April 16th or day 30!

Whoot-whoo!

Alex’s passport is legal and with any luck will be in hand Tuesday! (Monday all offices are closed for the Easter holiday!) Then we’re out of here on the overnight train to Kiev, two days there for medical and visa’s and with any luck we’ll be on the Friday the 24^th 5:30 am flight home! It’s not set in stone until we get his passport on Tuesday AND get his visa on Thursday. If we make our flight on the 24^th, I will have been gone for five weeks and three days!

Today was pretty uneventful. We took Alex in for his passport picture this morning and then we went home and hung out in our dive until 2:00. (We did not have to make another trip to Dniproprotrosk-hurray!) Then we met the Rast’s and went swimming. (Can I just say that Ukraine women in locker rooms have no sense of privacy or embarrassment?) The pool was HUGE but not very warm and Alex started shivering and his lips were turning blue so we didn’t stay long. It was quite complicated to pay, figure out how to get in, rent flip flops for the Rast girls, figure out how to find the pool, get yelled out for swimming in the wrong place and then not be able to jump off ANY of the many diving boards. Getting out was a tricky too, you need to bring your magnetic strip thing that you got to get in-that you gave to the locker room woman-BACK with you to get out of the turn still. Grrr.. I'm not sure they could have made this any more complicated!

Afterward we went out to eat with Jeff & Amy (their girls had to be back to the school by six) at our favorite pizza place with an English menu (Although we can read the menu and know what we want Alex has to do all the ordering-he’s pretty assertive and even looks over our bills and makes sure we’re not being charged incorrectly!) and now we’re home. Alex is cooking potato’s.


He’s becoming quite the little cook! (He wasn’t hungry for pizza-imagine that?)

I’m trying to tentatively line up our flights for the 24^th

I instant messaged with Snezhana today and she and Ivan invited us for the weekend to celebrate Easter. I’m so excited but I was so worried that we would be intruding or interfering with their Easter holiday. She assured me that we would not be a problem that we are “family”. How sweet is that? I can’t wait to see how they celebrate Easter. I understand we’ll be going to the village on Sunday? I’ve really wanted to see a village-besides speeding by them while dodging potholes! Alex is excited too. I’m afraid this will be the hardest goodbye for him-he loves Ivan and Snezhana so much.

We’re going to take the bus on Saturday and Ivan will meet us and then we’ll stay Saturday and possibly Sunday night. So chances are I will not be posting much this weekend! (I know, what will you all do? Just kidding! I’m surprised that people are still reading this blog as some day’s it’s just so dang boring!)

Anyway, here’s some miscellaneous pictures of Ukraine and my10 year old boy of course:

What Ukraine’s do during a funeral:

Packaging-the white and blue bag is the milk, red is ketchup, green is tarter sauce, yellow is mustard and the white and red is juice.

Alex at the pool:

Alex and I riding the electric trolley/tram:

While waiting for-what feels like forever-the pictures to upload Alex made me yet another salad. This one has banana's, apples, carrots, cucumbers and cherry juice and sugar. It's very sweet and despite the odd concoction it's pretty yummy. He's been telling me that Snezhana taught him to make these salads BUT this one he thought up on his own. Imagine that!

Okay...pictures are not loading. I'll try again later!