Anna's Visit

We are counting the days and hours until we are able to return home! Today we really had a wonderful day. We met Anna at the train station with our interpreter Vanya. Kostya has a lot of paper work to complete before we leave so he asked if we would mind having Vanya for a day or two. We had met him at the church we have been going to and he is a delight. He told us a bunch of jokes and was a great help to both Jeff and I and Anna. We visited Edward today. He was fascinated with a chocolate egg with a toy inside from Anna. And of course, more food from mom and dad. He was very happy most of the time – except when he could not touch the camera – and it was a great help to have Anna talk to him softly and explain what we were desperately trying too! Cannot wait until he can fully understand. When we had to leave him we were of course very sad. It will not be Monday soon enough. We left Donestk and came back to Gorlovka to have lunch and shop a bit. Anna took some interesting pictures of Jeff and I – I will make sure he downloads them on the site by tomorrow because I think you’ll enjoy. She commented to Vanya that she was looking for something interesting to place on Jeff’s head for a picture. If some of you remember the picture at my house of Rob with a piece of cabbage on his head you’ll understand how enjoyable it will be! After lunch we went to the department store – kind of like a mall with a bunch of small kiosk like shops. Found a few things to buy… We’ll go back tomorrow or Saturday for a few more things. It was a very nice afternoon. For dinner we made soup – not so good as it was from a package – but Anna decided we should have champagne and some awesome Raffaello candy for the first course. That made the soup taste much better! So now we are just sitting around and listening to Jeff snore – he must be quite satisfied! Tomorrow we will go to Torez and introduce Jenna Leeza to Anna (Babooshka). That will be very special.

Boys, I hope you have had a wonderful day. Anna has asked all about you and we found a special/cool thing for you two at the Department Store. I cannot tell you how much we miss you. Hope you have had a nice day and that you know how much we love you!! Tell everyone we said hello and that we cannot wait to get home! Again, I know everyone may get tired of us telling you all how much we thank you and love you and just feel so humbled by all you have done for us.

A special note for Pam and Paul. I do not even know how to tell you over so many miles that our hearts are with you and sure do hurt for you. We saw a paper from Swansboro and saw that Fred has passed away. You are in our thoughts and prayers. I know this must be such a difficult time for you. Cannot wait to hug you both and let you know how much we love you!

Sally, we are sure hoping and praying that you all are spared from Rita the hurricane. We have been trying to keep up with as much as we can without having a TV. Everyone please let us know what is going on there as it is a bit difficult to get on line here sometimes.

We love you all and cannot wait to get home (which I think you all know ) next week!