Adoption Update: One Week Home

Whoo Hoo we are almost over jet lag!  Settling into things here.  Silly me decided to jump into an Arbonne detox on Monday and wowza those must-have daily ice cream cones in Ukraine are coming back to bite me big time.  Detoxing off of sugar is NOT fun!!  I guess I could have waited to at least get past the jet lag first.  Come Monday I should be back to my normal high energy self but right now I'm struggling to stay awake past 6 p.m.  Last night I kept my eyes open to a whole 7:45 p.m.

The teens.  The home teens are doing good.  They are all happy mom is home.  Vlad has grown up this summer and matured far past my expectations.  Stopping in at the bank and orthodontist all I heard was how mature he was and how he is opening up and a joy to be around.  Garrett is happy with lots of hugs and Katherine now can talk to me to her hearts content.  We're all happy.

A game of Sorry and facial masks!  Home School English and good skin, too!

So how are the Ukraine teens doing?  Settling in.  Daniel is a workhorse when it comes to school.  He will do it for hours.  They are all working on Rosetta Stone American English, a phonics program and IXL math to learn both math and English math terms.  Anna is the one that needs the most encouragement.  She wants to have it learned already and not put the time into it.  Yuri has a good command of English and after several conversations we've decided to let him go to the high school.  We went there to enroll him and met up with the ESL teacher who has Vlad.  I cannot say enough amazing things about Miss Shannon Hadley at Novi H.S.  She is simply amazing and has been such an encouragement to Vlad.   Yuri will go in Monday for some testing with Ms. Hadley and setting up his classes then start officially on Tuesday.

Ms. Hadley also gave me a bunch of Rosetta Stone workbooks and study guides today, one for each of our Russian learners including Vlad.  She is excited to have Yuri and one of these days the other two when they're ready.  I'm happy to have the workbooks.  I'm happy to have the support.  It really makes a difference.

Yuri helping dad clear a downed tree

The two girls are getting along well and have had several fashion shows of Katherine's clothes and the bags of donated clothes.  They are both in heaven although Katherine is not happy that her feet are the same size as mine and not Anna's.  We both have boats so none of the donated shoes fit her.  I keep telling her that's why she's such a good runner.  It doesn't seem to make her happy.  LOL

So all in all we're settling in to being a family.  One week home and it's flown by.  I'm so thankful to be home.

New Bikes!