Apartment

Here are two videos showing the outside and inside of the apartment that we are staying in. We are fortunate to be located in the Capital city, Kiev. We are about 10 minutes from the Department of Adoptions and about 45 minutes (without traffic) from the orphanage that Tate is living in. Our biggest complaint right now is that the apartment does not have heat! Someone is coming to check the heater in a few minutes. We hope it will be working soon. It was hard to sleep last night.






This morning we ventured out of the the apartment and across the street to a grocery store. We purchased bottled water, eggs, butter, milk, bread, mushrooms, bell peppers, apples, cheese, rice and pasta. The meat looks INTERESTING (its the only word I could come up with right now)!!!! Rotisserie chickens are sitting out on the counters-uncovered and not heated or refrigerated! I wish I had brought with me a tea leaf strainer and a small assortment of condiments. Other than that we have what we need.

We were also able to change our money at the store. BRAND NEW U.S. dollars (which we ordered from the bank before we left) are the only thing accepted. Anything but perfect will not work- CRAZY!

After we unpacked our groceries we went downstairs to the coffee shop/restaurant that is beneath the apartment. We ordered pancakes, coffee and hot chocolate. The pancakes were Crepes with powdered sugar- YUMMY! The Hot Chocolate could be described as warm brownie batter. I had to use a spoon to get any of it. Although it was tasty, a spoonful was plenty!

We just received a phone call from our Facilitator. Our referral appointment for tomorrow has been scheduled for 3pm. We were hoping it was going to be early in the morning. It is now unlikely that we will be able to go to the orphanage. We will probably get to meet Tate for the first time on Friday. The anxious feeling that I have is almost unbearable at times.

We miss the kids terribly! I am so thankful that we have our computer so that we can look at their pictures and watch videos of them. We will get to talk to the girls on SKYPE tomorrow afternoon. I don't think it would be a good idea to talk to the boys but my dad will let them play in the room with the webcam so that we will be able to see them occasionally. A small hug from each of them would be perfect right about now!