Tuesday, May 17

A day of mixed emotions. 

Max, Leah and Doug flew out very early this morning (left the apartment at 3 am Kyiv time) and it was hard to say good bye to them.  Paul and I will really miss having Max here with us and we know he will have some hard times being a way from us.  He was a bit torn about leaving because he had fun here but he was also looking forward to being back in MN where things are familiar and comfortable.  A big thank you to Leah and Doug for flying over to get him.  We had a good time with them here and we did a fair amount of sightseeing - it felt like a vacation.  Also a big thank you to everyone who will be helping with Max back home while we are here.  We truly appreciate having family and friends who are willing to help us out.

Now onto the positive emotions - we had a successful appointment at the SDA office and Paul and I picked up our referral document from the SDA this afternoon at 4 pm.  Tomorrow we will go to the Juvenile Services office with our lawyer and assuming there are no problems there we will finally get to go to the orphanage with a social worker for our official visit.  We are very much looking forward to that visit.  It is the first big step forward in the process here in Kyiv.  Hopefully, tomorrow we will have some pictures of Kirill to share in our blog!

Paul and I did move apartments again today and we are now back close to where we were at the beginning of the trip (and in the same building as another family from MN).  It is a basically a one room apartment.  It will be interesting to see how this works since at home I am usually in bed at least 2 hours before Paul.  We also will be getting our exercise since it is on the 5th floor and we are not crazy about the elevators here.  Our other apartments were on the 3rd or 5th floor so you would think I would be used to it by now but I still feel the burn when I hit the 3rd floor on the way up.

Thank you to all of you for prayers and positive comments throughout this process.  We pray that the process moves very quickly from here on out.

Here are a few more pictures from Kyiv:

 

Max telling his special wish to the cat statue near the Golden Gate.  Apparently this is a statue of a real cat and it was built as a life size replica (this was one big cat).  The legend is that you whisper your special wish in the cat's left eye and then rub its left ear and tail at the same time.  You can not tell anyone your wish until it comes true.  Next time you see Max, ask him about his wish.

 

One of the chapels at the Kievo-Pechersky Lavra or the 'Caves Monastery' as it is commonly referred too.  We visited this place on our tour on Sunday and Paul and I intend to go back when we have more time to tour some of the caves where monks once lived.  The Lavra is a national religious shrine and it is the headquarters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Max setting on the globe statue (I don't know the official name) in Maidan square.  The statue is out front of the central post office of Kyiv and all mileage to other regional cities in Ukraine are measured from this point.



 The view from our 2nd apartment.  This was taken on a Sunday evening when it was very quiet.  In the daytime there were cars and buses everywhere in this intersection.  There is a metro stop under the building with the Levi's sign.  There is also a McDonalds in that building where Max discovered Big Mac's (it was the only thing he was comfortable pronouncing and once he tried it he quickly discovered a new item to order at McDonalds).



Paul, Max, Leah and Doug riding the longest escalator any of us have every seen down to catch the metro.  Paul and I will get the chance to ride this escalator every day when we start making daily trips to the orphanage.



Traffic is crazy in Kyiv and you have to be very careful on the sidewalks.  The cars drive and park on the sidewalk.  The picture above is of a sidewalk all the cars you see (yes even the white one) are on the sidewalk.