March 18th

Hello everyone~ We are having a beautiful day here in Ukraine. It is sunny and the weather feels great. We have not had to even wear our hats or gloves since we have been here so far. Sorry, if my post have been kind of choppy, we have been posting from an internet cafe that has a time limit, but have now found one that does not. Our facilitator called us this morning and there has been a change of plans in transportation to get to Donestk. To make a long story short...it is going to turn out to be best for us to drive to the region instead of taking the train. The town that the orphanage is in is about an hour away from the city of Donestk, so we would still have to find a car to take us there once we got off the train. In the process, you change facilitators when you go to the orphanage and our new facilitator is going to drive us there...so we will have 5 people riding in a Camry to the region. The bad news is that there will not be room for our nanny for Grant the first day at the orphanage, so we will not be able to take her. We feel confident that a new plan will work out. The GREAT news is that it was going to be 10 hrs by train overnight and now he is picking us up at 5:00 a.m. and it will be about a 6 hr drive instead :) The pediatrician will still be able to go with us and we should still be able to visit her at the orphanage tomorrow.

We have had a great time with one of our facilitators here. He has really showed us around and we ate dinner with him last night at his house and had homemade grape juice from his vinyard. He has 3 children 2 of them speak Ukrainian and English, so Grant had a BLAST with them! We even rode with him to pick them up from school and we got to go inside and all see what a Ukrainian school looks like.

When our facilitator is not with us, we have had a funny time trying to order meals...I wish you could have seen Jason at McDonalds yesterday trying to order for Grant. There was about (no exageration) 50 people waiting to order and Jason was trying to do the best he could. We actually ended up with the right things. Grant asked if next time, he could get it with no pickle or onion...now, he is pushing it! Also, we had to stand at table to eat because there was no room and sometimes I forget that people can't understand me and I will comment to them, like when I was trying to ask these ladies if they wanted to squeeze in beside us and they just stared at me and walked off. Jason started laughing and said in his best southern accent "You do know they don't understand when you say YA'LL WANNA SQUEEZE ON IN" I have had to laugh at myself a few times!

I know that you are probably tired of hearing about the jet lag, but it is a big thing for us right now. I thought things were getting a little better and then last night I was actually sleeping pretty well until Jason and Grant got up at 1:00 a.m. and decided that they were both hungry and went to the kitchen and ate everything they could. Then, they started going through suitcases and when I asked them what they were doing, they said we are looking for Grants schoolwork to do because we can't sleep. I said, "FOR THE LOVE..PEOPLE CAN WE NOT JUST CLOSE OUR EYES" They thought that was extremely funny and then we were up again most of the night.

I havent had a chance to reply to comments because of the time limit, but I want to tell you that we read each and everyone. I was tearing up in the internet cafe reading them all. It is very encouraging to hear from each of you...friends, family, the ones that we have met in Ukraine, and the ones we are just meeting on the blog!
Reply to some comments:

Mom~ we are glad Max is doing well...Grant looks at his pic everyday...he really misses him! No more teeth loose :) How is Tiff? Has she driven by herself yet?

Dad~ I know what you mean about getting teary eyed...except for mine has to be in public :) Thanks for all the encouragement and prayers.

Niki~ I hope you are feeling better!

Christy G (AKA Miss Jackson and Flonase) We have gotten all the inside jokes LOL, just havent been able to reply to them until now...tell Bryan that MC Frogger thought about buying him some crab chips and re living Myrtle Beach, haha! Luv- Tamiflu

For all the post from ones that have adopted and are in the process with us...we can't tell ya how great it is to hear from you!

Thanks again for each person that prayed at the time of our appointment even though it was in the middle of the night for you!

Also, wanted you to know that Jason is reading each comment too, but would rather me post, so what I post is on behalf of both of us :)

Once we are in the new region...I will post as soon as I can find internet access and try to send more pics next time. Not sure what the conditions will be there. Love~ Mel