Ok, before I post a single thing today I have to ask, has anyone viewed my new profile picture full size? It is stinking hilarious. So stop right now and go take a look. . . . . . . . . I am waiting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ok wasn't that funny? Now first of all, thanks to you all so much for commenting on the tattoo needle. I am sure I wasn't the least bit worried about it, but now you have given me something new to worry about. Thank you so much. Also, Laurel you ask about the warm Pepsi. Most of the restaurants we have gone to have just given us a liter and let us fill our own glasses, but all of the places with the exception of one have served it cold from a refridgerator, but no ice. We do have ice in our apartment. M's freezer has a built in ice tray thingy and we fill it a couple of times a day with bottled water. Therefore, here in the apartment we are doing with out nothing except a dryer. Thank you everyone for your kind comments about my blog. I certainly love reading them.
So on to today. . . .
Up EARLY to meet M and the Vital statistics director at 8:30. We sat downstairs for about a 1/2 hour and they came around 9 am. They had already done the birth certificate so we didn't have to do anything except ride to Donetsk. I dozed on and off for most of the ride there. It took a little over an hour. We got there and she took us to a little tea and coffee cafe next door to the Regional Statistics office and we got a wonderful cup of tea and a slice of cake. This was about 10:30 am. Whale loved his tea but of course we were someplace new so he had to see the bathroom a couple of times. I wanted to go potty before we paid the whopping $4 bill and left. So I got up and whale wanted to go with me. I told him no, I just wanted to pee all by myself for once. He started throwing a fit, and I mean a monster size one. I heard him and DH outside of the bathroom. I stepped out of my wonderful squat pot and I ask DH, " where is my purse?" he said " Oh I forgot about it on the table" umm hello, digital camera and passports, what is he thinking? ? ? Well, Thank God, I mean literally thank you God for keeping that stuff safe in a place where people pickpocket like crazy. M was walking in the door and ask what the problem was and I told her I just want to pee alone and all hell broke loose. We got out of there quickly and went to sit in M's car. Oh yeah, she did come and get DH once to sign something for the birth certificate and $150 later it was done. We didn't even have to travel to T's birth city to complete it and to us that $150 was worth it. M had to go to the notary and when she got back we took the VS lady to her meeting a little farther away.
We made our way to the passport office and M told us we could wait in the car because she was just going to drop the stuff off so they could start working on it after their lunch hour. This was around 12:30 or so. About 1/2 hour or so later she came down and opened my door and said with all seriousness "Amy, I am sorry, they said you will have to wait 10 days for passport" I thought I was going to burst out crying and she started laughing and said it is no problem I have it right here and she pulled it out and showed us the passport. She said it was the fastest she has ever gotten one done. Well, for quite a hefty little donation the girl worked through her lunch hour to get it done for us, so we were out of there in record time. M called the VS lady and she needed about another hour so we were looking for someplace to eat. We went down to Lenin Square and they were setting up for some huge concert tonight. There was a dance troupe kind of guys that were hip hop dancing to some rap music. They were really good. I thought they were dancing a lot like the people on that TV show "So you think you can dance" DH thought they were break dancing, Duh, how 80's is he? We then walked over to a huge McDonalds and got Lunch. DH says how ironic is it that there is a McDonalds in Lenin Square, I am not a history dork like he is but I think it means something about Communism. LOL! I think these chicken nuggets I had were the best I have ever tasted in my life. Whale got a chicken nugget happy meal and he ate all four of his and two of mine. Pig! I got a caramel sundae, and Whale got a chocolate sundae, YUMMY!! We called the VS lady and she was ready to be picked up and taken back to the first office we went to. While she went in there and did some really quick work, we walked around the corner to a huge department store to look for kids shoes, but walked out empty handed :(
Oh the way home whale fell asleep really quick and I think I dozed for about 10 minutes or so. I know DH had a nice nap because I had to jab him in the ribs when he started snoring. I think that M and the VS lady were laughing at him and talking about him in Russian. Whale slept all the way to our apartment door. The poor baby was exhausted. We came upstairs and I made Fried Chicken legs, Mashed potatoes, and corn for dinner. The funny part is that when the most vital part of the gravy making came the electricity went out for about 3 minutes. The stove is gas though, I tried to keep stirring it so it wouldn't burn but too late. Whale loved the chicken legs, he was chewing on the bone he loved it so much. DH and I thought it tasted to farmy for us. The gravy ended up tasting like horse crap. Now I have never actually eaten real horse crap, but the way this gravy tasted I can only guess it tastes like the stuff we were eating. DH was in cleaning up the dishes (isn't he awesome), whale was taking a bath and I answered a few emails and did a load of laundry. Tonight is the last night as the family we have known for almost 4 years. Tomorrow T will be spending the night with us and I am quite sure she will not sleep, therefore neither will we :0( I feel sorry for all of us tomorrow night, so I would like to request prayers for a smooth transition for her and that she not get too upset or scared. Thanks!!!
The plan for tomorrow is to go to the market and get cake and champange for the caregivers, cookies, bananas and juice for the kids and spring T from her prison she has been in for the last 3 years. I shouldn't say a prison, because it really isn't like that at all, but in a manner of speaking only. She has only known inside that fence of the orphanage grounds for the last 3 years and it is only about 2 acres. Poor thing!
Ok, the electricity went out about 15 minutes ago for a whopping 3 minutes and I lost my whole witty post that I had written. I am now a lot more tired and a lot less witty, sorry! I tried to write what I could remember having written before. I am very ready to leave Ukraine and get home. I suppose there is a chance there is no electricity there either since we have been here longer than we thought :(
Alrighty, I am going to bed. It is getting late and I am just dying to get eaten up by mosquito's tonight. We counted on whales tiny little arms yesterday and he has over 20 combined on his arms only. I am probably rivaling him on that as I easily have 15 or more myself. My legs have a bunch of them though and his legs only have about 5 or 6. We either have to suffocate with the windows closed all the time or get eaten. I have some off, but it doesn't seem to work either, GRRRRRR! Ok really I am going now, Please pray for us these last few days. I hope to blog regularly in Kiev, but who knows what will be happening there. Thanks everyone. Good night.
Ok wasn't that funny? Now first of all, thanks to you all so much for commenting on the tattoo needle. I am sure I wasn't the least bit worried about it, but now you have given me something new to worry about. Thank you so much. Also, Laurel you ask about the warm Pepsi. Most of the restaurants we have gone to have just given us a liter and let us fill our own glasses, but all of the places with the exception of one have served it cold from a refridgerator, but no ice. We do have ice in our apartment. M's freezer has a built in ice tray thingy and we fill it a couple of times a day with bottled water. Therefore, here in the apartment we are doing with out nothing except a dryer. Thank you everyone for your kind comments about my blog. I certainly love reading them.
So on to today. . . .
Up EARLY to meet M and the Vital statistics director at 8:30. We sat downstairs for about a 1/2 hour and they came around 9 am. They had already done the birth certificate so we didn't have to do anything except ride to Donetsk. I dozed on and off for most of the ride there. It took a little over an hour. We got there and she took us to a little tea and coffee cafe next door to the Regional Statistics office and we got a wonderful cup of tea and a slice of cake. This was about 10:30 am. Whale loved his tea but of course we were someplace new so he had to see the bathroom a couple of times. I wanted to go potty before we paid the whopping $4 bill and left. So I got up and whale wanted to go with me. I told him no, I just wanted to pee all by myself for once. He started throwing a fit, and I mean a monster size one. I heard him and DH outside of the bathroom. I stepped out of my wonderful squat pot and I ask DH, " where is my purse?" he said " Oh I forgot about it on the table" umm hello, digital camera and passports, what is he thinking? ? ? Well, Thank God, I mean literally thank you God for keeping that stuff safe in a place where people pickpocket like crazy. M was walking in the door and ask what the problem was and I told her I just want to pee alone and all hell broke loose. We got out of there quickly and went to sit in M's car. Oh yeah, she did come and get DH once to sign something for the birth certificate and $150 later it was done. We didn't even have to travel to T's birth city to complete it and to us that $150 was worth it. M had to go to the notary and when she got back we took the VS lady to her meeting a little farther away.
We made our way to the passport office and M told us we could wait in the car because she was just going to drop the stuff off so they could start working on it after their lunch hour. This was around 12:30 or so. About 1/2 hour or so later she came down and opened my door and said with all seriousness "Amy, I am sorry, they said you will have to wait 10 days for passport" I thought I was going to burst out crying and she started laughing and said it is no problem I have it right here and she pulled it out and showed us the passport. She said it was the fastest she has ever gotten one done. Well, for quite a hefty little donation the girl worked through her lunch hour to get it done for us, so we were out of there in record time. M called the VS lady and she needed about another hour so we were looking for someplace to eat. We went down to Lenin Square and they were setting up for some huge concert tonight. There was a dance troupe kind of guys that were hip hop dancing to some rap music. They were really good. I thought they were dancing a lot like the people on that TV show "So you think you can dance" DH thought they were break dancing, Duh, how 80's is he? We then walked over to a huge McDonalds and got Lunch. DH says how ironic is it that there is a McDonalds in Lenin Square, I am not a history dork like he is but I think it means something about Communism. LOL! I think these chicken nuggets I had were the best I have ever tasted in my life. Whale got a chicken nugget happy meal and he ate all four of his and two of mine. Pig! I got a caramel sundae, and Whale got a chocolate sundae, YUMMY!! We called the VS lady and she was ready to be picked up and taken back to the first office we went to. While she went in there and did some really quick work, we walked around the corner to a huge department store to look for kids shoes, but walked out empty handed :(
Oh the way home whale fell asleep really quick and I think I dozed for about 10 minutes or so. I know DH had a nice nap because I had to jab him in the ribs when he started snoring. I think that M and the VS lady were laughing at him and talking about him in Russian. Whale slept all the way to our apartment door. The poor baby was exhausted. We came upstairs and I made Fried Chicken legs, Mashed potatoes, and corn for dinner. The funny part is that when the most vital part of the gravy making came the electricity went out for about 3 minutes. The stove is gas though, I tried to keep stirring it so it wouldn't burn but too late. Whale loved the chicken legs, he was chewing on the bone he loved it so much. DH and I thought it tasted to farmy for us. The gravy ended up tasting like horse crap. Now I have never actually eaten real horse crap, but the way this gravy tasted I can only guess it tastes like the stuff we were eating. DH was in cleaning up the dishes (isn't he awesome), whale was taking a bath and I answered a few emails and did a load of laundry. Tonight is the last night as the family we have known for almost 4 years. Tomorrow T will be spending the night with us and I am quite sure she will not sleep, therefore neither will we :0( I feel sorry for all of us tomorrow night, so I would like to request prayers for a smooth transition for her and that she not get too upset or scared. Thanks!!!
The plan for tomorrow is to go to the market and get cake and champange for the caregivers, cookies, bananas and juice for the kids and spring T from her prison she has been in for the last 3 years. I shouldn't say a prison, because it really isn't like that at all, but in a manner of speaking only. She has only known inside that fence of the orphanage grounds for the last 3 years and it is only about 2 acres. Poor thing!
Ok, the electricity went out about 15 minutes ago for a whopping 3 minutes and I lost my whole witty post that I had written. I am now a lot more tired and a lot less witty, sorry! I tried to write what I could remember having written before. I am very ready to leave Ukraine and get home. I suppose there is a chance there is no electricity there either since we have been here longer than we thought :(
Alrighty, I am going to bed. It is getting late and I am just dying to get eaten up by mosquito's tonight. We counted on whales tiny little arms yesterday and he has over 20 combined on his arms only. I am probably rivaling him on that as I easily have 15 or more myself. My legs have a bunch of them though and his legs only have about 5 or 6. We either have to suffocate with the windows closed all the time or get eaten. I have some off, but it doesn't seem to work either, GRRRRRR! Ok really I am going now, Please pray for us these last few days. I hope to blog regularly in Kiev, but who knows what will be happening there. Thanks everyone. Good night.
6 Comments:
Congratulations on a quick passport! Ours didn't take to long either. But we had horrible luck with the electricity going on and off while they tried to get the birth certificate done. It ended up taking two days.
Best of luck tomorrow and I say a couple of prayers for easy sleep for all four of you. Matthew slept great from the day we got him until we got home. Now it takes a miracle to get him to sleep. Cara
Amy ((for M from me))
(hi five to M )
You go M you crazy chick way to make a disheveled american cringe- you know us to well! That is one of her favorite jokes she did it to me too I just about peed my pants!
Okay you know you are in Ukraine 2 long when your profile is of a psycho kitten...LOL
XO you are almost home
L~
Hey Amy and Family!
Congrats on making it! I remember the first night we had our little angels - and they were not angels that night! My tip - take staying up in turns - I took the 8-1pm and my DH took 1-6... though we were both exhausted - at least we got a little sleep! Though neither took naps the next day - grrrr!
Thank you so much for blogging everything! I gets alot of hope to the waiting families!
Congrat!
Amy
We didnt really have to deal with electricity issues in Cherkassy but we did deal with the water and the flushing in the middle of the nite with the jug of water !
Congrats on the quick passports ! We did the whole back alley/give a tip here or there to a lady in a closed office alot too...it was fantastic ! We were in and out in under 3 weeks :) with child...
Hopefully you arent getting bit too much by those nasty mosquitos
Wow just 4 more days ! Whoohooo !
I remember taking Aerik out of those big iron gates that held him captive for the first 15 months old his life and we felt free and amazing to have him :) cant wait to see that post !
Take care,
Amy
Hello Amy,
Congratulation with T passport.
When we got to Moscow with my son I thought he would do great for us. He did fine in the daytime then we at dinner with some tea too. Don't let anyone give T any tea. The hotel that we stayed at gave him tea for his teeth that was coming in. He was up all night. I'll let you know more later about this.
He was eight months old when we brought him home at that time.
Have a great time. I hope and pray that you all get some good rest.
Will keep you posted on ours.
It's not long now. We can relate to all of the cash flying around at the end trying to get folks to give you what you need. It took 3 days for us to finally track down the lady we needed to get the birth certificate from. When we finally did she said it was going to take something like 4 days - arghh. There was all kinds of yelling in Russian - then all of the sudden the wedding march started playing in the next office - justice of the peace I guess. Then our facilitator says to us, "let's go - we're going to the market." Whatever - we think we're looking at 4 days to get the birth certificate. We go to market and facilitator says let's buy a pineapple and chocolate - we're still thinking - whatever - after 7 weeks in country we were not capable of thinking. Then he asks if we have an envelope - and the light bulb went on. We went back to the office - gave her the pineapple, the chocolate, and the "envelope!!" Twenty minutes later we had the birth certificate - crazy!!!!! I think it was the pineapple that did it!!! So you might want to pick up a pineapple or two just in case! Enjoy your last few days.
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