Steve, Sunny, Summer...and SARA!!!!!!!

First, let me address the last teaser. There are two Russian words for greeting someone - Preevyet and Zdrastvweetye (phonetic spelling/pronunciation in English). During Tatyana's stay with us in America, Steve decided to learn the first one because it was just easier to say. He used it exclusively with Tatyana and continued to use it with everyone he greeted once we arrived in Ukraine which was 10 days ago. We were discussing the pronunciations of Russian words with Sergei and Steve was pronouncing some of the Russian words he knows. A woman walked by us and she said, "Zdrastvweetye." I asked Sergei about it and he said it is the more formal greeting for hello and should be used by adults to adults and that saying "Preevyet" is inappropriate and almost disrespectful because it is usually used with greeting children. So Steve will no longer be saying, "Hi" to adults and will now be doing his best to pronounce "Zdrastvweetye" as he greets them. You try it!

Friday, October 8 - We woke up early to drive with Sergei to a nearby town, Lisichansk, the town in which Sara was born (I will do my best to remember to type Sara but I may have a slip or two). He had to obtain her original birth certificate. Later, we again got to visit with our beloved Sara (good job, Sunny) at the orphanage. By the way, her orphanage is officially called the Severodonetsk Boarding School and I have to say they seem to have wonderful teachers and the kids we've met seem to be as happy as you can be in an orphanage. We had some wonderful private time with Sara today. I had two favorite moments. My first favorite moment came when she showed us an orphanage photo album and we got to see pictures of her throughout her years there. Arriving when she was 7 years old, there were pictures from about that age to about age 12. What an adorable little girl she was!! (See photo of Sara holding the photo album followed by a close-up of the photo she is showing.) We then took some photos of ourselves. (See photo of Steve with his 2 girls followed by the a photo of the 3 redheads.)

Sara (wow, I am doing good) then took us on a tour of the school. We passed a room where our new friends (the fellow adoptive couple) were visiting with their daughter-to-be, Julia. (See photo of Jamie and Moises with Julia.) It has been SO cool getting to share this experience with another couple who know all about the emotions and joy we are having. After visiting with them for a little while, Sara then started our tour of the still chilly building. (Sergei told us that the government controls when the gas can be turned on for the entire town. Some homes will use space heaters in the meantime but the orphanage heat is operated only by gas.) We got to see the dining hall on our tour and Tatyana - oops! - Sara showed us where she sits for all her meals. Then she showed us some of her classrooms and where they do their equivalent of physical education. Then came my second favorite moment of our time with Sara. We walked by a wall of 20 photos of children in the orphanage. It is a display that recognizes the top 20 kids in the school (so we were told) and there amongst the faces was our lovely smart and talented Sara! (See photo of Sara holding her guitar.) For those of you who don't know, Sara is a very talented young lady who taught herself to play the guitar, writes lyrics and music for her own songs and she has a lovely singing voice as well. She performed one of her songs for us when we hosted her. And apparently, per "the wall," she is smart too - but I already knew that! It was time to leave after our tour and Sara walked us to the door and I took a beautiful photo of her there. (See photo of Sara with the unofficial orphanage dog in the left corner who greets us everyday.)

We returned to the hotel and ran into Sergei who told us that the preliminary papers/documents he submitted for us have already been approved by the SDA (adoption authority) and that now we just wait for Interpol clearance. It is Friday so we won't get that clearance until early next week because offices are closed on Saturday and Sunday. We went to dinner with Sergei, Jamie and Moises at a cool store they have here called the AM Store. It is a Walmart wanna-be but is actually several separate stores all under one roof including an electronics store, clothing and accessory shops and a grocery store. It also has a small cafeteria-style restaurant that has surprisingly delicious food so we enjoyed a quick and yummy dinner. We also bought a few items while there and take note that I bought sugar for my own coffee that I like to make in my room with bottled water - trying not to drink the local water which has been known to upset many an American tummy. This purchase will come back up in the next blog.

Tomorrow is Saturday and the kids have no school so we have planned with the Antenuccis to have a pizza party for the kids in Sara's class and in Julia's class. Looking forward to that! And the closing teaser for today will be: Why should you NOT try to pronounce Russian words that you are not sure how to pronounce? Tune in to the next blog for the rest of the unpleasant story!!

Sunny (Sara's soon-to-be Mom :-)