Happy St Patty's Day!

Happy St Patrick's Day from Ukraine! Kelly bounded out of bed (OK - not really "bounded") and said, "You gotta wear green today since it's St Patty's Day." I'm pretty sure we're a couple of only a handful that celebrated the day over here. Anyhow, we're a bit sad that we missed the annual parade down Baxter with George, Lori, Edward, and Auggie. We're WAY OK, though, that we're not in Jake's shoes and dealing with the crazy crowds in the alley behind our house tonight.

On the Daniel front, today was a day of firsts...

One week from today is our "Gotcha Day" when we can finally pick up Daniel from the orphanage! We can't wait and neither can our little guy. Twice a day, he runs out to see Simone to ask him if this is the day we're leaving. Today was super-special, though, as Daniel got his first-ever car ride. Simone took Daniel around the little circle driveway at the orphanage and even let Daniel sit in the driver's seat after the "ride". He was so excited.

Today was also a first for us - the first time we were actually involved in a Daniel-injury, albeit quite minor. He tripped on a slide platform and scraped his cheek a little. He's one tough cookie, though, and jumped right up and started playing again. The caregivers put iodine on the scrape which made it look worse than it is.

Another first was Daniel's first English sentence - "Mama slide". His vocabulary has really grown in the last couple of days and he knows probably 35-40 English words now. He's even responding to us when we just say "Daniel" now instead of "Daniel Tolic". Tonight he also said "Bye, bye" for the first time instead of "PAW-kah" like usual.

In the Daniel-kiss department, Papa is up 7-2 on Mama. It's good thing we're not keeping track or anything. Of course, Papa had an advantage by getting to spend a whole day with him while Mama was ill.

Aside from spending time at the orphanage, we went to the open-air market today to buy Daniel some luggage for his clothes, some souveniers for home, etc. Papa was pretty excited when he found a toy diecast Ford Explorer at one of the toy vendors for the boy. He's been on the hunt for one since he got here and finally struck paydirt. We also went to the bike shop and picked up the orphanage's bike that was a complete mess. It's now in perfect working order so the "groupa" now has 2 bikes and a tricycle.

Between visits we also went to a series of volleyball games. As best we could tell, it was a high-school girls' tournament of some sort. They must use seding as the two matches we saw had good teams paired against pretty bad teams. Regardless it was nice to do something else for a change. Here's an action shot...

Anyhow, hope all is well with everyone back home. We really miss our friends and family and are anxious to get back to the States. Until our next post, please keep us in your prayers.