Yup that is right we had to go out and celebrate the very smooth meeting with the SDA this afternoon with lunch and phivo, well just me not for the girls. In case you haven't figured it out phivo is Ukrainian for beer. Of course the funny part is we went to an Irish pub for lunch and had a Ukrainian salad and Ukrainian soup and Ukrainian beer (insert really long name I cannot pronounce here), but Irish kaboob and mashed potatoes.
We are almost on a decent schedule, today we got to sleep in until 5:00 am which is a big improvement from 3:00 and you wish the nights before. Hopefully tonight we get to sleep till about 7:00 then we will just have to get Maggie go stop waking up every two hours.
I am sad to report that we had to resort to McDonald's for dinner last night. Isabella has not been eating that well so we thought maybe she would really like McDonald's, yes we appriciate the irony of taking someone to McDonald's to eat well! The great part is we get there and it was so packed it was standing room only! I did learn an important lesson while there...God was teaching me something important. Anytime you feel prideful and feel you can go it alone nothing humbles you quicker than being in a foreign land with a strange language and different culture and needing help like a little child just to order something off of the McDonald's menu. Don't even get me started on the adventure of going to the mini market and trying to buy some milk (we ended up with some sort of cream). It is a good thing most people are very friendly and helpful.
We found a little park today for Isabella to play at, and that worked out really well...but we forgot the camera we will hopefully get some pics tomorrow, since she is still talking about going back.
Oh so you are probably reading all this and wondering well what the heck happened at the meeting...Well we showed up early and so we got to check out a really cool Orthdox church that was undergoing some renovation. Also it was a much more tursit trap area so there were a lot of street vendors...as such I was finally able to buy the overpriced knockoff Shevchenko jerseys for the boys (think Micheal Jordon*100). So we went into the SDA which ends up being this very small office on the second floor of a mid 19th century building. We all sit down and the psychologist says about 600 hundred words (or maybe 6 really long ones) and our facilitator tells us her name is Lana. We show her our passports, and she asks how we heard about the children. Then she explains a little about each child. We learn that Vlad as we know is almost 9 and as of his latest evaluation (they perform a full medical/mental exam every 6 months) is perfectly healthy. A little quiet and reserved but loves sports. Dima on the other hand we found out has a couple of difficulties. His eyesight they believe may need some corrective assistance (glasses) and he also has Torticollis (wyneck). Usually this is very treatable but since he is a little older there may be some more therapy possibly surgery necessary,at least according to Wikipedia. We don't know the severity and we don't know how much it affects him. It could be as minor as a cosmetic issue, his head tilts slightly one way. To possibly something more complex that actually causes him discomfort and pain. The understanding is that it is of the very minor issue since he is very active and sociable. We will find out more Saturday and Monday. We also found out that they have different fathers.
So what is next..we go to Zhovti Vody tomorrow at around 3:00. We have to pick up some papers at the SDA giving us approval to travel to the region. We should be at the city sometime that night, depends on how many stops we have to make. At the orphanage Saturday from what everyone tells us it will be very quick to find out whether that want us as parents or not. Also we will find out more info about the mother and the situation the boys have been in. The central SDA has very limited information, the regional authority will have much more information. We were very glad to find out the car ride to the city will be much cheaper than expected, and the lodging will be as well. We are trying to confirm what room we will be getting at the hotel,.but we were told they have a suite available, hopefully that includes a bedroom and living area. The good part of the hotel is that it is only about 3 blocks from the orphanage. Basically after Saturday all we do is hurry up and wait...the timing could be as little as 2.5 weeks until we are headed back home up to 6 weeks. I will explain this more an other day since this is now turning into a minute by minute recap of the last couple of days.
Love,
The 4 soon to be 6
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