Eric wanted me to show you all this picture. On the left is your normal 20 oz bottle of Coke. On the right a big 'ol glass of beer. The coke cost's about $1.50. The beer - about $.90!! A bottle of water is more than either one of them. Hanging out with Joseph (he decided to use his "American" name). We are sitting on his bed. There are 8 beds in the room, 3 bunks and 2 singles. They are all full and yesterday they added another boy. The poor thing has to sleep on a cot until Joseph leaves.

We took Jonathan to get his passport photos taken. He talked the ENTIRE time we had him! We think he might be able to out-talk even my step-dad!

When we took Joseph to get his passport photos we made a quick stop at McDonald's. We asked him if he wanted ice-cream and he adamantly declared he wanted French Fries. Hey Michael - your brother loves ketchup as much as you do - maybe more!!

This is all the gang playing - what else - Legos!!

So yesterday was a crummy day weather wise. It rained and it was cold. When I'm at home I kind of look forward to those days but here where we walk everywhere we want to go, it made for a miserable day. Today is a little better. Eric is getting stir crazy and wants to try taking the public transportation somewhere. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Actually I'm sure I don't like the idea but I'm not sure if that is wisdom or being scared. We'll see if I'm able to keep him at home today or not. Tomorrow we are taking Joseph out of school and going to visit a local "hidden" submarine yard. We are also going to an open air market where we will hopefully be able to find some clothes for Jonathan. Right now the plan is to take the kids with us as soon as we get the birth certificate. Hopefully that will happen on Saturday but it all depends on the what the judge says. She doesn't want to give us the court order early so that we can have all the paperwork done and pick up the birth certificates on the 10th day. Angelina was going to speak with her again about that. If we aren't able to get the birth certificate on Saturday then it pushes us back another 3 or 4 days because we won't be able to do the passport paperwork over the weekend. We're praying that Angelina can convince the judge that we aren't going to USE the court order before the 10th day we are just going to show it to the birthcertificate people so they can have everything ready for us. It's all a little confusing and more than a little frustrating. We are past being ready to come home and every delay at this point is enough to make me lose it. I know the kids are ready for us to be back and I know my mom has been ready for us to be back for about 3 weeks now. There's really nothing we can complain about, the process has been exactly what we were told it would be, it's just living it is different than knowing it. Our friends here who came the same day we did and have been having so many problems have a tentative court date for tomorrow. There are still hurdles to cross to get their kids home and there is no way they are going to get them home in time for Christmas and the parents may not be able to make it home for Christmas themselves at this rate.(You can leave Ukraine and come back to get your "new" kids after the 10 day waiting period is up. For us this wasn't a very sound option because of the timing of things but the Ukrainian government shuts down for the first 10 days of January so if these families 10th day is during that time then it would be silly to wait around here for essentially another month.) Their kids at home are older but I know it's still very hard on them. Please continue to pray that God will work miracles and open doors all over Ukraine to get us and all these families home as quickly as possible.