A good night with the girls and a little cultural view...

This little boy with us is Vlat, he is a sweet boy who is really
smart and knows a lot of english.

Vika & Olya

We had another great night at the orphanage last night with our girls and all the other ones who stopped in last night.  It is getting more natural by the day with our girls.  I had shared about the environment here for them and how is it obviously different from when they were in America with us, that at first was hard to see them in this environment and see first hand how much it effects them.  They are feeling more as ease with us being here now and we are bonding very well.  Russie and I wanted to see how much they knew as far as some English and math go.  I had brought along a picture book from America with basic pictures of food, and household things, and we had them tell us in English what they were by looking at the pictures.  Luba must be doing a great job teaching them english, because they knew most of the things we asked them.  Both the girls can read english very well also.  Russie then wanted to see their math skills.  He started out with some simple math for Vika and she said"ahh papa" meaning it was too easy. He kept making them harder and harder until Vika finally informed us, that she learned that stuff in 4th grade.  Russie then moved on to Anslee and she knew all the problems he gave her and we were both very impressed by both of their math skills.  We took the bendaroos again and the little boys were very intrigued by them and wanted to make everything in the pictures.  Little Dan was trying to tell me something, and then she said, "help me please" so I helped him make a few of the things.  After making each one, he would run up to his room and take it up and come down and make another one.  I enjoyed the time I had with Dan, Andre, and Vlat making things.  Dan is a very special little boy and he will keep a little piece of my heart here, when we leave.  We also got some good laughs last night by making funny faces on my laptop.  I have a photo booth program, where your face comes up on the computer screen and you can distort your face and then take a picture of yourself, it is really funny and the kids loved doing that.  

 We have been walking around and discovering new things everyday.  We walk to the market everyday with Mick and Janel and have been eating dinner together most nights either here at our apartment or at theirs.  We have had many great laughs, and many great conversations with them.  Continue to pray for them, they have been here 2 weeks already and have about 2 more weeks until they will be returning home with their daughter, Vika Grace.  As we have been walking there are many things that we are finding to be typical things or "normal" things in their culture here.  Russie told me to start taking a few pictures of some differnt things and then we can blog about some of the things we are seeing here for those of you coming after us and for anyone who is interested.  There are several indoor markets and several open air markets.  You see many of the same things you do at home and many different things.  These pictures are from a super market, these fruits, vegetables and seafood are in the freezer section, and you get as many as you want and get it weighed and pay by the pound. The pictures of the fish are from the open air market.  The fish stands are very popular and you see them a lot, and smell them ! 

There are also many stray dogs always walking along the streets.  This 3 legged dog we have seen in the same place a few days in a row now.  This next picture is a picture of the pizza place we have went to a few times now.  It is pretty good, you pick your own toppings and we were surprised to find out that corn is a popular choice here to put on your pizza and your pasta.  They also have very good and different salads there, and we discovered the last time they have lasagna as well, so we may try that the next time.  Russie wanted me to take a picture of this car because this is the most popular kind here.  I also took a picture of the salad we had for lunch today because no salads here have lettuce.  We saw this lettuce at the store today and got it.  We were so craving a lettuce salad and this hit the spot.  So for those coming after us, we will let you know where you can find lettuce !

This is Russie outside of our apartment