Warning....I have a pretty boring life so I am not sure what I am going to write about tonight but I actually have a few moments of down time this evening and thought I would try and take advantage of it.
Today was my wonderful mothers birthday - 50 years old. We LOVE YOU!
We had a great dinner, and had a wonderful bday surprise for her. Olena was able to finally keep her first secret. I was worried about telling her, but she held strong and didn't spill the beans. I got tickets for the Broadway musical of Mary Poppins at the Detroit Opera House in December. My mom has been talking about it since the summer but was disappointed about the cost, so I looked into opening night tickets and got one heck of deal. The three of us girls will be going. (ALERT: something I never knew, opening night tickets are about 1/2 the cost for any theater production) Olena loves going to the theater. There have been a few shows that lost her interest and we left early, but for the most part she will sit there glossy eyed with a huge smile through the whole thing. The Opera House is an amazing place too - one of my favorite places to go - we seen the ballet of Peter Pan there a few years ago and it was beautiful! I am really looking forward to it, and Olena is very disappointed that she has to wait over a month before we can go! I didn't realize she thought we were going tonight so when Nina got her gift O was like "well lets get this show on the road!"....she wasn't too thrilled about the fact it wasn't for another 30+ days. I imagine that is a life time to a little girl.
Something fun to share. I got this website from another family today and I love it. It is California Academy of Science's penguin exhibit. 3 live webcams view the cute little guys all day, check it out. Feeding times are 10:30 and 3:30 PST. The underwater cam is fun to watch!
November 10th is not only my mom's birthday but the day we left for Ukraine. 4 years ago, right at this time were over the Atlantic Ocean, skin crawling with excitement. I read over the old blog tonight and fought back the tears. We were so unbelievably lucky. Reading about our appointment, reminiscing about how "easy" it was to chose her and how God literally laid out a path of gold from Detroit MI to Mykolaiv Ukraine. Outside of running into a scum bag money hungry Judge, and dealing with an "over served" translator for 3 days - we had the perfect trip. There are so many days when I look at Olena and just wish God would please send me back...but I just don't think that was a path meant for us. Ukraine is always in our heart and always part of our life so I suppose I should be grateful for that. We have a wonderful friend in Gene, who we communicate with regularly. We share emails with Olena's bio brother in Spain, we send emails to the director of the orphanage every year and even recently have been writing back and forth with her bio parents. Olena's past is always part of our lives.
Finding Olena was so easy for me. I have known my whole life I would adopt from Eastern Europe. I dove into the process the second we decided - not a clue how we were going to pay for it. Everything just "came to us" when we needed it. I learned everything I needed to know, I knew what to expect when we got there, and I knew she was our daughter the second I laid eyes on her. and now what? I have been waiting for the next step for a couple of years now and I am completely lost! a baby, adoption, fostering, be happy with just one....WHAT??? All I get is silence! Hopefully time will tell.
Good night everyone.
Today was my wonderful mothers birthday - 50 years old. We LOVE YOU!
We had a great dinner, and had a wonderful bday surprise for her. Olena was able to finally keep her first secret. I was worried about telling her, but she held strong and didn't spill the beans. I got tickets for the Broadway musical of Mary Poppins at the Detroit Opera House in December. My mom has been talking about it since the summer but was disappointed about the cost, so I looked into opening night tickets and got one heck of deal. The three of us girls will be going. (ALERT: something I never knew, opening night tickets are about 1/2 the cost for any theater production) Olena loves going to the theater. There have been a few shows that lost her interest and we left early, but for the most part she will sit there glossy eyed with a huge smile through the whole thing. The Opera House is an amazing place too - one of my favorite places to go - we seen the ballet of Peter Pan there a few years ago and it was beautiful! I am really looking forward to it, and Olena is very disappointed that she has to wait over a month before we can go! I didn't realize she thought we were going tonight so when Nina got her gift O was like "well lets get this show on the road!"....she wasn't too thrilled about the fact it wasn't for another 30+ days. I imagine that is a life time to a little girl.
Something fun to share. I got this website from another family today and I love it. It is California Academy of Science's penguin exhibit. 3 live webcams view the cute little guys all day, check it out. Feeding times are 10:30 and 3:30 PST. The underwater cam is fun to watch!
November 10th is not only my mom's birthday but the day we left for Ukraine. 4 years ago, right at this time were over the Atlantic Ocean, skin crawling with excitement. I read over the old blog tonight and fought back the tears. We were so unbelievably lucky. Reading about our appointment, reminiscing about how "easy" it was to chose her and how God literally laid out a path of gold from Detroit MI to Mykolaiv Ukraine. Outside of running into a scum bag money hungry Judge, and dealing with an "over served" translator for 3 days - we had the perfect trip. There are so many days when I look at Olena and just wish God would please send me back...but I just don't think that was a path meant for us. Ukraine is always in our heart and always part of our life so I suppose I should be grateful for that. We have a wonderful friend in Gene, who we communicate with regularly. We share emails with Olena's bio brother in Spain, we send emails to the director of the orphanage every year and even recently have been writing back and forth with her bio parents. Olena's past is always part of our lives.
Finding Olena was so easy for me. I have known my whole life I would adopt from Eastern Europe. I dove into the process the second we decided - not a clue how we were going to pay for it. Everything just "came to us" when we needed it. I learned everything I needed to know, I knew what to expect when we got there, and I knew she was our daughter the second I laid eyes on her. and now what? I have been waiting for the next step for a couple of years now and I am completely lost! a baby, adoption, fostering, be happy with just one....WHAT??? All I get is silence! Hopefully time will tell.
Good night everyone.
Comments
And you just had to remind me of that judge....Well, we can always be thankful that he forked over the papers, right? Granted, it did take him 12 days instead of 10 but looking back, it's all okay.
I was just boo-hooing over some other friends who are going back for their FIFTH little Ukie and wishing we could do it again, not even thinking that it's the time of year I always get nostalgic. sigh.
Miss you guys. Hugs!