Yeah!! Court tomorrow!

February 2- Monday
After breakfast we made our way to the orphanage. It has been bitterly cold. For the last few days there has been a nice smooth layer of ice over everything. But today it actually warmed up enough (although it doesn’t feel like it warmed up) for a lot of the ice on the roads and sidewalks to melt and evaporate or soak in, or run off. So the mud has been frozen and there hasn’t been much ice. So then our facilitator’s wish for snow to get rid of the mud finally came true. At first, I would have rather had the mud than the ice, but now that the ice is gone I’d rather have snow than mud. I guess I’m rambling.
We played with A2 and R. I took the video camera and got quite a bit of video of them. I also got some video of their friends. Usually the caregivers usher everyone else out of the room but today they let them stay for a little while.
While we were there our facilitator called and said that he was able to pick up our paperwork at the SDA all signed and ready to go. Yeah!!! Court, here we come. Everyone’s prayers and fasting helped!!!
When 12:00 rolled around we hurried and caught a bus downtown. We needed to get internet cards to be able to continue to get onto the internet. We also wanted to go shopping at the big grocery store. We were out of treats for the girls and a few essentials like milk, butter and eggs. I was bound and determined to get stuff for making soup. With all the cold weather I was craving soup. Last time we went shopping, we bought some noodles, and meat to make the soup, but couldn’t get any vegetables or flavoring. This time we got some fresh cabbage, canned peas and flavoring. We also got some kiwi. Not for the soup but we are really missing our fresh fruit, here. We went from 5 servings of fruit a day to nothing. We ended up spending another 400 grivna. Ahh. Hope the money doesn’t run out. We were relatively smart this time. We took an empty backpack to put a lot of the food in. We put the heavy things in like milk and juice and I carried that on my back. We each still had a bag to carry but they were lighter (and not threatening to break) it was much easier on our hands. Oh, it was kind of comical getting on the bus with all that stuff. The area they allow for personal space on the bus is negligible. But we somehow squished in ourselves, our large backpack, Elijah and two grocery bags of food… and we didn’t even break any eggs.  We are getting the hang of this even if we still look like we don’t fit in.
We got back to the apartment with enough time for lunch and Keith to take a short nap. Elijah has decided that whenever we ride a bus he is going to fall asleep. He fell asleep on the way to the grocery story. I tried to catch up on emails.
We took cookies with us for the girls to share with their group. It was A1’s turn to pass them around. I later saw one of her friends holding two of the cookies. I think she must have not given one to everyone, but she got a stern talking to from one of the caregivers. (I think that is what the caregiver was talking about—when it is in another language you get to make up what you think they are saying ) So I hope that doesn’t happen anymore. I had taken the camera hoping to get more pictures to share with everyone. I got a few of each girl (not too many of K— will have to work on that). I also got some pictures of a few things inside; their cupboards—each child has their own and they put their outside clothes and backpacks in them, the chore chart and hair scarves for the children who help at meal times. I’m going to try to take my camera each day and get more pictures.
We put puzzles together and played blocks. At the grocery store we purchased two more puzzles, one of Pooh and friends that has 160 pieces and one of Little Mermaid that has 260 pieces. We took the Pooh one and K made short work of it. I kind of wish we had waited until tomorrow morning and let A2 put it together first. But maybe we won’t even be at the orphanage tomorrow, for court. R must have been very tired today (or not feeling well). At the end she just cried and cried, not sure what set her off. Luckily, Keith was able to calm her down.
We left about 15 minutes early so that we could make it to Family Home Evening. But we barely missed bus #50 and waited for about ½ hour for bus #23 to come by. So we were 45 minutes late. But we still enjoyed ourselves. They played games and had treats. There were quite a few more people there than were at church. There was one teenage girl who apparently loves kids. She tried all night long to get Elijah to play with her. He hasn’t been too friendly to people, especially if he is away from Keith or I. But she won him over and he actually left my sight.
While we were there the topic of how much we were paying in rent came up with the missionaries. They were all horrified at how much it was. They said they could have gotten us a better deal. Sister Thatcher even offered to let us come live at their apartment for free. That is something that we will have to talk about. It would be really nice to be able to save some money, but would be it rude?
We left a little early as we needed to make sure we were home when our facilitator arrived here. Although we needn’t have bothered. He didn’t come until after 10:00 pm. He gave us a run-down of what to expect tomorrow. Now I’m getting nervous. I’m also getting a sore throat.