Snow, Snow, Snow

December 27, Saturday

I have found the time to go to the market is early in the morning. There isn’t near as many people as about 11:00 till evening. We also don’t go anywhere after dark. It is also easy as I know most of you know that shopping alone is much faster than with children. So I have been taking off early in the morning to get our daily market things and I am back to the apartment fairly quickly. I wanted to look around more of the square today, and I promised Jacob we would go up the park we had been before, so we bundled up especially the Babushka (Grandma)(spell?) and set off. The park is close to our first apartment here in Kiev but it is a good walking distance. It is also an uphill grade the last three blocks. So the Babushka had to go slow because of the snow and sore foot. She has been a real trooper with this whole ordeal and then even braves the freezing 20 degree cold, cold weather just so the boys could go to a park. On the way to the park we stopped into the post office. It is the largest post office I have even been in. There were numerous windows with clerks. They sell calendars and cards along with postage. I have wanted to get a calendar of Ukraine scenery and we found one with landscapes which is very nice. The boys played and played in the snow for about an hour until the Babushka was half frozen and then we left. On the way down the Babushka slipped and fell. She was behind me and the boys, when I heard this Oh, Aimee. Well I felt my heart go up to my throat, when I turned around to see her on the ground. A very nice man stopped to help her up along with me. Luckily she was fine with no injury. Hopefully she will not have a bruise. We managed to find some more souvenirs to take home in the underground walk ways and then went to McDonalds for a late lunch. We were all pretty tired, well the adults were. We were hoping all the activity would wear out two boys but it only lasted for a little while. I had brought macaroni cheese packets to make Jacob’s favorite thing in the world macaroni and cheese, so I made macaroni and cheese with the last package. Alexander didn’t like it but that isn’t a big surprise. We had a pretty good day.

December 28, Sunday

I decided this morning to get onto a translation website to let Alex know what about our Church service. I explained that we were going to have Church services and he needed to be quiet. Mother prepared the Lord’s Supper and I had found a sermon by Don Truex from Temple Terrace. We sang Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children in hopes that the tune might be familiar to Alex. Jacob has been great about helping with the service as well. After our worship service I went to the market for a few things, one thing is that we are a lot closer to the market than we ever have been. We all went out for our daily excursion. The Babushka wanted a couple of souvenirs that she had seen a couple of days ago and we needed to exchange some more money. When we got to the big Christmas tree there were many kinds of things to do. There were little miniature cars for kids to ride, ponies and horses to ride, Santa’s and trinkets to buy. I let the boys pick out one trinket each. The wind has picked up and we are feeling the cold so we head back to the apartment. We had to have another unique Ukrainian experience to apartment living. The door handle of the bathroom door was getting very loose. I told everyone yesterday not to close the door all the way, because the handle may come off the door. Well today Alex wanted to see his mini light trinket that he had just got, in the dark. Well he closes all the doors in the hall including the bathroom door. A little while later I go to check on them to find the door close. I try to open it but the handle on both sides of the door come off. So here we are with no way to open the door. I try several things to jimmy the lock but it just was working. I call our apartment manager and he says he is very busy and will send the cleaning lady with some tools. From the time I first call him, plus other conversations in between time to the time the cleaning lady comes it has been two hours. Mother eyes are starting to fill up. The cleaning lady brought another man to help her. He took about 10 minutes to remove the handle and we were greatly r-e-l-i-e-v-e-d. The Babushka was of course first in line followed by me. Mother and I fix a ham, bean and potato soup for supper. We are relaxing till bed time. Tomorrow Alex and I will go to the Medical Center of the Embassy for his physical checkup, while Mother and Jacob go to the Embassy to take all the documents along with Alex’s Ukrainian passport. They will have to wait till we are done at the Medical Center and then we will meet up with them. Mother and I are excited to be doing something productive and to know we are very close to coming home.