A cold start to a beautiful day.

kisses

driving with daddy

I love my bananas!

Now that is a delicious looking hunk of meat - our shawarma guy preparing our lunch!

Our shawarma lunch

Good morning! We have just returned from the orphanage, having stopped for a shawarma on the way home. Our bellies are full of goodness. It is cold today, and as we woke up and looked outside, we noticed that it was sort-of snowing/sleeting. Not really heavily, but there was certainly white stuff swirling through the air and it was NOT flowers off the trees! So I dressed in ALL the long sleeved clothes (shirt, light sweater and zip up sweater then my spring coat) I still have here (I sent some things home with Jonathan foolishly thinking spring had sprung and I wouldn’t need them!). I was still cold – the wind was quite nasty this morning. On a happy note, the train wasn’t busy at all and we actually got to sit down AND were able to get out of our seats and off at our stop without difficulty. That was nice. The funniest (at least for me) part of the trip out there happened when Darren, who was carrying a few things in his backpack – including a new toy we had bought Ivanna that plays various tunes with button options for the child to add percussion and other instruments – happened to hit some of the buttons for the music to play…repeatedly. I had a hard time not laughing each time I could hear ‘old McDonald’ or some other tune floating out of his bag. He got some funny looks from other passengers! Note to self: buy toys with an OFF button.
Our time with Ivanna goes far too quickly. She is definitely attaching too us more and more – which is so wonderful. When the nurse brought her down today, I squatted down and opened my arms and she walked right to me and threw her little arms around my neck. We snuggled for quite a while and it was sooooo nice. Only the four Italian couples were there today, but all their kids are older (probably 3-5 years old) and boys – oh and have we mentioned before – they are all somewhat….active? Someone at the orphanage found the key for the playroom upstairs though, so the chaos was a little more bearable today (more toy options and more soft surfaces!). Ivanna had a blast riding around (being pushed alternately by Daddy and Mama) in a ride-on car. We also played with various noisy (cause and effect) toys, her musical toy (she likes music) and for a long time with a stack of rings. She would often stop to just watch the other kids. We so look forward to her getting to know her cousins and other little friends back home.
The train ride home was quite busy – people must be returning from their long weekend out of town. As we were squashed onto the entry area of the train by more aggressive people behind us, Darren’s bag began to sing again. I couldn’t stop the giggles. (D – I liked to think of it as my personal-space alarm. As it was constantly going off, I took off my backpack. No buffer zone today) We eventually got seats as we got closer to downtown Kyiv and found it slightly warmer on the walk home. I have figured out an advantage to the crazy crush of people on a busy train though…it is warm. That was the only time so far today that I was warm (when I was smooshed up against the wall with lots of people surrounding me) – that is my silver lining/glass half full thought for the day! Anyway, it is Darren’s turn to add his thoughts.

Thoughts…? Not too many to add, except that Shona and I remarked that we are feeling reasonably comfortable today. At least our oft-visited areas (the walk to the train, our store, our shawarma kiosk, the walk home, our apartment, Mario’s,…) are feeling a bit more homey. We may actually get through this. In fact, as Jonathan said before he left, soon we will be counting down to coming home, rather than counting up from leaving. That’s a nice thought.

After doing a little work on my thesis (I need to graduate someday) and doing a little pilates with Shona (apparently there's a reason we haven't done that DVD for a while - she's a nasty gumby), we ventured out into a much warmer and sunny day. We are now at Shocoladitsa (you can guess what they serve). Shona is in a little bit of heaven. It's definitely a bit more upscale from Mario's (I think our drinks and one dessert will come to about the same as an entire meal at our pizza place). But, as Shona says, change is good (note that I am quoting Shona there. I am always happy to stick with a tried-and-true).

S - yes, it is nice to have a place that (hopefully) has good chocolate desserts! Also good to have wi-fi at another location so the Mario's servers don't get too sick of us and our computer. We think we will actually cook something for supper tonight - yes we CAN do it!

Ok - we tried the chocolate cake with ganache icing - YUMMY!

Until later, paka.