Very Long Day!

I am very tired from today, but I wanted to at least say what happened for those who follow everyday. This afternoon the Walk family, Dima and I went to apply for the kids passports. The drive was to be 2 hours, but because of crazy traffic, it was 3 hours.  The driving here makes you appreciate our roads back home! We thought our potholes were bad.....that's nothing compared to these here. They are so bad that practically every couple miles you see a car pulled over changing a tire from hitting a pothole.

We arrived at the passport place, what an experience. People use their passports like we use our drivers license so the place was very busy.  I was trying to figure out what people were doing, but I couldn't. We were waiting in a room that had two separate closed doors.  People would come in and open the doors and ask questions just to get pushed out to wait. Some people were dropping off passports, not sure if they were old ones or what. After the Walk's were able to get Eric and Lena's passport pictures, we left without Dima getting his. The paperwork snafu has caught up to me....again. We were told to come back tomorrow and Dima will get his done then.

After being really nervous about getting the passport back for our January 1st flight, I was told that it should still be ok.  If not, the government offices close down for their holiday. I don't even want to think about being here a couple more weeks!  I will not breath until our butts land January 1st at JFK!!!

Next, we all went out to eat because we found out the poor kids didn't even have lunch today.  We are not sure why as they didn't have school today so we would have thought they should have eaten at the orphanage, but who knows. We had a really good meal and then hit the road.  Andre, the one driver took "hit the road" literally as he hit a big pothole and got a flat tire.  We were driving in another car behind them.  Good thing he does this often....he said he's had 4 flats in the last 3 days!  We were back on the road.

Tomorrow Dima and I will go again on the long trip to apply for his passport. I hope to make it back in time for the anniversary celebration at the orphanage.  I want Dima to be able to see some people there before he leaves with me on the train to Kiev tomorrow night! Tonight is his LAST night sleeping in the orphanage, he was so excited when we told him! I would love to know what he is thinking tonight as he lays in that room with 17 other boys knowing this is the last time he will ever have to sleep like that again!

This Christmas is going to be very special! Merry Christmas to my family and friends! Love you!