Today is when most Ukrainians celebrate "Christmas". It is a time for good food, family time, reflection on the past year, and of course presents. So Angelica and I wish you a Happy New Year all the way from Ukraine!

For the past three days we have walked to the "mall" (an American term I am using to best describe the large shopping area). Each day we have enjoyed eating ice cream cones while walking around window shopping. We have gone in both of the toy stores and spent quite a lot of time looking at all the various toys. On December 29 we found two more Russian/Ukrainian board games that our family will have fun playing together and Angelica found a slinky. She has already learned that I look at prices before saying yes or no and that I am a smart shopper finding the best deals. She now looks at prices also!

Angelica enjoys the supermarket even more than the toy stores. Each day we have spent most of our time there looking at food. She likes to try to explain foods to me and she has helped choose foods for our meals. She especially likes ramen noodle soup and Ukrainian instant potatoes both of which I think are more flavorful here than in America. She really likes tomato juice (something I do not care for) and cherry juice. The cherry juice is absolutely delicious. She also loves chocolate so she has enjoyed choosing some candies from the many, many open sections of candy. Each kind of candy goes in a separate bag and then she has to weigh it and find the exact candy from the list on the screen of the scale. Once the candy type is chosen a label is printed out and she puts it on the bag for the cashier to scan when we check out. Angelica primarily reads Russian but most things in the store, including the lists of candy, are in Ukrainian so this took a little while to label each bag of candy. Thankfully the two languages share most of the same letters.

Yesterday Angelica asked for earnings while we were shopping. In the mall there are many independent tables where people sell items they have made or bought and are re-selling. This is where she saw the earnings she wanted. Her ears are pierced but she had no earnings. She chose some plain gold studs that are very pretty and inexpensive. She felt so beautiful when she first put them in! We also went into a book store and I let her choose a book to read and a book to color. She had seen a coloring book at the apartment where we are staying that she really liked so we found one at the bookstore that was similar. She has already been using the markers and colored pencils I gave her to color the intricate drawings.

Yesterday afternoon we quizzed each other on words we know in the other persons language. Angelica knows far more English than I know Russian. She knows over 125 words in English already! I also found out some words I thought were the same in Russian and Ukrainian are actually pronounced differently. I must really sound funny when I try to speak to people. I combine the two languages, Russian and Ukrainian, together. I am surprised more people have not laughed at me!

Last night our friends took us to a place to ice skate, go tubing, and watch a live Christmas show. This was a festive holiday place with beautiful Christmas lights. The live show was very entertaining even though I could understand little of what was said. First we walked into a room where the snow people made fake snow balls and threw them at us. It was "snowing" in that room so we got covered in soap flakes. Then they directed our group into another room where elves were singing and dancing. Santa arrived and the children all went to write letters to him. An elf stamped each letter and every child got to hand deliver their letter to Santa. Angelica sure seemed to enjoy the show and she posed for several pictures! She followed right along with the other children to write her letter and give it to Santa!

Next we were off to ice skating. We skated for a long time and we might still be skating if Andriy's son was not falling asleep watching us. Angelica does not tire easily! After skating, we went tubing. We pulled large tubes up a platform hill and then sat in the tube waiting to be pushed down the hill into soft hay. This was a fun, new experience for me! After ice skating and climbing the tubing hill five times, my legs were tired. It was well past bedtime so Andriy took us all back to the apartment. It took about an hour to drive home from where we were. Kiev is a very large, capital city with a lot of crazy traffic. Cars drive very fast, change lanes all the time and sometimes drive straddling two lanes to pass another car. I am always thankful when we stop and get out of the car safely!

As we were getting ready for bed last night Angelica said, "tomorrow presents" with a huge smile. I had to ask Andriy's wife this morning more about Ukrainian culture and traditions since I did not want to disappoint my new daughter on our first Christmas/New Year together. Today is a bigger celebration than their Orthodox Christmas they celebrate on January 7.

While Angelica slept in, I quietly unpacked the gifts I had brought for her and prepared her Christmas stocking near the small Christmas tree in the apartment. After breakfast which we had at almost lunch time, I brought her to the gifts and she smiled and said, "Oh my goodness." She enjoyed pulling items out of the stocking. She liked the socks, especially the toe socks, hair clips, yo-yo, small stuffed puppy with Santa hat, twisting crayons, pen with 4 colors, and the chocolate. I brought small trinket items so she had many little things at the bottom of her stocking like a top, small frisbee, slider puzzle, disc shooter, silly band bracelets, a pack of pocket tissues, etc. which she seemed to enjoy pulling out. I also gave her a Princess Alphabet workbook and Strawberry Shortcake Phonics workbook that she did not seem as thrilled about but later showed her friend on FaceTime. I am sure learning English is overwhelming to her just as learning Russian has been for me. After opening the gifts and pulling everything out of the stocking, she carried her items to her mattress on the floor in our room of the apartment and she looked through everything again and asked what some things were. She put on her toe socks and worked on styling her hair with the clips.

We prepared our gifts for the family we are staying with and then I got a call from our translator/coordinator. She said the court documents were finished with translation and a taxi driver would bring them to me at the airport. We need the original court decrees with translations to take to the US Embassy to get Angelica's visa after the passport has arrived. I told Angelica these papers were my Christmas/New Years gift! It has been interesting reading through past court decrees and it has helped to explain more of her past to me. It was hard to not cry as I read how she became an orphan. Every child deserves a loving family and it makes me sad that she has not experienced that until now. It was also incredibly special as I noted some key dates of when paperwork was filed and how they coincided with dates in our process of preparing for adoption. It is clear that God has been orchestrating His perfect timing in it all!

We ended our day by going to the beautifully decorated government square. Andriy explained that where we were was a place where many people died in October 2013. We walked by memorials on our way to see the beautiful Christmas lights. There were inflatable igloos all over with shops or activities for children inside them. After enjoying the Christmas lights and festivities we came back to the apartment for a delicious Ukrainian meal of 3 salads, chicken, potatoes and bread. We ate our New Year's Eve dinner at 10:00 p.m. and then got ready for bed. The loud fireworks kept us up until after 1:00 a.m. and Angelica was sad we could not see any from the windows of the apartment.

May 2017 be a year filled with God's blessings for all of you. Our new year will be filled with thanksgiving to God and celebrating the special memories we make as a family!