Day 2 of the 10 day waiting period - but who's counting!

The harbor There are several of these cannons in a park on top of hill in the city. There has been a lot of fighting over this city and so there are a ton of monuments around.

We get to see this view every day!!!

Another of the many monuments. This one is along the sea. Look how huge the anchor is behind Eric.

Today Eric and I have spent the day wandering around the city. Now that we've gotten to know our surroundings a little bit we fell a little more confident about getting ourselves home. It's another beautiful day. A little overcast and windy but still in the 70's. I'm not missing snow and stuff. It's really nice to be able to leave home without the bulk of a coat : ) Yesterday' interview went well (for us). After discussing it a little more Eric and I decided that we would not be in the TV shots. The news people weren't very happy about that but since we are still in the 10 day waiting period we thought it would be a wiser course of action. (Eric's lawyer mind was thinking of all the ways an interview could go wrong : ) ) They still got our story and plenty of video or Jonathan and his classmates. We agreed to have our pictures taken from the back and they could use our first names and what country we were from. We also talked to the newspaper reporter who had done several articles on Jonathan and we got to see the articles she had done in the past. It's amazing how far he has come in 9 months. Jonathan has had 5 surgeries in the past few years. He was born with AMC and his legs and arms were crossed around his body. Before the latest round of surgeries we was unable to even feed or dress himself. Now he can do both those things. He can also walk and kick and throw a ball. He does all the things the other kids in his group are doing. It amazes me how he has managed to manipulate his body to accomplish the things he wants to do. He is so determined and very smart. There's no telling what he will be able to accomplish, especially once he builds up a little muscle. The director of his orphanage laughed when she found out Eric's occupation because apparently Jonathan has been saying that he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up - just what I need, another lawyer in the house!!! We are hoping to take Roma to meet Jonathan on Monday or Tuesday. It's hard because they are on opposite sides of the city and Roma is in school all day. (We haven't asked Roma if he wants to use his American or Ukrainian name yet so for now we'll still call him Roma.) I think Roma knows that we are adopting a second boy but sometimes the language barrier is more difficult than others. We spend most of our time with him and his friends so we don't want to say a whole lot around them. It's difficult because they are such great kids and they all want families. I don't want to say anything to make them more sad than they already are.
That's about it for today. Eric was hoping to attend the Rotary meeting here tonight but the language barrier was an issue so I don't think he's going to be able to do that. Looks like we'll spend the afternoon hanging out and waiting for Roma to get home from school so we can go visit. Exciting stuff. I'm working on a new plan to get pictures uploaded. Apparently USB ports do not exist in this city : ) but there is a Kodak place down the road from us. I'm going to see if I can get my pics put on CD and then add them that way (that doesn't help my poor dead batteries on my MP3 player though, it needs a USB port to charge it!) What I've learned from spending time here is that I am incredibly spoiled!!