Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was so much fun. The kids all came racing out to find that Santa indeed had come to their house. The girls got new bikes, Garrett got a much-wanted Lego set. Trevor got Guitar Hero. Daniel got some things for his mission.




It was so fun to watch the kids open their presents. The girls would come and hug us in-between presents. They would tell us how much they love us. It was a most wonderful and unforgettable Christmas.

If you look out the window in the bike picture you will see that we had a white Christmas. It turned out to be a heavy first winter for the girls. It was amazing!

Preparing For Santa Clause

The kids left our notes, pictures, cookies, and eggnog for Santa. Garrett left him a dollar to help with the costs of Christmas. Karina made a special Santa picture to take back to the North Pole. Cassidee drew a picture and told him that she loved him.

It was so sweet to see them get things ready for Santa. We had a hard time getting them all into bed. Karina saw, "A red light in the sky - Rudolph!!". They finally fell asleep shortly after midnight. I sure hope Santa did not have to pass us by since they were still awake!

Let's Make Christmas Cookies

Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee helped Leah make Christmas Sugar cookies for neighbors, family, and friends. They had a lot of fun making and frosting them. It was even more fun going out and delivering them before Christmas.

Experiencing all these new traditions and holidays with the girls have helped us remember how the true meaning of Christmas is supposed to be. We are so deeply thankful they are part of our family.

The Girls Meet Mr. and Mrs. Clause

The girls got to meet Santa on December 15. Our neighbors, The Rusts, had Santa and Mrs. Clause come and visit them during their Christmas party. The girls were very excited to meet Santa. Mrs. Clause told everyone how the girls were new to America and how they and Garrett were all in the "Nice" book.

The girls and Garrett told Santa what they wanted on Christmas morning. They must have been pretty good since Santa brought them the things they asked for.

Decorating Our Christmas Tree

We took the girls along with the rest of the family for our yearly tradition to get a new ornament for everyone. We do this so by the time the kids are ready to be married they will have several ornaments to decorate their first Christmas Tree with. We got one for each of the girls last year hoping they would be with us for this Christmas. Having them finally in our family was the best present of all!

I do not think Daniel and Trevor looked as excited as everyone else but they really did have fun.

Cassidee's Looses Her First Tooth

Cassidee lost her first tooth on November 21. We put it under her pillow and the tooth fairy came and brought her some money since it was so clean. She wanted dad to pull out some more.

Halloween

The girls enjoyed their first Halloween. They made such beautiful Princesses. They loved all the candy and wanted to keep going well after 9:00. It is amazing to see the differences between boys and girls. Those handing out candy were more generous for the girls than I ever remember them being to our boys.

They thought Leah's "Sick" pumpkin was funny!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins tonight. The girls had a ton of fun. This was the first time they had ever carved a pumpkin and they did a great job.

Cassidee was teasing us saying she was going to eat the insides of the pumpkin. She did try a few seeds and like those. Karina was too busy working on her masterpiece. It is amazing how well they are doing with their English. They are so excited for Halloween tomorrow.

We took them to a Corn Maze Monday night and they loved it. A scary guy came out right at the first. Cassidee was not happy about that. I had to carry her for the first ten minutes before she would let me put her down. Karina told us she would beat-up the guy if he tried to scare her. I am thinking she would hold her own too.

Karina Attends Birthday Party

Karina attends a costume party for her friend Jacelee. She loves her Princess costume. She did excellent at eating the doughnuts hanging from a string.

Getting Settled In

We have had many things happen since our return on 9/19. The girls are getting adjusted very well. They continue to progress with their English and are starting to even use English with each other. This is great progress.

The Girls started school last Monday. Cassidee is in morning Kindergarten and Karina is in 1st Grade. Both of their teachers are very complimentary of their progress. Karina has a friend - Jacelee - who is taken her by the hand and shown her all the things she needs to know. She has been a great helper. They have an ESL - English as a Second Language - program at their school. The ESL teacher is also praising them.

The pictures are of the girls first day of school, playing in the snow, girls with new coats and boots, and their new dresses.

Leah's father passed away on Thursday morning. We are so happy he was able to met and spend some time with the girls. The funeral is tomorrow and we will try and update more later in the week.

We Are On Our Way Home!!

It is 12:30 am in Kiev and our lawyer will be at the apartment to pick us up at 4:30 to head to the airport. We fly out of Kiev for Prague at 6:30 am on Czech Airlines flight #4919. We arrive at 7:45. After a 3 plus hour layover we head for JFK on flight #5 at 11:00 and arrive at 14:15. We then have a 5 plus hour layover - but we need up to two hours to process all the documents for the girls. We will switch to Delta and fly to Salt Lake. We leave JFK at 19:31 and arrive at 22:59. Time is almost out so we will talk to you tomorrow or today - however you look at it!

Here a picture of our return trip. They finally slept at JFK.

More Pictures

1 - Spitting watermelon seeds over the fense.

2 - Cassidee squeezing the life out of a poor frog. (we saved it! )

3 - Garrett was invited to swim today- it was good because he is homesick and is sad to have missed the 1st day of school.

4 - Garrett says hello from Krasnokutsk, Ukraine.

5 - This is our street. It is only 6:50 and there are about 3 neighbors already burning their garbage! Very stinky!

6 - Karina playing hide and seek in the woods.

7 - These are some of the darling little boys at the orphanage.

More Pictures

I am not sure how the order of these pictures will go but here is a list of them: 1) This is the village ambulance. I wonder if they have any openings? 2) Can you say Hogan's Heros? 3) Polka anyone? 4) 5) they love to burn garbage all day long. 6) Karina sets up bowling on a rainy day visit.

More Village Pictures

Now that we have internet access once again, we are putting some more pictures on.

The market's meat counter. The next one is how they paint lines in the street. One is the Doctor of the orphanage's car.

9/16 CHURCH!!!!

Last Night we were able to get in contact with a pair of the missionaries here. They met us this morning and walked us to church! The church is downtown and is on the 3rd floor of a big building. It was an English speaking branch. It was so nice to feel of the spirit and be around something familiar. It is so true when people say that the church is the same everywhere. It was the same 3 hr. block and same lessons, everything was the same. There were only 5 kids in the primary, 3 of which were ours! There are 20 something sisters who are here to teach English. There were a few American and Canadian families that live here for their jobs. There were a few members that had been on missions to America, England, etc. who wanted to keep up their English.

When we got there and sat down, the girls were amazingly good! (normally kind of wild!) The branch president's wife was behind us and shared books, coloring pages, etc. One of the missionaries was also behind us and I would occasionally turn around and have him translate something to the girls so they would know what was going on.

When we started the opening song, I was so overcome with emotion, the spirit was so incredibly strong, I couldn't sing past the first half of the 1st verse. I could only seem to cry. I can not explain the emotions that overcame me. The talks were incredible.

After that, the girls and Garrett went to Primary. 2 sisters that were there for the English teaching program conducted and played the piano. When they found out I was the chorister they were really happy to recruit me for singing. It was really fun! There was a sweet Ukrainian sister that sat next to my girls and translated everything! So, we did head, shoulders, knees, and toes, popcorn popping, Autumn time, The wise man and the foolish man, Book of Mormon Stories, Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam and a bunch of others. When they did sharing time the same sister translated the entire thing to my girls! It was so great to see them in that setting. I left and went to Relief Society and left the kids in their class. The teacher later said that Garrett is so smart and had the answer to everything and the girls were good and even came up front to help out with some actions. As soon as it was over, they started running around and climbing over the couches and so on. It will take some time to train them, they are "wild", literally!

We are taking the missionaries to a cafe near our apartment tomorrow and they will teach the kids some basics about the church. It was so good to talk to people "like us" today, and we are looking forward to it tomorrow!

Well, we go tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. to the girls Dr. appts. then to drop off papers at the US consolate. Then go back the next day to consolate for Interview to get Visas. We have to leave for the airport on Wed. morning around 4:00 A.M. !!!!! Yikes! We pick up our tickets tomorrow and will have exact travel info posted on the blog tomorrow between 11:00- 2:00 your time. We do know that the plane gets in around 11:00 P.M. Wed. night.

We are so excited to be home and get the girls into our little "Utah Bubble" (as the Relief Society teacher today joked about!). Garrett is sick to death of all the smoke, beer, "inappropriate clothing".

Well, got to go, computer time is up! love you all!

Leah

Update 9/15

We made it to Kiev. The train was an early one and the girls were excited to go but not excited about getting up at 5:30 am. We have a nice apartment near our first one so we are lucky to already know where everything is located. Also now we can communicate enough to get what we need.

We did go to TGI Friday's tonight and were able to read an English menu. Yeah! The girls ate good and after they polished off their french fries and half their hambuger the waitress came by and they asked for two more in Ukraine. They are so funny and eat like our older sons. As long as Karina likes it Cassidee follows suit. Otherwise if she says, "Foo", then no chance of Cassidee even trying it. They say Foo a lot without even trying some things. Once they do it is a different story.

We purchased our plane tickets today and will be back in SLC on 9/19 - Wed - at 11:00 PM. I will remember to get flight numbers tomorrow.

See you all soon!

Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee

Update 9/14

We could not resist getting a picture of them sleeping. After a long day they were so tired they went to bed fairly well. They were excited to catch the train the next day. We did not get the passports as planned on Thursday but we did on Friday afternoon. One problem, we could not get a ticket for the Friday 6 pm train so we will leave tomorrow morning for Kiev (Saturday 7am).

Our stay in Kharkov has been great. We enjoy the apartment. It is very nice and was only $60 US. More than worth the extra $10 versus our village accommodations. We ventured to a pizza place tonight. Very wimpy, no toppings, very little cheese or sauce, and as Garrett put it, “This taste nothing like pizza”! Well it was not that bad and to get three pizzas for 42rph - $8.40 US you can not complain too much. I will miss the good food prices.

We will visit the US Consulate on Monday to take care of visas and medical exams for the girls. We promised Garrett a trip to Independence Square for another meal at McDonalds. The girls are excited as well to have a hamburger since Papa’s was “Yum Yum”.

We will try and get pictures on the web in Kiev but the internet cafe we were at the first time had their own computers and did not allow jump drives. We have a Wi-Fi place here in Kharkov and it has been much nicer to work from my own laptop. Leah and I both went there and had some yummy desserts.

We better get some sleep since it is after Midnight and our driver will pick us up at 6:00 am. Keep leaving comments; we love to hear from all of you.

Best wishes and we will see you next week! Love Ya, Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee.

Our Little Helper

What a little helper! After lunch today Cassidee went in and started doing dishes. I got a few pictures and Leah took some video with her phone. I hope it turns out.

He's Hooked

We got one of our lawyer, Roman, hooked on a game called Luxor. He sat and played it for a few hours today. He was funny! Leah’s mom got us hooked on it too. We will have to find him a copy and mail it too him.

Village Food

Here are some pictures of the refrigerator at the house in the village. Notice the fish on the bottom shelf. Talk about your sushi. They just cut it off and eat it. It was there for several days and it smelled bad. Some of the items on the top shelf were there since we arrived on 8/15. I do not even want to know what they were. All the items in sealed container are ours. We ate a lot of Raman noodles, instant potatoes, and eggs.

The items in the freezer are loose pieces of meat just frozen in place. The market is the same way. We never got a picture but one of the stores had a half- yes a half of a pig’s head loose in their freezer. No we did not buy any frozen food there! The other picture is what they had to use to cut up their meat. Medieval if you ask me!!