Last night we had a night we had a nice evening out as a family at the Shato and our friend Peter C. joined us. See our "Free Advertising" page we are creating.

Today we went to the Lavra with our children, Natasha, and a guide, Vladimir. We do not have his photo here.

The Lavra, an 1100AD sacred burial ground, and current living home for many monks. The religious community is home to more than 28 orthodox churches, and today we saw at least 2 weddings. It was very interesting to see early christian founders buried in the modernized caves. Many people come here to kiss their mummified grave sites, and to pray. We purchased a DVD that is in Russian & English to help us better understand what we saw today and to remember this time with our children.

Natasha accompanied us to the Famine Museum and the Lavra. The Famine Museum is shown with Katya & Sophia and birds above. Very interesting & sobering. We hope to visit this again to obtain a book describing this history in Ukrainian.

At the Lavra, there was a statue with 3000+ eggs. And after the Lavra, we went to a Micro Miniature museum, just as we were leaving the artist from the micro miniatures appeared, and gave us his signature, and a photo! It was a wonderful moment for us. Some of his beautiful, exquisite art is, YES, placed on the head of a pin or in the eye of a needle!


After all the excursions, Natasha & Sophia, Katya, and Daddy, all slept in the car!

It is raining and we are just resting at home after the nice outing. We are doing well. Jonathan continues to need a little encouragement and structure. Thanks for your prayers. We are watching the news, literally around the world, and feel very globally connected, to the Russian adoptions, the volcano in Iceland cancelling flights, the earthquake in China, Alesia's brother visiting Korea, the Moscow subway bombings, and the crash of the Polish leadership. We find it all sobering as we are here in Ukraine. We are so grateful for our health and safety.

Love, Alesia & Chris.