Were Back !

After a very long journey, we have made it back to Ukraine !  We flew out of State College on Sunday afternoon, and made it here early this morning.  We arrived to the Kiev airport last night and left from there to head to Krivoy Rog by car.  We usually take the overnight train, but Joe and Ginger were being dropped off in Kiev, so we took the ride back to Krivoy with Andre. We were told by others who came before us, that we really hadn't experienced the whole trip, until we got to enjoy the 6 hour car ride from Kiev to Krivoy. The roads here are not as they are in America.  They have pot holes all over, so it is a constant swerving and hitting your brakes, to avoid them the whole time.  A friend of ours, referred to the experience, like being locked in a filing cabinet and then being pushed down a bumpy brink road, that description was quite accurate! But we made it here and we are glad we did.  We went to the local offices today to apply for the girls passports.  It only took a few minutes and we were done.  We will now just wait for them to get done.  We went to the market when we were finished and then we headed to the orphanage.  Joe and Ginger had told us they had not been allowed in the orphanage the past few days because of a quarantine from the kids.  We were not sure if we were even going to be allowed in orphanage today because of this, but we got dropped off and no one said anything about it to us, so we went in and got the girls as normal and headed to the art room.  We were excited to see them as they were us.  We were quickly met by, Vola, outside the art room and she followed us in and stayed there the whole time.  We have to admit though, it didn't feel quite the same without Vika McCracken running up to us and without Mick and Janel in the art room with us.  We did get to talk to Vika on Rusa's phone when we walked in though, and she seemed very excited to be in America, we are so happy for their family. 
We played uno and ate the snacks we had brought.  The kids really like these cream cheese type bars, they look like a chocolate bar on the outside but inside they are filled with a cream cheese like filling and fruit.  The kids were excited for those.  Russie and I thought for sure, Artyr would be the first one to find us, like he always was when we were here before, but we didn't see him until about an hour after we were there.  We were starting to get worried, but sure enough he came walking thorough the door with a big smile and a big hug for each of us.  He joined us playing uno and we played until we had to leave.  It doesn't take long at all once you are around those kids to have all the feelings start to come right back.  It confirms why you were brought here, and also confirms how hard it will be to leave here, knowing some of those precious children still are without a forever family.  We have to sign some more papers in the morning and then we will head back to the orphanage tomorrow afternoon again.  We told the kids that we would bring a prize for the winner of uno tomorrow and they all liked that idea, so we will have to find a prize to take.  

Anslee & Anya

This little girls name is Vika.  She is a really sweet girl.
Terri, this is the one that I told you reminded me of your
Ashley, so every time we see or or refer to her, we call her Ashley Shultz.
She is one that grabs on to you so tight and never wants to let go, she breaks
my heart every time I see her and every time we have to say goodbye.  She
stands at the doorway and just watches as we leave.