Another day, another week

Today marks the end of our third week in the Ukraine, and we're getting a bit restless to get more progress on the adoption front. I just spoke with Marina (around 3pm) who said our judge will be talking to Serge's lawyer this Sunday, and looking over our paperwork...so hopefully that's progress. We still don't have a court date, perhaps we'll know more after Sunday. Pray for us that we'll have patience (mine's running pretty thin), and that the wheels of progress would continue to grind and maybe even speed up a bit.

Anyway, we had another fun indoor playtime with Alex Maksim and Talia Ira today, no Vala sighting this time. We were shocked that they didn't have us play outside today since it's the first sunny day in a week, albeit a little chilly at around 60 degrees. The next few days should be the same, which is a pleasant change in the weather. The trees are starting to turn, and fall is definitely in the air.

I took a LOT of video on camcorder today of our commute to the orphanage, and of our playtime. Thus I don't have many still shots this time, except for after our visit and during lunch at Cherry Pizza (again). So here they are:

This is our new driver Sergey (SAIR-gay), doing his Schwarzenegger imitation. :-) He's a lot of fun and tries to carry on a good conversation, although he has to call a translator friend of his from time to time to ask us something in English.


A shot of the kids playing "mummy" with JoEllen, which was a pretty good bedtime and "tucking in" exercise. The kids loved it. Talia Ira was the only one relegated to "time out" today, since she has a bad habit of throwing things at others, usually with her McIpod. The other day she nailed a seh-BAH-kah (dog) right between the eyes with it, today papa's chest was the target. While her strong right arm and accuracy will undoubtedly come in handy for softball some day, right now it just gets her into trouble.

The patio at Cherry Pizza, we ate outside today since it was so nice out and a bit smoky inside. It's about a 5 block walk downhill from here to our hotel.






Us at our table. It was a bit of a dark shot in the shade, and just a tad chilly.







After having their awesome thin crust pizza yesterday, we decided to mix it up a bit since their menu has a wide variety of dishes at great prices. To the left is the lasagna Jo had.



I had the shrimp/ham fettucini, which was a great dish, and a bargain at $7. I think our whole meal with drinks and tip was around $18...we'll be eating here more often. :-)



Right next door to Cherry Pizza is this beautiful church (left), which this small clip doesn't do justice. Across the street from the church is this government building with a cool statue out front (below). Not sure who the statue is supposed to be.