Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. We’ve not been able to get an internet connection at all on Thursday. We were pre-warned that our internet would not be all that reliable here... we're learning that a lot of things are different than home.

Although we have so very much to be thankful for it is hard to think of it being thanksgiving without the smell of turkey roasting, piles of pies, football on the TV and most importantly family gathered all around. I think this is the first Thanksgiving that we will not be surrounded by extended family, but we have our new family here. Kim and Peter know nothing of this holiday. It’s just another day here in Russia. We’ll see them later (at around 4:00pm each day… about the time the Kim gets out of school) and tell them Happy Thanksgiving and try to explain the holiday. They will certainly have lots to be thankful for. How much their life is changing for the better. We wonder which parts will be hard and which will be easy for them; which will seem better and which will not.

It is really clear that Kim is ready to go. Last night she corrected Luke who called her Yana. She immediately said (in Russian of course), I’m not Yana, I’m Kim. The fun thing is that we all understood her. When we she learned that her birthdate changed and that she is 9 and not 10 she was shocked but then recovered quickly… just one more change in a world where everything is changing. How hard that must be. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday present. She first asked for a bicycle… and we told her that there is already one in the garage waiting for her. Then she though a moment and asked for a doll… and we reminded her of the photo of her bedroom with a new doll waiting on the bed as her welcome home gift. Then she said she couldn’t think of anything else. After a minute, she decided to ask for a real car! We explained that children can’t drive yet and she wouldn’t get one even if she could. She laughed and smiled. We only get to see them for 60 – 90 minutes each day and that’s hard. We hope to maybe have them come with us for the day on Saturday or Sunday.

We hope you all have a really wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy all that you have to be thankful for. You are in our thoughts as we prepare to go next door later to have our Thanksgiving dinner… the kids think that KFC is as close as we will come to turkey this year... and we can even have some corn on the cob. The chicken shish-kebobs we had at the Russian shish-kebob restaurant wouldn’t have been a bad choice either (they were REALLY good). Lisa promises to do a full Thanksgiving feast in January for us.