One Week In Donetsk!

Sorry I haven't posted regularly. My days are full! By the time I send an update to family and friends, I don't seem to make it to the post. The weather is excellent! Although I am the only person outside of a couple of soccer guys in shorts, I am wearing shorts and tshirts every day. I actually wish it was a tad bit cooler. For those of you who haven't traveled yet, i would not overpack - i brought way too many warm clothes - and haven't worn anything but tshirts. You can check the weather before leaving the states for a month and that should help you pack. I hope to know court date today we'll see. Bubby is catching a train back tonight so I'll be flying solo here in Ukraine. The orphanage the children are from is an EXCELLENT facility and at age 8-9 begin teaching the children English. My kids are dying to learn more english and have asked me to buy English Russian Dictionaries so I found one for each of them and they all posed for pictures as they were tickled pink to have their own translation book. We use them often throughout the day! hee hee We laugh a lot and say (okay, i'm going to butcher this spelling because I also butcher the pronounciation) yai nee pai nee maiiyyuu, I do not understand! lol
I took the children ice skating today and they were absolutely THRILLED! They had never skated and were jumping with joy as we were trying to buy tickets and get skates etc... somehow after a few minutes we were able to get skates (that fit!) on everyone and even though they didn't have socks on nor gloves they were grinning and skating away. :) It took the ice groomers arrival to get them off the ice. hee hee Then we went to the amusement park and rode rides. We had the time of our lives. They shared that they had never had pizza so we got pizza for lunch and you should have heard the giggles and seen the blushed cheeks when I told them it was okay to pick the pizza up with our hands and eat it that way! I'm sure the orphanage - and rightly so - has taught them to always eat with silverware. They just kept saying 'thank you momma, very much' all day. We had a bit of time at the end of the day so they asked if we could go 'skiing' again. ;) Off we went to the ice skating rink again and was back out on the ice. This will be a great Saturday afternoon activity for us this winter. The children are extremely polite and well mannered. For those of you wanting only children under 5 or 6, please reconsider. There are STILL so many firsts you can enjoy with these children. This orphanage is full of beautiful, healthy, smart children from 8 - 11. While the girls and I was in the restroom, I squirted soap from the wall dispenser out onto my hand and they could not believe it. They had never seen a soap dispenser nor the paper towel dispenser and were thrilled that they were able to pull out a paper towel for themselves too. They they were looking up into the crack to see where the papertowels came from with their eyes wide open in disbelief! It was great. At the end of the day my oldest translated from the other two that they wanted 'to greatly thank momma'.
Elections were yesterday so I am hoping that today I'll be back on track as the election process dominates the activities and has affected business from last Thursday through today and if the offices and courts are closed again today, we cannot reapproach them until Friday to ask for a court date. I am crossing my fingers for today! Just finished shopping at the market - buying them some socks as they never seem to have socks on then I'm going to shop for some bubble gum as they do not know how to blow bubbles and want to learn. The oldest girl can but the youngest struggles and is going to need a couple of good bubble producing pieces of gum to make any decent attempt. Her gum usually shoots out of her mouth while she is trying so hard. lol
I'll end for now but will post when I can and always enjoy reading your comments. Thank you!