DAY 3 CONT.

As commented, kids have their days. This afternoon was much better. Jacob just laughed and laughed at James playing with the balls. We spent most of the time in the playroom. We are learning more and more about him with each visit. He is very clever and a problem solver. He did have a few temper tantrums but he is starting to understand the word "No". He doesn't like it but understands. We went outside for a few minutes before we left. We briefly met a couple from Germany adopting one of the little boy's in Jacob's group. His name is Anton. Jacob wanted to go with them but couldn't and decided to show his temper once again. It was almost time to leave so we took him to his group. Before we left he gave both of us hugs and kisses.

We had CHICKEN today. Yippee!! No pizza!!! We had McDonald's for supper. We will probably be back to pizza tomorrow, at least for one meal. We both are feeling better today. We hope to get in bed earlier tonight and hopefully get some good rest. I am breaking out the Benadryl. James' snoring is killing me.

I think one child is all we can handle right now, but it would be nice to get the other Maxim too. He is so sweet and friendly.

Signing off for now.

Keep praying.

Love,

TJJ

DAY 3 OF SCHEDULED VISITS

Today was not a good day to start off, but it got better. Jacob was in a very whiny mood. He didn’t want to have anything to do with us. His favorite caregiver, Lisa was there. When she is around he doesn’t have anything to do with anybody else. We went outside to play hoping that would help. It didn’t. He had an accident so we went inside to change him. We thought we would try to play inside in the playroom. That didn’t work either. We decided to go find his group. He sat in Lisa’s lap for a while then he got up and played by himself. We are learning he doesn’t play with the other children very much. We went in for all the children to go potty. Then we went to a different play area outside. He was in a better mood then. He played on swings for a while. Lisa bribed him with a candy bar. He ate that, but we have learned he doesn’t like the bananas as we had thought. He just holds food in his mouth for a while then spits it out. Looks like we won’t be bribing him with food to come to us. The morning visit ended really well. He gave us both kisses. No more hugs yet.

We are posting a picture of James with another little boy. He is the one that called James Papa then Daddy the first two times he saw us. His name is Maxim too. He ran to me today when we got there. I picked him up. He is so friendly and always smiling. We are slowly learning all 9 kid’s names. There is Natasha, Tonya, Sasha, Adrian, Eli, & Maxim.

Jacob has had a haircut. I’m not sure you can tell very much, but it is so cute.

We love and miss you all. It stills looks like we will not be home for the 4th of July.

Love,

TJJ

SLOW DAY

We appreciate everyone watching our blog and love all the comments. We are still a little tired, so we're going to make this short today. We will post more tomorrow with pictures. Hopefully, with good news too. Thanks Karina for the letting us know to talk to Jacob in English as much as possible. We have been, but we will be sure to do more.

We can not stress enough how much the comments mean to us. I love you all very much.

God Bless You!

TJJ

QUALITY TIME WITH JACOB

We were able to spend a total of 4 hours with Jacob today, from 9:30-11:30 and 4-6. It was good. We learned a lot about him. He is strong willed, independent, and a climber (very much like his cousin Matthew). He wants to do things his way in his time. He loves Cheerios and bananas. He likes Goldfish but not as much as Cheerios, and he knows exactly where to find them. We were able to spend time alone with him. He does so much better with just us. If a caregiver was in the room he wouldn’t have anything to do with us. We couldn’t go outside with him without a caregiver per instructed by the doctor. She was afraid he might faint. I don’t think he would have. He is taking to us pretty fast. We may try to go outside tomorrow. The little playroom we were in gets kind of warm. He sat in my lap for a long time this morning. He was fine when we left this morning but this afternoon was a little different. When we took him back to the caregiver I was holding him and he didn’t want to go to her. He cried a little when I gave him to her, so we had to distract him, you guessed it, with Cheerios. James held him once this morning, but this afternoon Jacob sat in his lap because he had the Cheerios. Bribery works every time.

We have tried a little Ukrainian food and so far neither one of us is very fond of it. I’m already tired of pizza. I think we are having cereal for supper. Sounds like home.

A little bad news today. Andrew probably won’t be back to Simferopol until Friday, which means it is very likely we won’t make it home when scheduled. I just pray before the 4th of July at this point. Please pray hard.

Love,

J,T,J

CORRECTIONS

We just spoke with Tammy and she said that the Stout's website would not pull up from the link. I have fixed it now. Also, I changed the Lambeth's website so the link takes you directly to their new blog.

It was great talking with Tammy & Phillip and Gladys & Robert.

Love,

J,T,J

A DAY OF REST

We were going to see some beautiful sites today but we decided we needed some rest. I think the jet lag is finally catching up with us. Also, we needed to wash clothes. We now have a washer but no dryer. The washer is so small we can only wash 4-5 pieces of clothing at a time. I think we are on our 6th load. It’s a good thing I read someone’s blog that said to take clothespins. We have a rope tied on our balcony. We are spoiled to soft clothes coming out of the dryer. Our jeans are stiff as a broad. I haven’t done this much ironing at one time in months. We are staying so busy we haven’t even watched a movie yet (on the laptop).

We can’t wait for 9:30 in the morning. Please pray that Jacob is still well and that he isn’t so afraid of us that he faints. Right now I think our plans are to watch him play with the other children to see how he interacts and also give him time to adjust to our being around without being to close. Maybe we will do this for a day or two then we will have our private time to play.

We found a baby shop yesterday that has clothes (in USA sizes), shoes (not is USA sizes), and toys. There wasn’t a large variety of clothes but the ones they do have are cute. They have both shorts and pants. There is a huge selection of shoes, but mostly girls and larger sizes. It looks like he will be in 12 mos. After we measure him, we will know more and we’ll go buy. We did buy him two plastic cars. These are more appropriate for his age than the matchbox cars.

James really missed Brotherhood Breakfast this morning. You know James and food. Enough said. Haha We both miss everyone. We look forward to see everyone soon. Pray for “SOON”.

We Love You All,

James, Teresa, & Jacob

RELAXING DAY!!

We don’t have a lot going on today. We can’t see Jacob today. Andrew is gone. We are moving this afternoon to a different apartment where we can wash clothes. Hopefully we will be able to move one more time while we are here so we can get an apartment with 2 bedrooms so Andrew can stay with us. We have to pay for his travel and accommodations. It helps if he stays with us. Since we don’t have a lot going on today I thought I would try to post some information that would to helpful to those families traveling here to adopt.

I having been reading blogs for 2 years and learned a lot and talking with people. I know each region is probably different but some things don’t change. First, if you want bottled water that isn’t carbonated ask for water no gas (which is the one with the light blue cap, not dark blue). I read they don’t have toilet paper here. They do in hotels and the apartments. They don’t in the squat pots, which is nothing more than a hole in the floor. The term squat pot came from Laurie which has been to Africa and that is what they are called there. The port-a-potties don’t have TP either and you have to pay to use them. They are about 10 cents. Also you have to pay to use some of the squat pots. I would suggest bringing the little travel packs of Kleenex.

We were told to bring water and crackers, which is a good idea. Thanks, Donna. We brought a little too much though. I would bring 2-4 bottles. You can buy it in Kyiv.

The supermarket that we went to in Kyiv had pretty much everything we have at home. We brought coffee, sugar, creamer, etc. Their coffee is stronger and they sugar isn’t as sweet though.

The apartments in Kyiv run about $80 per night. TGIFriday’s and McDonald’s are about the same price.

I need to clarify about the taxis I mention earlier. The price per trip isn’t bad. The expensive part is the amount of time we are using them. We aren’t close to the orphanage, or the Inspector, or McDonald’s (which James has to have). We spent 7.5 hrs with our taxi driver one day. Then yesterday we went over 400 km. We have negotiated a price of 35 cents per km.

The Internet Cafes are cheap. It’s about 20 cent per hour here in Simferopol. I don’t know the price in Kyiv. We used wireless and it didn’t cost us anything.

Skype.com is wonderful. I can’t say enough about it. It is 4 cents to connect and 2 cents per minute to call home. It helps tremendously with the homesickness. It’s easy to download and to connect. Thanks, Clark and Jenny for telling us about it. If you don’t bring a laptop I did notice that the computers at the Internet Café have Skype on them. You would probably just have to setup an account.

If you don’t know the blog website are free to use. I do know that blogcity.com is not user friendly. The one we are using, which is blogspot.com is user friendly. I don’t know about any of the others.

We have a DVD player in our apartment, which will play the movie but it doesn’t have audio. Andrew, our translator explained there is a difference in the configuration of the audio of US vs. Europe. We did bring some to play in our laptop but we haven’t had time to watch any. If you bring any I would suggest just a few. The luggage gets pretty heavy moving as much as we have, especially with all the stairs.

I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with information. If anyone has any questions that I have thought to address send them to me in the comments. I will answer anything I can.

Joann – We mentioned looking at pictures on your blog on March 31, 2005. I must have overlooked the address. Can you please send it to me?

Signing off for now.

James, Teresa, & Jacob