
in t-shirts outside (remember, the markets here are outdoors).

Matt was feeling better today so we went and got our 4 hours of visitation
in with the boys. The first time we played on the computer for a while. They
are still fascinated with Notepad and Paint. Not sure how much longer that
will last. We also showed them something new and showed a few entertaining
videos that we had with us (short clips from "americas funniest videos" at
least now they can say to their friends, "we haven't been to american yet,
but we have seen thier funniest videos"). They seemed to enjoy that but
really didn't want to put the computer away to go outside. We gave them some
juice boxes but told them they couldn't pop them (they would put them on the
floor and jump on them when they were empty and they really pop loud). To
our amazement they just gave them back when they drank them all!

We headed outside and Matt and Max played frisbee a bit. There was a strong
side wind so when Max would throw it high the wind would catch it and it
would fly way off to the side. We had a crowd of little munchkins watching
us, and every time it would go off they would all chase it. At first they
wouldn't even touch it since they thought they might get in trouble if they
did. Then one of them picked it up and didn't get in trouble, so then they
would pick it up and hand it to us.... by the end one of them tried to throw
it back to us. The kids would just get closer and closer, excited that they
could watch people playing a game like this and wishing they could be part
of it. They are also impressed because Danny and Max are older than the rest
of them. This particular orphanage is for kids that aren't going to school
and Max and Danny were just moved here so we could visit them (they were
pulled out of school so we could visit them 4 hours a day). It is funny
watching the little kids though, they are always trying to imitate what they
see others do, but have very little guidance that normal kids get. We once
saw one of the older ones trying to get 2 others to swing the jump rope for
her. She wasn't old enough to be able to jump anyway, but that made little
difference because the rope was too short, and the two kids swinging it
weren't figuring it out yet. They were moving there hands in small circles,
in opposite directions... It is one of the few times here that we really
wished we had a video camera with us.

Anyhow, Danny had managed to get a ball, he and Kristi were kicking it back
and forth. Max decided he wanted to do that too, and the crowd kept getting
thicker. We decided to move to a different area. Matt noticed that it
appeared that Danny had traded another kid something earlier for the ball,
and now the other kid wanted his ball back. We decided we needed to just buy
a soccer ball to play with, besides, we were using a deflated kick ball. We
played in the new area and they started getting bored. Danny found some
bubble wrap on the ground and excitedly grabbed it and started popping it.
They really liked that (cheap Christmas idea? ;-). Max then realized that
he got his new boots dirty walking through the wet sand (everything here is
sand). They decided to scrape thier boots clean for some reason (these are
the boots we gave them) and spent the next 15 minutes cleaning them. We
never really understood why, since we weren't going inside yet, but it was a
nice day out and we just sat down and watched them. We talked a bit then
too, and Max verified that there was only 6 days till we picked them up for
good. We were impressed with that because we haven't shown him the calendar
we made in at least 2 days, so he is keeping track of this himself. I think
he is totally ready to go. Danny wants to go to America too, but he isn't
sure he wants to leave the orphanage yet (we will have to work on this). I
think he kind of likes being the big fish in a little pond right now. We ask
him if he wants to go to America, he says yes, we ask if he wants to leave
the orphanage, he says no. Fortunately, he will do whatever his brother does
so we know there won't be any complaining ;-)

After lunch we walked to the little market just down the street. While we
were there we saw someone using the first chainsaw we have seen since we got
here! For those of you wondering why we point that out, you don't know some
of Matts friends... Anyhow, this was an antique chainsaw, unlike any Matt
had seen before. It had a handlebar like a bicycle and the small tank
mounted on that, and a small motor that hung underneath it. It was not very
powerful, but very heavy. I guess it did beat using the 2 man saw we have
seen people using so often here.

At the market we stopped to ask how much for the soccer ball they have
hanging. It was only $7 for a hand sewn, regulation size/weight ball. We
couldn't say no to that.

When we headed back to the orphanage that afternoon the boys were very
excited about thier new ball. We played with it for a while till it started
getting dark, but had a few issues with the boys getting frusterated when
they didn't get the ball often enough. We weren't able to comunicate well
that they didn't need to whine just because the ball didn't go to them
exactly as many times as the other, eventually we will get that through to
them.

We went inside and somehow had a role reversal of the boys. We were
completely amazed. Danny sat down and started coloring. He continued for 45
minutes, every time he would finish one he would go to another. Max on the
other hand was hyper, and would bounce around the room, looking for things
to do. Kristi got to him to settle down and work on math, but he couldn't
focus on that and was getting even simple problems wrong. We aren't really
sure what caused the role reversal, but we aren't surprised that Max can get
wound up... we are very happy that danny can calmly focus for that long,
even while his brother is running around.

A pretty slow day today. Matt isn't feeling good so he just stayed at the
clinic (a comforting place to be when you are sick ;-) and Kristi went and
visited the boys in the afternoon. She played outside with them most of the
time and visited with an Italian couple who is here while our boys played
with thier boy.

Since we weren't up to going anywhere, we worked our way through a few more
movies... not much else to do when you aren't feeling well. Matt is feeling
a bit better by this evening so he should be back and ready for a big blog
entry tomorrow.

Nothing else new going on here, with the exception that we are excited that
a week from tomorrow morning we get to take custody of the boys!

Our weather has improved and we were up onto the mid 50s today with bright
sun and a very light breeze. It was realy nice outside. Unfortunately, due
to uncontrolled circumstances, we didn't get to go outside with the boys
today.

This morning we worked on some more educational games and Max spent a lot of
time working on reading english. He is going to be able to read english
words before he speaks much english at this rate! He also spent a lot of
time with his math workbook again. We have realized why the math workbooks
are so cheap, apparently they didn't hire anyone to PROOF them. It doesn't
seem like it would be all that hard to find someone who can double check the
answers for a 2nd grade math book, but apparently they couldn't. Imagine the
reprocussions of all these children using these defective math books. All
the future engineers who were taught the very basics wrong... I guess we
finally have found the explaination for the Lada!

In the afternoon we hit the Market again. It was really buzzing with people
today. We found more Christmas gifts, but couldn't find the books that Max
wanted. He wrote his "list" down for us and Kristi gave up trying to explain
it to the lady so she just gave her the list. She read it and laughed
because it said (in russian) "Mama needs to buy .....". That lady in the
book store has to have figured out why we are here because she knows we
speak little russian, we keep buying english learning books, and our kids
write our shopping lists for us in russian. Unfortunately, she didn't have
want we wanted anyway.

We get a kick out of shopping in the market. People don't recognize us as
not being from the area, even when we ask basic questions (although we often
don't understand the responses). Most of the time we pull it off when we can
just point to something, say in russian "how much is it" and then give them
money. However, as soon as we need to ask for something we can't see, or
deal with sizes our cover is blown. They quickly realize that we are not
fluent speakers and usually start with a Really Big Sigh.... then try to use
more basic words, or point to things. Most of them do it with a smile on
thier face though. There aren't many tourists around here so they really
don't expect non russian speakers. One lady today asked us if we were
German, we missunderstood her word for german (deutch) as the russian word
for daughter (doech). We were lost as to her question, then she said
"sproykenzy deutch?" and we figured out that she thought we were german. We
said no, "Americanski" and she told us she didn't speak any English and just
a little german, gave us our items with a smile, and we headed on. Kristi
was even able to bargain with another lady, although it wasn't intentional.
She quoted us a price and Kristi repeated it (as we often do to make sure we
understood) and she then changed it down one Hrivna. We were pretty excited
because that saved us 20 cents! If we can do that about 20 more times that
will buy us a big mac!

In the afternoon we headed back to the orphanage. Because one of the inside
doors is somewhat broken and doesn't stay shut they have recently started
locking it. We couldn't get in, and knocked but no one answered. We thought
we heard someone in there but no kids, so we went to our 10x10 room
(immediately adjacent to it), sat down and waited. About 25 minutes later we
heard the group come back. They had been in music class (we heard them
singing, but didn't know it was them, and wouldn't have intrupted them if we
did know). They came back and started pounding on the door to have it
unlocked. The teacher pounded and hollared for 10 minutes with all the kids
waiting in the hallway before someone came and opened it. I was glad to see
we weren't the only one they ignored.

Because it took so long to see the boys we stayed inside (it was dark
already). We played a lot of fairly calm games, and had a good time. To our
utter amazement, Danny has started listening to us when we say "NO". We were
told upfront that he liked to do things he wasn't supposed to do, and he has
pretty much proven them right, smiling and repeating what every you tell him
not to do. Today though everytime he started doing something and we said no,
he would stop and do something else. We were very excited about this
improvement and hope it continues (we really didn't expect much improvement
until they spoke more english). Kristi also gave Max a warning about
something, he didn't listen right away and she started a countdown "1....
2....". He knew exactly what that meant and quit immediately. Funny how some
things are really universal (like bunny ears in pictures).

Only 9 more days until we can get the kids out of the orphanage and start
making our way home!

In the spirit of black friday we did a little shopping today. We bought some
soda, cheese, salomi, and deserts. OK, we just went grocery shopping but it
was raining, so we were pretty limited.

Our weather here has taken a turn for the better, kind of. It is now in the
50s and will stay there for a while but it rained most of last night and
today, and is suposed to continue off and on raining for a while. I don't
really want rain, but it is WAY better than snow! Of course, since it was
raining we spent the entire 4 hours with the boys inside today. Inside a
10x10 room. Yuk

We brought the computer back to show the boys again this morning. This time
we let them play with it one at a time and type in word and draw in paint.
Since we only have a touchpad mouse it was a little challenging for them at
first, but they are catching on quickly and both really enjoyed it. The only
problem is that when one was using it, the other one had a hard time
focusing on anything else. I really wish we had some games for them, but
they probably would just get excited and pound on the keyboard.

This afternoon we did some more educational stuff. Max spent about and hour
working on reading English with kristi and his new begining english book and
then spent another half hour doing math problems. He really has the ability
to focus on mental activities for a long time, even with distractions around
(like Danny doing flips in front of him). If you haven't figured out yet,
danny isn't as interested in focusing for that long. We have discovered that
he is very willing to work for rewards though. We made some "Connect the
Dots" games for them and he Really liked them (plus it helps with number
recognition). We could tell him that he had to do one of his worksheets
first and he would gladly do the worksheet so he could do the puzzle
afterwards. Thats good to know, because otherwise it is hard to get him to
do things that he doesn't percieve as fun, and we don't want to have to
force him, or it Really won't be fun.

Matt managed to get Danny really wound up (maybe telling him to do flips in
the 10x10 room WASNT a good idea). Eventually the game of "catch me and
tickle me" was more than Max could resist and he decided to stop "school"
and play that. Then Matt managed to get them both really wound up. We were
approaching time to leave and thought we should settle them down a little
bit first so kristi said "do you want to color or do puzzles"? They both
said "color" and that was it! They started coloring and settled down really
fast. I guess they work well with a limited set of choices. We will have to
remember that for the future (and hope it works more than once).

This morning didn't seem to start out so well. We got a call saying our
Driver had to go to the dentist, and it was to cold to walk, so we couldn't
go visit the boys in the morning. Instead we slept in and started watching
the lord of the rings, two towers movie. About 11 we peaked our head out of
the room and they had started cooking lunch. Today the American Missionary
that is here was cooking a big Thanksgiving Feast! We helped her finish
preparing, and to our delight had an American thanksgiving meal in Ukraine.

Lunch included turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green been cassorole, an
american style salad, crackers and dip, pumpkin bread and bars! Either this
lady is a fanstastic cook or we are missing american food more than we
thought. We are guessing it is both. We had a great meal with about 20 other
people who work here at the clinic. 4 other people spoke good english, many
others spoke broken english. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we helped clean
up because we had nothing better to do, besides, we were helping the
american missionary so we got to talk to someone who's native language was
english! We had a really good time and learned a lot about the clinic, the
church here, some history, and things she has learned about ukraine. We even
found out what store in this town sells peanut butter! To add a little
icing to the cake, she said that Matt was free to play the guitar that is
here, so now he can entertain himself in the evenings with a piano and
guitar.

After our big meal with our newfound friends, we headed out to see the boys.
They also were in a good mood today and we played frisbee outside for a
while, then came inside and kristi spread out all of our language cards
(cards with pictures of things and thier English and russian names on them,
plus pronouciations of the english words) on the ground and would ask "where
is the ___?" They did really well with that game and it went a long time.
Afterwards we did a few other language games and Matt gave them some
chocolate. They liked it almost as much as bananas ;-)

All in all, our expected boring day ended up being one of the best days we
have had here in Ukraine, now THAT is something to be thankful for.

PS, sorry this blog entry is short, but Matt has a guitar to go play ;-)


PPS, Please pray for Matts mom, who is currently having some health issues.

I would like to wish Everyone a Happy Thanksgiving (since many won't be
reading this tomorrow). You have a lot to be thankful for when you consider
the situation of all the kids in the orphanages.

A few days ago we were cruisin in the Lada and Kristi saw a playground off
the road a ways. She told Matt that she thought it looked more like a dog
Agility park (where the dogs compete in running through obstical courses and
jumping). We both decided she was crazy because no one here can afford to
put time into a hobby like that, although from a distance it sure looked
like agility equipment. Today we drove by and to our utter surprise there
was a handful of people there with thier DOGS! It WAS an agility park! If we
knew when people were normally there we would go watch, but it normally
seems to be vacant. Who would have known that people did that in this small
town too.

Today we brought the computer with to show the boys pictures and music. It
seemed like a good idea, but while they were REALLY excited that we brought
a computer, they really wanted to push the buttons more than look at
pictures. We put on some music (russian kids songs) and that held thier
attention for a long time, but they had a hard time resisting pushing all
the keys. Eventually they quit listening so we just put it away. They did
manage to look at pics and listen to music for about 45 minutes though, so
that was nice. We will bring it back again tomorrow and let them play with
notepad and paint a little bit. Unfortunately, we don't have any games on it
that they can play so they are going to be pretty dissapointed in that. We
may have to try to find something, but maybe not. It may just get used as a
music/movie machine.

Yesterday Max had given us a shopping list of things that he needed to learn
more. He wanted (for each of them) a Math book, Spelling book, red, blue,
green and black pens and notepads to write in. We walked to the market today
to see what we could find. We were able to easily find the pens and
notebooks, but it took as a while to find the work books. Eventually we hit
the jackpot and found Math workbooks for both of them, plus the next level
up for Max since he may finish the one he has fairly fast. We also found 2
english learning books each about the right level for each boy, and a really
good hardcover English learning book. We bought a scissors too and the total
bill was only about $8. Now that we know the materials are that cheap we may
go back and buy some more.

We also picked up a cheap frisbee (40 cents) and played with that right away
when we went to visit the boys. That went over really well, expecially
because it was non-competative and the goal is to throw it so others can
catch it. I think we played with it for about 1/2 hour before they started
getting tired of it. Danny would get a little board waiting for his turn and
would do flips while waiting. He would do one after another in quick
succession. At one point he did 20 in a row, pausing occationally to get his
balance.

We headed inside and gave them thier new learning matterials. They both were
REALLY happy and thanked us profusely for the gifts, although Max was really
excited about what he got, and Danny was just excited that he got Stuff, and
wasn't as excited about actually learning. They both worked on the Math
books and a little in the English workbooks. They also wrote thier names on
the notebooks. Hopefully thier excitement will continue and they will want
to keep working on it. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Max makes a lot
of progress when we aren't there because he really misses school (they
pulled them out to be with us more so he could adjust to us and learn more
English)

We had a blog comment asking if we would raise them Christian and thier
current religious background that I thought was worthy of addressing in the
blog. They will definately be raised Christian. Ukraine has a strong
Christian background and is prodominent Russian Orthodox (similar to the
Catholic religion that people in america are familiar with). We do not have
records of if they were babtized (we did with the girls) so we will have
them babtized sometime after we return.

Thats about all for today, have a Great Thanksgiving and eat an extra
helping for us (not because we will be missing the food but because when you
tell your family that you are eating the extra food for matt and kristi,
then we aren't the only ones people will be saying are crazy ;-)

We had a lot of writing to do today, so we recommend you go get a cup of
coffee (or in lees case, Dr Pepper), make some popcorn and get comfortable
for....

... Todays edition of the Ukrianian peoples court...

The names and some details have been changed to protect the innocent.

Dah dah ... dah..

[insert typing noise here]

Plantiff: Unsure that these crazy americans are fit for handling 2 young
mischievous boys.

Defendants: Unsure that they themselves are fit for handling 2 young
mischievous boys but still want to try - proving that they really are crazy,
not disputing the fact that they are americans.

And now, the honorable Judge Al W. Asguilty is presiding in the case of-

"The adoption process that never ends"
.
Dah dah ... Dah...
.
.
.
[Judge] I now call the court to session and apologise for my poor Ukrainian
(we didn't make that part up). Does everyone here trust the court and the
jury, if not say so now

[Mack & Krisi] Yes

[Judge] I have some questions then, Why did you decide to adopt in ukraine,
are you aware of the health conditions of the kids, and are you aware of the
results of adopting these kids?

[Krisi nudges Mack in the ribs to make him answer]

[Mack] Uhhh.... um, we came to Ukraine because it is similar to the culture
and climate that we live in, and we felt that ukrainian laws and people
cared more about the children than other countries we looked at.

[Judge and Jurors smile and nod]

[Mack] We are also aware of the minor health issues with the boys and have
no problems with them

[Judge and Jurors smile and nod again]

[Mack looks awkwardly at krisi and olga cause he forgot the third question
already]

[Mack] Oh, and we are well aware of the reprocussions of the adoption and
the severity of the sentence... err... um, permanency of the adoption, yah..
permanancy.

[Judge] Thank you, And where do you work?

[Mack] I am a software engineer for Microsox

[Juror #2 throws a stuffed Penquin at Mack for some unknown reason]

[Krisi] I work for SEI at the Support center

[Judge] the FBI has a Sports Center?

[Krisi] No, SEI

[Juror #1] MCI?

[Krisi, giving up] Yah, sure... whatever

[Judge] Inspector, Director, Lawyer dude, Is this Adoption in the best
interest of the children (not making this up either, except for the dude
part)

[Everyone] Yes (we weren't sure if we were supposed to chime in here, but
why not?)

[Judge] Ok, I declare this adoption Finallized, and my decree will become
valid after the mandatory 10 day wait of pain and torture. Congratulation
on your 2 new sons.

[Everyone except Mack and Krisi] Congratulations

[Juror #1] There were 2 kids?

[Everyone exits stage left, Matt and Kristi (oops we gave away thier real
names) stand in the hallway waiting for the annoying guy from peoples court
to come inteview them, but he never showed up]


We now return to our regularly scheduled blog in progress...

nd then we decided that since we were done with court we would go do some
shopping for clothes for the boys. We went to the market, which is
apparently the best place to buy stuff. Think of it like a very big flee
market, but with a walmarts amount of things, all packaged into individual
6x6 stalls, outside, with no prices on anything and everything organized in
a completely random fashion.

We first needed to exchange some money. Our driver, Katya, who has now been
uprgraded to "assistant facilitator in training" due to all of the help she
has given us, brought us into the market to show us someone who could give
us a better rate. We scurried around the maze looking for our cheese...
err.. money changer dude. She found him standing off in a dark corner of the
market. He was a tall guy wearing all black, and a black stocking cap. Katya
walked up to him and said a few things, I am not sure but I think it was a
secret password, something about an eagle landing... anyhow. He stepped back
farther into the maze and pulled out his money pack. He started pulling out
bills. It felt more like a drug deal than a money exchange (usually we do it
in a bank - not drug deals, but money exchanges). The vender we were in
front of tried to shoo us away because we were scaring of customers. Katya
said something back and we finished the exchange. Now we had the money, we
just needed to find the goods...

We started following Katya around the market. For a short heavyset lady she
sure does move fast. She would bring us to booths she liked, we would point
at stuff we liked and she would look at them and verify that the quality was
up to her standards. Then she would ask how much and when they told her she
would immediatly put in a counter offer, which they always seemed to accept
(sometimes grudgingly). We would grab our goods and head off to find the
next booth. To get an idea how unorganized the maze was, at one point of
time we lost her and couldn't find her. We finally gave up and called her.
She was about 20 feet away working on a deal for a few pairs of underwear
for the boys. By the time we were done all our hands were full of bags and
our pockets were empty. We were all freezing. They really need to reconsider
the "outdoor" market theory in the winter. We had purchased boots, jackets,
hats, jeans, shirts, sweaters, socks, underwear and backpacks. We headed
back to the Clinic to have lunch and organize our booty.

We went through everything and divided it up for each boy and stuffed
everything in their backpacks. We were a little concerned about them wanting
each others stuff instead of what we packed for them. We got there and they
were already outside playing. Kristi went and got them and they happily came
closer until they saw Mack... errr... Matt was loaded down with stuff. They
came running over to find out what he had. He handed them each a backpack
and told them to head inside. We brought our translator with to help us tell
them that we just wanted them to try everything on, but we would have to
keep the clothes with us until we picked them up. We did let them keep their
boots and Hats. They started digging through thier backpacks and were very
excited about thier new clothes (even the underwear). They tried on the
sweaters and pants and everything fit, although was slightly big, exactly
what we were hoping for. Danny was so excited he kept his on the entire time
we were playing inside. He was wearing 2 shirts, a sweater, a heavy jacket,
stocking cap, tights, shorts, insulated jeans and heavy socks in a 60 degree
room. He was sweating like crazy, but was so excited about everything he
refused to take his new clothes off and we just let him go.

We pulled out our new worksheets we did and Max really liked them. He spent
a lot of time working with the english alphabet and made a lot of progress.
Danny did some also but had a hard time focusing he was so excited about his
new stuff. By the time we left Max told us that he wanted to get work books
so he could start doing more school work. We will see what we can find in
town tomorrow. Its a really good sign when he is begging for homework ;-)

Before we left they tried to do a little negotiating to keep the jackets.
They showed us how bad the ones that they had were, and how they really
needed the new ones. We wanted to leave them, but unfortuantely if they did
they would be completely dirty by the time we picked them up and we would
have no way to wash them. We decided to wait.

The bad news today was that the court decree does not become finallized
until the 11th day. weekends are included, but the 11th day has to be a
business day, so we happend to get the worst posible timing and will have to
wait till monday to pick up the boys instead of saturday. One more delay in
the long list. Argg... The good news is that when the director gets back in
Olya will call her and we can start taking the boys out of the orphanage for
our visits. Then we can go for walks, or go shopping, do something other
than the playground and sitting in the little room.

We went to our first court appointment today. I can describe it in one word.
COLD. They had no heat in the entire building, and we had been running
around town in a cold lada for the previous 2 hours so we were cold when we
got there. Once we arrived we had to wait for about 1/2 hour for the 2 jury
members to arrive. Lucky for us the male jury member has long hair, so we
know they won't prejudge us about Matt ;-) Once everyone arrived we went in
and they said that this was the preliminary hearing, asked if the papers
were all submitted and submitted properly and asked when we would have the
next court appointment. It was literally over in 5 minutes and we go back
tomorrow at 9 for the main event. In that one they will ask us questions and
do thier little interview, we aren't too worried because we have gotten used
to answering questions, and answering both sides of the questions. Every
time we are in the NAC they say why won't you take older or sick kids, and
when we are in the region they say why do you want older or sick kids. We
will be very happy to be done with tomorrows court and don't anticipate any
problems.

Afterwards we went to pick up the boys to get thier photos taken. We were a
little late getting there and they were gone! Apparenlty thier group had
gone for a walk or something, but we couldn't find them so we just went back
to the clinic and waited for the afternoon appointment.

In the afternoon we headed back to pick them up for thier passport pictures.
The orphanage director wasn't in, but the deputy director was and said that
we could take the boys for pictures, but she had to come with. That was ok,
but that meant there would be seven us in a car the size of an escort. We
all fit, but in order to do it we had to put on red ball noses, red wigs,
paint our faces white with big red smiles... you get the picture. We aren't
sure why she thought she had to go with, apparently they think we are going
to steal them. Funny because before they thought we were going to reject
them, now they think we are going to steal them. We just can't win. The boys
were very excited about getting to go somewhere. The sat perfectly still in
the car (which we have never seen them to before) and were mesmerized by all
the things to see as we drove down the road. We got to the photo shop and
thier hair was messy because they were wearing thier stocking caps. They had
to bring danny to a room to wet his down (not sure if it really looked
better when she was done). The boys were wearing different jackets today,
and apparently Max did NOT like his because he wanted to be very careful not
to be wearing it in the picture (they don't wear jackets in passport photos,
but he wanted to make sure of it). We then all climbed into the clown car
and headed back to the orphanage. The boys again were silent. I wonder how
close we will get to home before that awe wears off.

We went in the little dark room to play for the remaining 1.5 hours. The
boys seemed to be disappointed that the adventure was over and we were back
to the same routine already. We also didn't think it would happen that fast
so we didn't bring the new worksheets with us that we had done. Oh well. We
played and colored for a while and then about a half hour before we were
going to leave the power went out and stayed out. Fortunately we carry a
small LED flashlight with us so we just pulled that out and everyone colored
by the flashlight. Eventually the group leader came in and offered us a
candle, and was surprised to see that we already had light. She left the
candle anyway, and set it on top of the fire extinguisher. That way if it
did start a fire the extinguisher would already be engulfed in flames and we
wouldn't be able to use it. It is obviously that OSHA isn't here. Eventually
they got tired of coloring and took turns holding the flashlight for the
other to color. Danny was pretty careful to hold it still and Max would
hollar every time he moved it, then when max was holding it he wasn't nearly
as careful as he made Danny be... Fortunately by the time everyone started
getting ansy it was time to go, so we headed out. Max REALLY wanted to carry
the candle back, and it probably would have been ok except it was pretty
short, and we didn't want to let him and then find out we weren't supposed
to so we said no. He wasn't very happy about that. He will have plenty of
time to play with fire when we get home and he gets to take the garbage out
(and burn it). ;-)

We had some issues connecting to the internet yesterday so no update.
Instead we started watching the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy since it is
really long and will be a good time killer. Maybe this time it will make
sense ;-)

The last 2 days have went well. We have started bringing blank paper with us
so they can color, make airplanes, etc. That seems to work most of the time
(better than we expected). We were not able to do the afternoon visit on
sunday because our driver was busy going to get our translator. It will be
nice to have our translator back though. Tomorrow morning we won't be able
to visit because we have our first court appearence. We aren't exactly sure
what happens in court, but we will get more details from our translator. We
know that they ask us a few questions and review the paperwork. For some
reason in this region we have 2 days of court so we have to go back on
tuesday also. Hopefully they will both go smoothly and be relatively
painless. We don't expect any problems at this point.

We finally got our first snow here! it just snowed a little last night and
all melted this morning, but it was the first snow. We are hoping that it is
our last snow also (in Ukraine). It was too cold to walk today so we have
been spending time trying to put together projects for the boys to do. We
have made a lot of worksheets working with English letters and the alphabet.
We are confident that Max will like them, and hope that danny will also.
Unfortunately, it takes us more time to put them together than it will for
them to do them.

First of all, I would like to give a big thanks to my MOM for loading the
new pics on the blog since we were not able to do it here. So if you haven't
seen already they are hidden descretely in the folder called "the boys". Now
we have a method of getting new pictures on the blog, it isn't all that
easy, or at all convienient, but it works.

No big news today. We played with the boys again this morning, then in the
afternoon went for a long walk and ran accross the big market in town (took
us nearly an hour to walk there). We then bought gloves for the boys (thier
hands keep getting cold) and another puzzle. Danny seems to be getting
restless and bored in our playtimes, but that isn't a surprise as we are
too. We have spent a lot of time playing with all the toys we brought, and
are having a hard time finding other toys or games that will work that we
can bring with us. We have determined that we are going to have to get more
creative to get through the next 2 weeks of visitations. We don't have a lot
of materials for "projects" but there has to be things that we can do. One
that we are going to try tomorrow is making paper airplanes and coloring
them. That should be fun, easy to communicate and something we can do in a
small room (and bring outside to throw later). If anyone has other good game
ideas, please email us.

Matt has started up a new hobby here. He has started looking for examples of
interesting construction techinques to take pictures of. You know that old
beetles song that goes "you can't always get what you want, but if you try
sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need"? Well, apparently
that is the motto of the local construction companies. It is facinationg how
things are made here. There are definately examples of nicely built and well
funded buildings, but they are the minority. There are countless examples of
interesting ways of making do when you don't have the right materials. For
instance, a few days a go we saw some people moving some scafolding in front
of a buisiness. The scafolding had to be about 25 feet high, and was made
entirely out of logs and tree branchs. Every piece of wood still had bark on
it! They were having a hard time moving it without it colapsing, but once
they got it moved they climbed right up there. Wood construction isn't
terribly popular here, and most buildings are made of brick.What brick?
Whatever brick they have, and they may not have the same kind of brick
throughout a project. you will see buildings that start with one, then
switch to another (not in a nice neat layered way, but in a sloppy makeshift
way). There are a lot of cases of cement block buildings where the cement
blocks apparently came from the demolition of another structure. It sounds
weird but just wait till you see my pictures.

It is also interesting because we are starting to get the feel of what it
would be like to be missionaries. Granted, we aren't doing the work, but we
are living in a place that is a Mission, and is set up to house short term
missionaries to come and help, and we are living in an area that really
needs help, and are living in a totally different culture away from friends
and family. I always thought that doing something that long term (for more
than a few weeks) would be something that would be really hard and that I
could not handle. Actually, it probably wouldn't be all that bad. We are
starting to get used to being here, apparently that happens after about 5
weeks. And it isn't great being away from friends and family, but we keep in
touch with a lot of people better when we are here than we did when we were
home (those with internet access at least). I do really have a lot of
respect for people who have devoted thier lives (or any part of thier lives)
to doing mission work, it is easy to see here that the work they are doing
is very worth while.