Last Monday & Tuesday

We had a nice outing at the Hydropark Metro stop, at a beach on the Dnipro river. The water was cold, but the sun was warm, and the sand was beautiful. The kids stayed with me overnight and we had a nice time. We will spend a lot of time here when we are not running around for adoption things next week. It's probably the best place to let kids run around, and have fun "outside" of the city so to speak.

At Hydropark, we met Katya's friend Toma. She also took us to the Little Kiev Museum.

The next day we met another friend of Katya's at an amusement park. That was interesting, as Katya told me they lived near here, and set it all up, however, they lived an hour away. I would have rather met them where they lived, as the amusement park becomes a "begging" park, and frustrating after awhile.

This blog was from last Monday & Tuesday. Love from Alesia & Chris

Hello on Wednesday,

Dandy Lion Crowns...

Chris and Jonathan will be leaving on Friday. We do not know when we the rest of us will be coming back..maybe the 17th, or the 19th. I will be spending a lot of time with the kids at the beach to keep them out of the big city trouble, and to keep us from spending too much trouble. We all move in together on May 7th here in our apartment.

Tomorrow we are having a good-bye party for the kids, so should be a busy day.

Thanks for your prayers. My camera is acting up, so when I get it figured out, I'll send more pictures.

Love from Chris & Alesia

Sunday...

Our first outing to McDonalds. Andri got the "Heppy" meal. Later we almost "lost our lunch" on the ride below that they talked me into! Afterwards the kids watched a woman make the cotton candy, and had fun eating it. See the rest of the day below. We picked the kids up a little after 10am, and dropped them off at 6:30pm.

We did church today at "Hillsong" http://www.hillsong.com/.

It was fun for the kids and Chris, and a little loud and showy for me. But it had a lot of young people on fire for our Lord, which is great. It was also 2.5 hours from start to when we left! Jonathan did Sunday School in Russian with Natasha & Andri, and he was given an interpreter which helped.

They will have a woman's conference this week that Katya and I would love to go to, with English Speakers, and Russian interpretation, however it's just too hard with Chris traveling, and then we might need to run around on Wednesday, applying for passports, and such.

After church we took the kids to our first McDonald's trip, and that was fun after a lot of walking, bus & metro rides. Then we went to our little church up the hill (the exact opposite type of Hillsong!). But after church they always have coffee, tea and juice, cake and cookies. Jonathan played his 50 year old friend "Sergey" in Chess, and the kids talked with other Russian children there who had "English" parents as well. If we are unable to return on the 7th, we were invited to their "farm" so we will see. It's all one day at a time now.

There is a "slight", very "slight" chance we could get our tax ID numbers on Wed, and then apply for passports, then get physicals..then get the exit visas (all by May 7)...so it's all very tight and will literally take a miracle, as Monday & Tuesday are holidays here. Keep praying!

After all the churches, we decided to stop at that amusement park one more time, and do 1 ride, and get cotton candy before returning back to their home. I took Andri shopping today, as I had the other children one on one. He picked a toy like lego's and decided to let me take it home to Kiev so he could play with it tomorrow. It took him a little while to decide, whether to share it an leave it at the orphanage, or keep it in Kiev.

Jonathan, has a big tooth pushing out his other tooth, and it is painful. He already lost a tooth last month, and you know about his chipped teeth. I am afraid his tooth today that is hurting him is infected, as he is feeling cold, etc. Keep him in your prayers please. We were able to get him to take a pain killer, not an easy task for any of my children.

We are doing well with the kids, having fun, trying not to spend too much money. Tomorrow Chris leaves for Germany for 2 days, so I am having all the kids stay here in our Kiev apartment. If the nice weather holds out, we want to go to the beach tomorrow and have the kids play in the sand, and just relax for a couple hours. It's a new place for the kids and I on the metro, so it should be interesting to see if we can figure things out!

THANKS for all your prayers! We look forward to His care in our lives this week! Love Alesia & Chris

Friday & Saturday...

Friday, Alesia picked the kids up and brought to Kiev city to see our apartment. They had fun looking around, making "Chai" (we had all sorts of nummies), doing the dishes, painting nails, doing make-up, and yes, playing (or fighting over the computer). When they come next time, there will be more of a schedule, and the computer is after baths only! Jonathan had the hardest time sharing it, as he has had it each day by himself!

Saturday, we had a wonderful day first at a bar-b-que for all the children, with soccer for Jonathan so he was happy! He loves the kids here and if you have any questions about the boys, he will love to answer them! They had a spread of food for the kids, and they ate with long wooden skewers. It was great fun for me to watch them. Sergey, our driver, was the hot dog cook. I hope to add more photos later.
After the bar-b-que, we took our children to a small town amusement park, and did some rides, paddle boat, and looked at the go carts, but they were for 10 & up, so Chris said there was a different place we can go tomorrow. They did do the ferris wheel, bumper cars, and and a couple other rides. It was hard to say good-bye to the rides, but we were able to.

After all day outside, I crashed while Chris went to the local Productee (tiny 7-11 without the slushies, etc), Jonathan played chess online.

Tomorrow, we are going to a new church. We met Katya's friend at the picnic, and she invited us. Also, there is a Woman's conference this week at this church. Katya & I would like to go to, but not sure how to work it out..we'll see. Speakers are in English, translated to Russian!

Love from Alesia & Chris