Some visits, some papers, some shopping!

Pour some sugar on me. . .

Actually, please don't because the mosquitoes seem to like me enough as it is :/ But now I bet that song stays in your head! Okay, I have only gotten two mosquito bites but these buggers are on steroids-you could see the swelling on my foot and elbow and all the cortisone in the world didn't help because I am a big baby!

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, I'm just distracted by bugs :)

We had a good visit with Baby Brother yesterday and today.  Yesterday we were outside in one of their little dachas-a small play house.  There are several of them as well as swing sets, slides, playful murals, and riding toys-I need to ask if I'm allowed to post pictures of the orphanage, but basically my girls are in heaven!  We lay out a blanket for him to play on in the dacha and yesterday both girls performed dance shows for him-to songs on Bard's iPhone-but I'm not sure he fully appreciated the artistic element of their performance.  Either that or he was bored through his first of many dance shows ;)

Yesterday we visited in the afternoon and he was noticeably tired-as were my American children :/  So, I think we'll stick to morning visits.  Today we went in the morning and he seemed more awake, played with his  little silkie giraffe and Ukrainian train book that we brought for him.  We were able to talk to the Director a bit too because we spent the hour in the visitation room which is next to her office.  She is very nice and excited for us to adopt him.  I had brought a photo album for her of our family back home, house, some events, and she really enjoyed them, especially our cat, she loves cats!

Kyiv National Portrait Gallery-the girls absolutely loved this mural!

So does Cici and in fact talks about our cat every day!  Sorry Grandpa, she asks about the cat more than she does you ;)  So how long til Cici is reunited with her own koshka?  Our team is taking care of some more paperwork for us this week (I swear, don't bother recycling, our adoption alone has destroyed the rainforest!) Hopefully it is completed so that we can file for a court date.  Someone on facebook was posting averages of how many days people were waiting for a court date.  Not sure if there was a good average because it ranged from 6 to 42 days!  We are hoping for 6, thinking about 2 weeks. Pray!

After resting for a bit today we went out to shop and sight see.  There is a great shopping district on old cobblestone roads that go down a hill-lined with street vendors. I do not know how I will bring back all the art I need to buy...need to!  Bard and I saw several cool pieces that we will be back for :)  We bought the girls little Ukrainian flower head bands-sorry, will add pictures tomorrow-and went to a very famous chocolate shop which has hand made chocolates from the city of Lviv as well as a café that serves melted chocolate and other desserts.  We may or may not have bought some of you gifts there which is so adorable of me since we all know I will eat them and have to go back for more, the day we fly out!

Oh, which ones do I have, cheap or gourmet?!

Speaking of chocolate-the president here is referred to as the chocolate king, or Willy Wonka, since he owns a huge chocolate factory. We bought some of his candy yesterday, and little oreo type cookies.  Yep, they are almost gone too!  But they are much cheaper than the gourmet shop, so maybe that's what I'll bring back for you-since you would never know which is which ;)

All in all, a good few days, hoping for positive news and moving forward soon!  And, I realized that I haven't blogged about one of the most important parts of this journey-the people here.  We've already met and been helped by many wonderful new friends-including the brother of my dad's bookkeeper who drove us to the orphanage today!  I'll share all about them and post pictures tomorrow.

Dazavtra-until tomorrow!