Greetings from Kramatorsk!!! WE MADE IT!!! We actually had 3 very smooth flights (BIG HINT: If you are planning on traveling a long distance by plane and are overweight (especially if BOTH of you are overweight) ... LOSE WEIGHT! Mark's tailbone and my hips will never be the same, especially after the long flight from Philly to Frankfurt! Those seats are NOT designed for "big boys and girls"!! LOL But our flights were on time, good connections, and Mark tolerated the flying pretty well. He hasn't flown in decades by choice, and he did great! He was adorable on the first flight, gripping my pinky finger for support, yet with his nose plastered against the window looking out at the clouds, all hyper from excitement and fear. He was so adorable!! By the third flight, he was a chilled as the rest of us.

We arrived in Kiev in the afternoon on Tuesday and were taken straight to our apartment, where, if I remember correctly, we stayed until the next morning. We were BEAT. At noon the next day, we had our SDA appt. and the lady who interviewed us was so nice!!!! It was not a tense meeting by any means! Very relaxing. We saw a picture of little Sergei (Simon) taken 2 years ago. Not a great picture (we have a lot that were better) but it is always fun to see a picture we've never seen before! We agreed that we wanted his referral and a few hours later we picked up the letter (whatever that was) and we were off to the train station! THAT FAST!! The bad part is that we didn't get to see any of our Reece's Rainbow friends like we were hoping to. UGH. Maybe a little too fast?? We arrived in Kramatorsk this morning (what day is this?? Thursday??) after a rather long night on the train. The train itself was fine (and the bathroom not THAT bad!!) but our systems are SO out of whack that it was hard to sleep. I didn't dare take a sleeping pill that night but you bet your boots I will tonight!!

Whoops! Gotta go! Time to go to the orphanage for our second visit and our facilitator will be meeting us in a few minutes. Gotta get down there to meet her - more later!!!!!!