Greetings from Ukraine…aka “YKPAiHA”

A great day...(Notice the TUCCO hat! She loves daddy's TUCCO hat and immediately will remove her bonnet to put his hat on! Dale Henderson should be happy to know his company is well represented here in Ukraine by this cutie pie!)

We had a great day with our little girl...each day gets a little better. Her initial response to us is still just shy of utter fear, but after a few tears she settles down and warms up to us.

Here are some pictures of how things progress...

1st we walk from her play group to a private place (sometimes with one of the workers, sometimes with another one of the little children). There are few tears along the way. Once we are at a private place, we give her a cracker or other treat and a little plastic blue doll she loves to hold on to...and after a few minutes, she comes alive. ;)

We were not able to visit her yesterday at all, so we were really glad for two good long visits today. She continues to grow in her trust of us and by the time we have to leave she is all smiles and giggles and gives us goodbye kisses. We are completely taken with her!!

Our facilitator, Sergei, is our advocate before the government and other agencies involved in this process. But even more than taking care of all the business, he essentially takes care of us and makes sure we have all we need while we are here. He definitely goes above and beyond the call of duty with us daily! He’s been in search of coffee makers, fans, good coffee and internet cafes. Crazy high maintenance Americans! And he has come through on all fronts with a smile every time! He is incredibly smart, kind and has a wonderful sense of humor. He has become a fast friend and such a great bonus to our adventure. He is a natural teacher and has helped me learn to speak some Ukrainian and read the alphabet. He is very patient and I have learned so much from him. He has a wife and 13 month old child back home, and it is a sacrifice for him to be away from them for 3 weeks. You can tell he has a heart for the orphans and likes helping them find good homes. He is a great problem solver, very quick on his feet and I can tell he is doing everything he can to make this process go as smoothly and quickly as possible for us. We would be lost, literally, without him!

We are all staying in a 2 bedroom apartment, which has 2 pull out couches for beds. There is a kitchen (although we’ve yet to cook anything other than coffee in our coffee maker) and great water pressure in the shower—thank goodness! It is a great change from the Intourist hotel where we were staying when we first arrived, which was pretty expensive since we needed 2 rooms (and it wasn’t even that nice for $70 a night each).

To compensate for the expensive hotel, Sergei rented an inexpensive car. It was $12 a day and you could fit it in your pocket. It stalled out a lot and choked every time we turned off the engine. It was hilarious and gave us a lot of laughs, but after a day, we told him that we would have enough money for an upgrade. He surprised us by finding us a BMW and a wonderful, sweet girl named Tasha who lives outside of town to drive us around.

Wednesday and Thursday were a whirlwind of activity! We had to go to another city, Berdansk, about 3 hours away for some paperwork. The city is on the Sea of Azov. Very pretty area. I was so excited to see a beach!! This is a picture with our "driver" Tasha...a 25 year old speedster we've nicknamed Danika (after Danika Patrick) because she gets us places quickly. She doesn’t speak English, but we bonded right away talking about hair products and dating! :) Poor Sergei had to endure the girlie topics, as he patiently translated what we were saying to one another about highlighting, boys, etc. She is so much fun!! We spent the night in a “cabin” (more like a shack) near the shore.

Our rooms were no bigger than our train cars and more bugs than if we had stayed in tents. The boys had a great picture of a scantily clothed Christina Agulara on their wall! Tasha and I shared a room and were very anxious for morning...Suffice it to say, it was a $12 room and we got what we paid for! ;)

On the way home from Berdansk, we stopped in a town that sounds like the words “CommonSquare” where our little one was born. It is very poor and rural, no running water or electricity. We were told her mother and grandmother still lived there and we drove the streets asking for them by first name. We were able to locate the house where she was born, but we were told the mom had moved away. I took a picture of her home, so we could show her at some point where she was born.

Tasha and Sergei are going to make us a typical Ukrainian dinner of “borschk” soup and ravioli! They are so kind and fun to be with. This evening, after Tasha finished driving Sergei around to notaries and other agencies while we were at the orphanage, they returned to pick us up to take us back to the apartment. They patiently sat in the car for an hour while we played with our little angel. We feel safe and very well taken care of! What a blessing!

Since today was Friday, there is not much we can get done over the weekend—business-wise. We will get to visit the orphanage 2 times a day and may check out a Ukrainian movie just for the experience of it—Shreck and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 are both showing now.

We have gotten into somewhat of a routine the last day or so, we visit the orphanage from 9-12 and then go to the notary with Sergei or walk around some markets, each lunch, return to the orphanage from 4-6, then Tasha takes us to the Intourist Hotel (where we first stayed) to use the wi-fi in the lobby for a few hours so we can catch up on emails. I walk to a little kiosk down the street to buy Schwepps Tonic and some chips. She knows me now and hands me the tonic before I even ask for it. We have eaten at a restaurant called the Potato House at least once a day since we’ve gotten here, one day we ate there twice. The Greek salad is incredible (basically cucumbers, red peppers, onion, feta cheese with Italian dressing). I told Sergei the first time we ate there, “I could eat this every day and be happy”. I guess he took that literally. So far I have eaten it every day... and I am very happy!

We are at the hotel now, getting ready to post this BLOG. Thinking of you all back home and how we can’t wait for you to meet our little one. We still haven’t come up with her name, but will soon! We love all the suggestions you are sending in! We are considering all of them, except we had to rule out “Taiter salad” someone submitted (hm..wonder who that could have been??) since we didn’t quite understand it.

Blessings to you all! Love, Hunter and Lauri and our little munchkin