Well I don't even know where to start. It's hard to believe that we have been home for 7 weeks. I am going to back track a bit and go back to Lugansk.

November - On November 15th Brad and Y went down to pick up the kids passports, I did not go as I was not feeling 100% and only one of us needed to go. Of course one guy was looking for more money.....it seems that someone always had their hand out. Y held her ground....saying that he did nothing to help us so Brad & Y just hung out thinking that the guy was not going to release them for a couple of hours....but he did about 15 minutes later, I guess he realized that they was no more money coming his way. They came back to the hotel and we checked out. We took our bags to the orphanage and left them there. We went to the internet cafe and them to Y out for a late lunch to our Pizza restaurant. We headed back to the orphanage just before 4. We went up to the kids room with our stuff for the going away party. We had hats for the kids....they went crazy for them, cookies, candy, bananas, oranges and juice boxes. They loved the fruit....can you believe it? I guess they do not get very much fruit at the orphanage. Nadia and Stasik helped set up for the party. I was trying very hard to get them to eat....but they wanted nothing to do with it, they just wanted to change into there new clothes and get out of there. P & P showed up just as we got the party going. We headed down to the directors office to finish up and headed off to the airport early....the kids just wanted to leave. Of course it was raining out....which is going to lead into our airport experience. Well Lugansk has the worst airport I have even been in in my whole life!!!! We have to lug all of our luggage up to the second floor. Once we checked in they send you to this little holding room with all your stuff. So here we are with P & P and their 2 kids and all of our stuff. It was packed in there and the 4 kids are going crazy....they just want to get onto the plane. So once they are ready to put us on the plane we walk outside to the plane. Remember we are on the second floor, it's raining out and we have all of our luggage 6 pieces and 3 of them are heavy. So we have to walk across the tarmac to the plane, go around to the other side and lift our heavy bags up to the guy on the plane to put them on the plane....gotta love Lugansk airport!!!!

It was a relatively uneventful plane ride. We managed to keep our two kids away for P & P's kids. Stasik fell a sleep for the majority of the ride. We arrived in Kiev and headed off to our apartment. When we pulled up our diver was killing himself laughing....our friends B & S from Manitoba are in the same building as up....needless to say we were ecstatic as we were spending Friday with them.

We woke up Friday a.m. and headed off to McDonald's for breakfast.....you have NO idea how happy I was to see Rotten Ronnie's!!!! We hung out on Khreschatyk and then hooked up with B & S and their two kids for lunch. They have adopted a boy the same age as Stasik and a girl the same age as Nadia. We sent the rest of the day with them, the kids got along great. That evening we went to the Canadian Embassy for their pub night. The eight of us had a great time....it was so nice to hang out with a group of Canadians. Most of them are in Kiev working at the Embassy. We even meet one girl from Manitoba who is married to a Ukrainian and living in Ukraine. And of course she know people that Brad knows. For those of you how know my hubby, he always runs into someone he knows....ie. on the street in Las Vegas.

On Saturday we went to the KLM office to confirm our flights for the next day, this was a recommendation by our friends B & S.....thank goodness we went....what a mess!!! Well it turned out that Northwest airlines messed up and did not process Brad and my flight change....so we were not booked on the flight. Also, talking to the gentleman who gave the kids their Visa's to come to Canada...he brought up a good point....did the kids need Visa's to fly through the US??? YES!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!! The lady at Northwest told my sister-in-law when she booked the flights....and she told me, but my ignorance....I said the kids will have Visa's....for Canada.....duh. So needless to say I was freaking out. We held flights for the 4 of us for the Tuesday with hope of getting the US Visa's on Monday.

We went to the US consulate on Monday and discovered that the Americans can get their visas for their children in a day and it would have taken us 2 or 3 days....and I did not want to rebook the flights until we had them. So we bite the bullet and purchased 4 one way tickets for us to go home on Tuesday....

On Sunday we spent the day with P & P and their boys. The eight of us meet at McDonald's for lunch and then went to the circus. We had a great time with them and the circus was great.....and super cheap, about $4 a person. The show was amazing and was about 3 hours long....the best $$$$ we spent in Ukraine.

On Monday after getting the tickets settled up we ran into P & P on the street and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with them. Crazy being in Kiev and running into people you know never mind when we were at McDonald's in Kiev on Monday we ran into a couple (Ukrainian) that we always saw at the internet in Lugansk. They spoke a little English and would always try to talk to us a bit. Small would, even in Kiev.

We flew back to Winnipeg on Tuesday Nov 21th via Vienna and Toronto. 2 days in Ukraine. One of my closed friends Loretta and her hubby Dan and children Jacob and Julia live in Toronto. We had a 4. hour law over and they meet us at the airport and took us to Outback Steakhouse for a wonderful meal. Brad was so excited to eat a steak...everything in Ukraine is minced. Poor Stasik was so tired, but that time we had been up for about 1 8 hours and he fell a sleep at the table after he ate.

check back next week for updates on life in Manitoba!