Things were about the same today. Nothing new to report. The visits seemed to go much easier and much faster today. We did a little grocery shopping this afternoon. The owner of our apartments wife came this afternoon and cleaned the apartment. She changed the sheets and brought fresh towels. That was great.
I cooked dinner. I can even do fried chicken in Ukraine. Jaryd loved it. Guess he is a true Huckabee. He is saying his name now. Jaryd Huckabee. What a sweet thing to hear. His English is coming along. I am not as discouraged as I was yesterday. Thanks Diana for the wonderful comment. You always seem to give me the right encouragement just when I need it.
Alyssa was much better today also. Jacob and Kailyn started coloring
Talk to you tomorrow. We sure miss everyone. Love you all. Can't wait for you to meet the new Huckabee's
Kevin, Tammy, Jaryd, Jacob, Alyssa, and Kailyn
4 comments:
Sounds like things are going well! I know, it does start feeling like groundhog day after a while :)
I'm glad you're not feeling so discouraged about language now. Like Diana said, they don't have a real need for learning English as long as they're still around Russian speakers, but that will change soon! The English will come quick once you're back in the U.S. - you'll be amazed at how fast the kids will pick it up! Our primary focus in our visits was to get to know one another & get comfortable with each other, and also create some basics in communication for things like food, bathroom, etc. (a combo of English, Russian, & charades!). After we got him out of the orphanage & got back to Kyiv we started on basic words, but really didn't focus on English a lot until we were home. Even then, we tried to keep it low pressure until he got more adjusted to the house, dog, family, food, etc.
So happy that things are going well, and praying that all continues to move along so you can have court next week! You guys make such a beautiful family :)
I can't wait for us both to get back to El Paso with our beautiful children! We will make a date once we are both back so we and our children can meet. Ella speaks Russian not Ukrainian...how about yours?
Are you going to court this Wednesday? The 27th?
Thanks for sharing your adventures, it has been fun to read along and re-live some of ours through the sights, sounds? (well almost), and pictures of your adoption adventure.
Diana and I know ALL about "Groundhog Day" in Ukraine. We lived in a hotel (nice hotel) with no cooking facilities, eating out of the SAME restaurant for 28 L-O-N-G days, without a translator a lot of the time. We were gone 40 days (and 40 nights!) but 28 days in region was a long time.
We were not bored, though, more like hyper and stressed and hot. Towards the end I finally got comfortable being out and about in the small town where Americans were a 'novelty'.
I would just encourage you keep the blog going, maybe even a private journal of your feelings to share years later with these kids, and all of your great spiritual blessings.
People told me this before I went to Ukraine and I'll repeat it here: Keep VERY good track of your daily activities and a journal. They may seem very routine and very Groundhog-Day-like today but soon, very soon in the eternal scheme of things, Ukraine will be a bygone era of only memories. Work hard NOW to preserve those photos, sights, sounds, and memories of your children's native environment and culture.
Wishing you well,
Blaine
You're welcome. I'm very much enjoying following your journey. It brings back a lot of memories and it's actually kind of healing in a weird sort of way. I can see a lot of things now that were clear all along, but I was too stressed out and tired to see on my own while we were in Ukraine. If I can find a way to help make someone else's journey even a little less rocky than ours was, I'm glad to share.
Just be glad you've got internet access! We had precious little once we left Kiev. Our only link to the outside world (aka "home") was a cell phone we borrowed from our facilitator. We felt so alone and so isolated. Plus, we were also out in never-never land where NO ONE spoke English and there hadn't been any other adoptions for well over a year (2+ years at the internat...and they didn't really like that adoptive family and we don't think they were wild about us, either.)
I'm glad things are going better today. You're going to have more groundhog days before you're done. Just wait until AFTER court! >:-/ And, as I well remember, sometimes the days aren't just menotenous, either. Sometimes they just need to be over...and that is ok. Just hang on and enjoy the ride the best you can.
Joseph LOVED to go grocery shopping with us while we were in Ukraine. Hopefully you'll get to take Jaryd with you soon. Because we only had a tiny little mini-bar fridge in our hotel, we had to go several times a week. It was very obvious the first time we went in there that Joseph had never seen so much food in his life. He aclimated pretty quickly, though, and loved to help carry the bags home.
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