Someone's missing...

Today, when we showed up to see little miss, we were told that she was in Kiev, but that was all we understood. Is she sick? Is she in the hospital? That's our hunch, but our translator couldn't get hold of anyone to find out anything, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out more. Everyone, please pray that God will watch over her and care for her, whatever's going on.

Even though our boy isn't exactly generous with his smiles yet, we're seeing a lot more, and I managed to catch a little bit on camera. My camera takes so long to snap the pic, the moment is often gone before I get it, so I'm putting a bunch of half-smiles on here.  Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Future footballer- that's what they call it here.

Just having fun



He just makes little kicks, because a big kick would knock him over!



He kind of has a one-track mind, doesn't he?

Look who else likes to be "man-handled!"

After missing two days of visiting, I think we lost some ground with this little girl. Although she was happy to see us, she was pretty aggressive today, and I got my hair pulled lots of times. She also cuddled a lot with me, though, and she got a lot of really hard squeezes. Daddy played chase with her, and wrestled with her and tickled her until she was giggling so hard she was gasping. I thought, she'll sleep well at naptime today!

She did not want to go in to eat at the end of our visit. That says something to me, that she would give up a meal to stay with us.

This is the beady-eyed stare she gives me, right before she grabs my hair!

Daddy helping her use up some of that excess energy by spinning her.

She loves this, and was so dizzy, she kept tipping over after he stood her on her feet.  She even thought that was fun!

Today we went for a really looong walk (my feet were killing me) and found the US embassy. It was closed, so we didn't go in, but at least now we know where it is. We stopped at a McDonald's for lunch. Bless them, they had a normal bathroom with toilet paper, even! Never take that for granted, people! David figured out that W.C. means "water closet" way before I did. In fact, I recognized the russian word for "toilet" right above the W.C. first. W.C. has always meant Wilson Creek to me.

Finally!  A sight for homesick eyes!

Wait a minute!  How do you order when no one speaks english?  Just kidding!  They brought out their one english-speaker to help us order.



Kind of an interesting thing they do here, is to close down the main street, and allow vendors to set up a marketplace, and everyone comes out to stroll up and down the main drag. It is a slightly festive atmosphere, lots of people taking photos, street musicians, a few roller bladers, skateboarders, some families pushing strollers, or small children on bicycles. Mostly just people strolling up and down this big street. I'm not sure of the point(exercise? thank God we can finally walk down the middle of a street?) but David says, "Why do you have to figure it out? It's just something they like to do!"