It Was the Best of Times

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Day 44 (Tues March 22nd) Kiev - Last Day

Just a quick note before we head off to the airport at this unseemly hour. Yesterday went well and horrible all at once. We were lazy in the morning and then when Masha got here she got ready and went shopping. I got everything I've been looking for, including my chess set. :) Fun stuff. Then it was off to the embassy.

Everything there went well. It almost didn't, but it did. I did the paperwork at first and then we waited for an interview with a officer. There I signed some papers and such as well as had to raise my right hand and swear everything was truthful. Then he told me I was in luck. If I'd been there a few minutes earlier he wouldn't have been able to print the visa because the computers had been down with some background check thing. However, they were up and running again and so it would be less than an hour and we'd have it. Sure enough, just under an hour later, we had it. It looks pretty cool. :)

From there we went to our hang-out by the SDA and had a most wonderful time. There we saw Kimball's again, Ceran's, Golling's, Natasha and Oleg. What dear people they are to us and how fun to visit with them!

Little One and I in front of St. Andrew's

Our favorite hang-out!

Us with Oleg

Us with Natasha...Ira was done. LOL

Sitting around

An I love you balloon

Andy playing with her

Talking

Everyone loves Little One

Masha and Gary taking pictures of each other taking pictures.

Us with Ceran's

Us with Christy Kimball and her son Clayton

Natasha, Little One and Oleg

Oleg told me he wants Little One. His wife has red hair so she would fit perfect into his family. He has 2 sons, but no daughters, so he needs her. :) She'd probably go with him too!

Masha had decided to go ahead and go home last night so she went off to buy a train ticket and Oleg drove the girls and I home. We started packing while we waited for Masha. Then we got pictures on a DVD for her and then she called a taxi to take her to her friend's place one last time. Her train left around midnight and she didn't want to disturb us. It was very hard to say goodbye to her. She has become such a good friend and I will miss her a lot. The girls and I sat and cried for awhile after she left. :(

The three of us headed to the underground mall to find one last thing and that was interesting. We walked around trying to find what we were looking for and eventually did. Then it was home to finish packing and get to bed. I think I finally laid down around 11:30 or midnight, only to get up at 3am. LOL I sure hope I can sleep on the planes today!

Napkin dresses Ira made

Passport/visa and birth certificate...she's excited. :)

And last but not least, here is our last Kiev apartment.

Kitchen complete with two cute girls

Living room

Entry way

Bedroom

Bathroom, door 1

Bathroom, door 2

Today we say goodbye to Ukraine for I hope not too long. I will honestly miss it very much and hope to be back soon. Signing off for now....

Day 43 (Mon March 21) Kiev - 1st Embassy Appointment

Yesterday started out early-ish. Irina (our ride) took us to a hospital to have Ira's medical exam done. As we knew, she has bad eyesight (though she denies it...LOL) and needed a Hep B shot and some blood tests done. We made some friends while we were waiting for things. It's a guy from California and their process has taken 8 weeks adopting 2 girls that weren't sisters before. After we did that we headed over to the embassy.

That was rather interesting. LOTS of people in line and yet we got put past them all and showed right in. Major security. Not only a metal detector but also a wand before they let us through. We followed signs to the Immigrant Visa place and there were people sitting and waiting so we sat and waited. After awhile our friend from the hospital and his girls showed up. He just rang the little bell there and got helped right away, so I did the same. LOL Oops. Our girls started chatting and such. It was cute to see.

I'd left Ira's pictures for the visa in the car so I left the girls with him and ran off to get it. Problem was I couldn't find them. There was a guy out there trying to help me and he was very nice. I finally found them, ran back in with pictures and paid as well. Then when I came out the guy that helped me was talking with Masha. Guess who he was? My new friend from Cali's facilitator. LOL We both have our second appointments at the same time today.

After the embassy we went to our most favorite Pizza place by the SDA. Ah, memories. The funny thing was that Irina came in too, saying she was supposed to meet Natasha. Little One needed to go to the bathroom so I took her, only there was someone in there. We waited and Natasha came out! So fun to see her again. :) They invited us over to sit by them. Irina didn't stay long, but pretty soon Kimball's showed up, and then Oleg. So fun to see everyone again! Especially Oleg. When we last left him he was thinking we had a 60/40 chance of Ira saying yes to us. He gave us all hugs in the train headed down to Dnepro and said God Bless us. :) It was fun to say, "Look! She came!" I told him I want a picture with him before we leave. Hopefully we really do see him today.

Masha liked the bunnies on this

Yummy strawberry crape

Oleg had Masha's presents from us (thank you Faber's for bring them!!!!!) in his car so we went out and got them. She was pretty excited. :)

Opening presents

A snuggie. Her's even has a pocket!

This one I decided was for her birthday tomorrow. It's the friendship Willow Tree statue. :)

iPod! Her MP3 player only has about 30 min of battery life and she likes to use it all the time so this will be nice for her.

Little One fell asleep during a movie we watch and then had a tantrum in the bedroom. This is how we found her later. LOL

We'd planned on going out to do some sightseeing but didn't end up doing it. Ah well. It was a relaxing evening. Now that I'm caught up on blogging we're headed out to do some shopping. We have our embassy appointment at 2 and then Golling's and Ceran's are both here today so I for sure want to meet up with them and Kimball's one more time. :)

I'm hoping to be able to blog about today when we get back tonight, but I make no promises. Just in case...TTFN and I'll see you in Utah!

Day 42 (Sun March 20th) Dnepro/Kiev - Traveling Day

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to be ready to go. The landlord showed up at 5:45 to check us out. He's been very good to us and I would highly recommend him to anyone staying in the city. At 6 Yura showed up to take us to the railway station. I did remember to get a couple snapshots of the outside of the apartment.

Getting into the elevator. Our door is the one you can see there.

I have a nice story about our ride down the elevator. Now, remember I don't like elevators anyway. Even really nice ones. I've had too many dreams about them just falling. Well, we get partway down and the elevator stops. My first thought was, oh great. The power is out again and we're stuck in the elevator. The lights were still on though so that couldn't have been it. Masha pushed the button for the 2nd floor though and we at least made it there. Weird.

Our door

Off the elevator, headed outside

The door to get inside

View of the "parking lot."

The alleyway to the door

Our train ride was quite nice. Pretty comfortable. It was a 6 person compartment but we only had one other guy in there with us. I was feeling sorry for him because he was in a nice business suit and seems rather annoyed at being there with us. We had 2 children, after all and we're foreigners at that. It was a 6 hour ride and with about 2 hours or so left I noticed he'd lifted the shade on the window a bit so Little One could see out better. Then I started watching them and he was watching her. She was being really good and trying to entertain herself in rather interesting ways. Pretty soon I noticed him actually smiling at what she was doing. She got out her etch-a-sketch and then he said something to me in English. I feel bad but I didn't know what it was and pretended I did. LOL Then he asked Little One if she wanted him to draw her a flower. He took the etch-a-sketch and after awhile got frustrated at trying to draw his flower. :) We said a few more things to each other and I don't think he knew English very well, but well enough. We had a friend by the time we got to Kiev. :)

Train Station in Kiev. I didn't get a pic of the one in Dnepro. :(

Masha asked a couple of guys to help us with our luggage out to where we were supposed to meet a taxi. They charged 120 for their service. They thought very highly of it. The taxi to take us to our apartment was only 30. *rolls eyes*

After we got our stuff to the apartment we walked over to the mall to eat in the food court. It was nice to be back in Kiev. It's a much cleaner city.

Yoga in the city?

A bunch of these guys were wondering the street. Interesting....

Ira took this one from our balcony.

Masha decided to go stay at her friend's house for the nights we're here. She's with us during the day, but then we're alone at night. I wanted to get out though so we walked with her to the subway. I guess on Sat and Sun this particular street isn't allowed to have cars on it. It was so fun to just walk down the middle of the street! And the buildings were so pretty all lit up!

Here we are in the middle of the street

This building sparkled with lights. The pic doesn't show that though.

The girls walking down the street

This is a central part of town. We live up one street in between those buildings.

Ah, fun stuff.

Day 41 (Sat March 19th) Dnepro - Last Day

Saturday was a hard day. First off, Masha and Kristina headed back to the Vasilkovka on the bus. We all did well until it was time to actually say goodbye. I gave her a big hug and we all just stood there and cried. The girls gave her a hug too, and then after she left we all cried for awhile. I'm really going to miss her. I really wish I could have taken her with us too. Anyone out there looking for a super sweet girl and her brother (that I really don't know?) Please?

While the girls played on the computer/iPods I spent the time packing. I was going to do a bit of shopping as well, but it didn't happen. Once I was done I was tired so I laid on the couch for a little bit to wait for Masha and Yura who were actually supposed to show up about the same time. Masha didn't want to go ice skating with us, so Yura took just the girls and me. It was a lot of fun and I think we all enjoyed it.

I did finally get around to taking pictures of the apartment. This is the one that I'm going to really miss. It felt very much like home.