Day 22 & 23 -

Day 22 - Friday

We had our regular visits with the girls on Friday morning. Lindsay was super-wiggly today and was not interested in trying to sit still. Oh, how I wish we could just let her get down and play on the floor. She really needed to play and work out some of her extra energy. Trying to keep her occupied in such a small visiting area took some creative effort today.

Shawna is always her content little self. I was able to get her to stand up for about 5-10 minutes and give her legs a little bit of a workout.

I also took the chance to pull off their shoes and trace their feet so I can have a better idea of what size shoes to buy for them. Lindsay was wearing a different pair of shoes that were just of the edge of being too small. They were a size 22. Another day she was wearing some tennis shoes that were a size 5. Shawna's feet are almost the same size. I think I'm going to aim for a size 23 or size 6.

Stephanie and I are planning to go shopping at a local mall on Monday, in an attempt to find some shoes for all our girls, as well as looking for strollers.

Didn't get any good pictures today, so I'll have to get some more on Monday.

This evening, we decided to go up to Freedom Square with two other families and check out the Holiday Festival that they have up there. There were all kinds of carnival rides, a huge Christmas tree, stage and booths to buy toys and foods. A light snow had started falling about 5pm, and by the time we got to the square, it was really snowing. We had dinner nearby and by the time we came back outside, there was about 1.5-2 inches of snow! It was beautiful!!! I know our son will be envious!


Day 23 - New Year's Eve!

We plan to visit the girls mainly on weekdays, giving our driver the weekends off. With the holiday here, we decided to take a day and stay in. The snow was already beginning to melt when we awoke this morning and it was foggy. It was so pretty the night before. It just felt like a stay-at-home kind of day.  But we both really missed seeing the girls today.

By the way, the weather here has had us joking that we feel like home. In Texas we say, if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and it will change. Well, here you just have to go to bed, wake up and it will be different! We never know if we'll wake up to cold, very cold, foggy, sunny, windy, wet or dry, or some combination of the sort. The weather forecasts never seem to get it right here, either.

We had planned to meet our friends up at the Freedom Square again so we could watch the fireworks display for New Year's. We ventured out on the subway and made it there at 11:00pm. The fog had lifted a little bit, but before the fireworks started, the fog was returning. The display went on as planned, but even though we were standing on one end of the square, and fireworks were on the other end of the square, we could not see the big, pretty ones, up high. We could only see the fireworks that were lower to the ground. It was a shame, because they did it up big!

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR from Eastern Europe! We pray that the coming year will be filled with exciting and wonderful blessings for you and your family!

As we head off to bed, folks are shooting fireworks off all over town. With all the tall buildings, it echoes all over and sounds like a warzone out