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I have no idea where the time has gone since the last blog? This last month has been extremely busy with school and cross country.  Cross country will be coming to an end soon as I think Dima is ready for a little break.  Homework takes up all of our evening time and I think he is getting burnt out a little.  One evening he said all I do is go to school, go to practice, eat and do homework until bed!  Eventhough he has been tired, he has been a real trooper and trying his best to do all his work.  Some things he wants to finish like all the other students, however, there are still things that are too challenging for him to complete.  Other students can get most of their work finished in class where he will do what he can and bring the rest home for us to help him.  We are so thankful he has come to trust us helping him as last year it was a struggle at times.  This is also a great way for us to see what he can and cannot do.

Last night was Parent-Teacher Conferences as we had the opportunity to see how he is doing in class.  We are so blessed that he has such caring and helpful teachers.  Since Dima is so quiet and shy, they all had a hard time finding out what he could and could not do.  They all say he is slowly opening up which have helped to learn more about him.  For the most part, the teachers say he has been respectful, however, a few times he has shown his attitude when he doesn't understand something or it was discovered that he didn't complete work.  Luckily, that attitude is starting to diminish with him being able to understand more.  For 14 years that was his way of dealing with problems, so it's not going to go away in a flash.  Now that the teachers have a better understanding of him, I think that attitude will slowly go away. He is even starting to open up to his ESL teacher, finally!!! We have been trying to explain how important she is to him and how she can help him.

The other day Dusty and I were looking through some old pictures and were quickly reminded how far Dima has come in just 10 months!!  This time last year Dima was waiting for us to come adopt him, now he has such a completely different life now.  Before he didn't care about school, now he starts on his homework without us asking him to do it. Looking through his old pictures, we saw a child with no smile or hope, now all he does is smile!!

This was the first time we saw Dima in Ukraine since the summer hosting program.

This is the smile we LOVE to see!!! This is after he received his Citizenship Certification.  In his mind, he was finally an American and had the certificate to prove it.