TGIFriday?

Well, it's Friday, but I don't know about TGI... I guess it means that we can go tomorrow to see Cole, and that is a case of TG! It's been strange sitting around and not visiting him these two days. We miss him and hope that he misses us. It's such a strange set up to go, visit for two hours, tell him it's time for us to go, and then have him hop down and walk back to his room. It's tough to think that he's accustomed to us visiting in two-hour increments, but possibly not realizing that at some point we'll take him home. We don't know how/if they are attempting to communicate to him that we'll be taking him away from the orphanage at some point. So it seems that he's content to hang out with us for a little while and then head back to his little group of friends.

We spoke with some people that told us that probably none of these kids have ever been in a car to their recollection(which obviously means they've never been on a train or plane). So it'll be interesting when we finally ARE able to take him with us and get into a car, and then take a train, and then take three planes to get back to Ohio. Interesting might be an optimistic word.

Here are some more random thoughts so you can picture where we are: it's been "unseasonably warm" here for this time of year. The average has been about 5 degrees celsius which translates to somewhere in the mid 30's. Typically it's much colder we're told, so we're very pleased. There's no snow here which is fine by me. It has rained and been wet from time to time which makes a lot of dirt and mud. We don't see very much grass anywhere. Our apartment is clustered with other apartements in a sort of development and there are trees and dirt in the midst of those. The outsides of the apartments are not really cared for at all. They look dilapidated and run-down, but the insides are often quite nice. Ours is amazing inside, but it's scary walking the hallways. There are 60 steps up to our apartment according to Lori - 4th floor. That's a long ways when carrying large bottles of water (without gas). We did the math and realized that using one computer at this internet cafe for one hour only costs 5 grivna = $1.00. Not bad! There are a few American cars here and there, some Fords and Chevies, but it's rare. Almost every taxi that we've taken has been a Daewoo Lanos. There are some luxury cars like Lexus and BMW, but they are rare, as are SUV's. It finally occured to me that European cars are small b/c of the parking problem. You never know where someone is going to park or drive around here and lines on the road don't REALLY mean that you have to stay within them. It's a bit funny and a bit scary. Their version of Santa is Father Frost and he will come on January 7th. The entire city is decorated for New Year's instead of Christmas. Lenin Square (yes, that Lenin) is decked out and they appear to be setting up festival/carnival rides of sort for a big celebration. Brrr...

Yesterday we ventured out to go to the park (on the coldest day of our visit of course) b/c Emma was going stir-crazy. We played on their equivalent of the Fort Findlay Playground and was pretty nice. We then tried to find a bakery that someone recommended to us, but had no luck. The store fronts are sometimes deceiving, so we may have walked right past it. We did get more water (always need more it seems)at the store and discovered some great Ukrainian sweets, one of which was a giant swiss cake roll kind of thing. We definitely need to go get more of them!!

Our court date has been changed to 10:00 am on the 26th due to a paperwork thing. If our paperwork comes today instead of Monday, it's possible that we could be moved back to the 25th. Either way, please pray for that process. We don't know what to expect, but we look forward to seeing what God does. Thanks again for your prayers and your comments. Merry Christmas...almost!