Well, the trip went very well. Allot of traveling in a short period, felt like a deployment at times. My guides Alex and Sasha were wonderful. Overall, the country was what I expected, but some things were very different. They drive really fast and crazy, but its normal there. Alex drives like I used to, Tiffany would be scared to ride with him, I thought it was awesome. The food is very different, I started to find the food I liked after three or four days, then I was a happy camper. Roman seemed to be enjoying his summer, he was sooooo dark. The clothes are the same for men, the women dress very sexy, I'm not complaining, sorry honey, love you, lol. Can't wait to go back, just dreading the flight and train ride. Maybe Alex can rent a lambo and we could drive to melitopol in half the time. Haha. -Ken
-Posted on July 7th 2013
The first trip did go well; wished I'd gotten to see Roman more. The trip I leave for today will have 14 days of down time and I'll be staying in his region, so hopefully I'll get to spend that time with him. The remainder of my time will be spent running around like a mad man from court to SDA to notary's office and to the place where he was born, followed by a final visit to the embassy. We picked up some school supplies yesterday to give to his friends for the upcoming school year. I would love to take tons of stuff with me, but it's not fun hauling a ton of stuff around the world. I will try to pick up some stuff they like while I'm in the region.
The most challenging thing we have ahead is what we're going to do when Roman and I return in a month. As I'm sure you can imagine, have a six month old and a sixteen year old is not very common and we're finding out why very quickly. We have a wonderful support system here, however, when it comes time to finding childcare for a sixteen year old that speaks Russian and is going to need a lot of love and attention, it gets a little harder. All of our local family members work full time, so that's out. Private school with translators would be great if we had an extra $1000 a month to spare. With Tiffany taking Madeline to Mooresville to the nanny, it kind of limits our ability to take Roman to Charlotte to my Sister's house. We are exploring all of our options right now; any suggestions would be appreciated. I love my job and the where I work, but the work schedule is really killing us right now. Once Madeline is in school it will be much easier, but until then, we're going to have to figure something out. Roman will be using Rossetta Stone and I will work with him on my days off. Once he is somewhat fluent in English, we can start a curriculum with him and possibly put him in public school. My Mother has also offered to take him to my Sister's house so she can home school the days I work. Like I said, we have some options, just want to make sure we do what's best for him and the whole family. I know some of you have adopted older children(14+) and will have some great advice for us, Tiffany will be available while I'm gone and facebook is always good for chatting. I will be gone until at least August 5th, possibly longer and I know I can use Tango from Ukraine, but not Skype, it would not work on wifi, I tried it several times and it always gave me the same message about wifi. If you have my cell number and want to chat, download Tango and send me a message to call you back. I also check facebook when I have access to wifi, so that will work too. Thanks again for all the love, support and donations of your time, things and money.
-Ken
