Goodbyes Are Hard

For the past few weeks we've hosted a number of sleep-overs and the kids have been invited to birthday parties, sleep-overs and play-dates.

Abigail's sleep-over

 

Elizabeth against the boys

Playing Wii as part of Matthew's sleep-over activities

Zoo outing with friends

Yesterday was the last day of school.  It was a hard day with a lot of tears shed.  It was hard for me too.  Abigail begged me not to take her back to Ukraine, to please let her stay one more year at Evergreen.  She's had a very rough time saying goodbye to her teachers and friends.

Abigail opened the final chapel service

Tearful goodbye with Mr. C

Abigail says goodbye to her teachers

Elizabeth is comforted by her best friend

Matthew with his teachers

Putting on a brave face

Elizabeth with her teachers

A final picture with one of Abigail's good friends

Our All-Star

Matthew had a wonderful opportunity to play baseball with Southern Little League.  He had a great coach and learned so much!  Having never seen a baseball diamond before, he had a lot to learn but made impressive progress.  The little league team was perfect for him with games twice a week but without the competitiveness that usually accompanies sports.  With coach-pitch, no strike-outs and no scoring the boys could learn while they played.  It was great to hear parents on both teams cheering for anyone who made a great hit or a great play regardless of whose team they were on! Way to go Southern Little League!  Way to go Matthew!

Seven Weeks of Separation

George returns to Ukraine on May 7.  The kids and I go on June 24.

I am not looking forward to 46 days of being a single parent and the kids' aren't happy about it either. :)  But we have reunification to look forward to in Kyiv!

George typically takes each of the kids out once a month for a Daddy Date.  This month they each got to miss a day of school and spend an entire day with Dad.

Matthew didn't mind getting up at 4am to go fishing on Lake Michigan, a few miles off the coastline of Chicago.  They caught one large trout and about 50 perch.  Most of the perch were too small to keep but we had two yummy fish dinners (and I don't usually like fish)! 

Matthew with the trout

Cleaning the perch

The big catch

Elizabeth went with Dad to the Children's Museum, out to lunch, and then to Chuck E Cheese to play.  On the way out the door she chanted, "I won't be scared. I won't be scared."  She came home boasting that she didn't get scared of Chuck E!

I wish it was that easy to brush her teeth!

Elizabeth couldn't sleep until she took a picture with daddy "to remember him"

Abigail gave Dad a tour of the zoo and checked on her chimpanzee from Zoo Week who, unfortunately, was sleeping.  They also got to see the new Oz movie.  Unfortunately, they didn't take any pictures besides of animals.

Yesterday we had a "Family Date" and went to Craig's Cruisers since the kids had a half-day of school and Matthew had some free activities and buffets from spinning the birthday wheel on his birthday.  It was a really fun afternoon and evening.

Sunshine State

We spent the past two weeks in Florida to visit two churches and numerous individual supporters.  We left Michigan as snow lightly fell to the ground and arrived to Florida's heat and humidity.  What a welcomed change!

We were constantly visiting people and moving every few nights from place to place.  It was great to see familiar friends and family.  

 

Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Ocean where we met friends from Grace CRC

Abigail's "twin", Katie, from Bradenton CRC

Gritter family outside Orlando

 

Ullom family south of Orlando

Matthew and Andrew at Bradenton CRC

Swimming no matter what the temperature - this water was COLD!

Elizabeth was usually the first one to jump in the pool

Matthew and Daddy tackle the waves of the Gulf of Mexico

Since our busiest days are over the weekends, we took our "weekends" in-between the two Sundays and spent 4 days at Disney's resort (thanks to a generous gift from George's mom and step-dad)!!!  Surprisingly, we managed to be there on the slowest week of the month.  We had one day at Hollywood Studios and hardly had to wait in any lines.

About to enter the Star Tours ride - our family's favorite attraction!

Matthew and Abigail participate in Jedi Training Academy

Abigail defeats Darth Vader

Matthew fearlessly faces the enemy

All three playing in Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground

Thanks to my cousin's son working at Legoland and giving us free entrance, we spent a warm day riding roller-coasters (Elizabeth was SO GLAD she was tall enough) and cooling off in the water park.

Enjoying Legoland with family

Amazing sights built all out of legos!

Not so scary when he's built out of bricks

AHHH... he looks scary!

On Saturday we had a bit of time to go to the Everglades and introduce the kids to alligators!  It was so terribly hot that after they saw a few of them, they didn't care about seeing any more and just wanted to get back into the air conditioned car.

There were 9 alligators that I could count when I took this picture but only 6 fit in the viewfinder

Let's pass by on the other side of this path!

No fear!

What a great trip to Florida!  We're back in Michigan now and it's supposed to snow later this week.  Ugh....  The kids are back to school and George wraps up his time in the US.  He leaves in 3 short weeks!  We have exciting news about our return to Kyiv, but I'll save that for another post.