Day 8 – Sunday, 13 August, 2006

Sunday dawned bright and early; the Niles family rose and departed EARLY for church. We arrived in time to meet the Maxwell family on the way in. Rachel and Masha checked in and stayed together for children’s church; Mark and I sat with Becky and
Eric for a great message on faithfulness. Sometimes God whacks one over the head with a board…the message was about how it’s not our job to figure out how the Lego pieces of our lives fit together, it’s just up to us to be faithful and trust that God’s plan is the right one for us.

After church, Masha and I got the Sunday paper and went through all the ads. She showed me what she liked and what was not hip at all. Armed with this valuable information and a list written by Masha, we trekked out to Kohl’s where everything is always on sale.

As previously mentioned, Masha is quite the shopper. Before long, my arms were filled with innumerable items for the fitting room. Every item that landed on the pile was accompanied by a toothy smile, batting eyelashes, and “pleeeeease?”

Once in the fitting room, we quickly organized the discoveries and established “Yes,” “No,” and “Maybe” piles for everything that was modeled. There were a few clear “Nyet” items, including a very inappropriate camisole top and a couple of things that were just plain too big.

The “Maybe” pile grew quickly, especially when Mark continued to collect new items and pass them to us over the door of the fitting room! We ended up surrounded by t-shirts, jeans, a couple of skirts, shorts, bathing suits, and one really ugly dress. Paring it all down to one reasonable “yes” pile was agonizing, and resulted in several heavy sighs, a couple eye rolls, and very pouty lower lip, but the parents held firm!

Before checking out, we surveyed the selection of photo albums. Mark gave Masha a choice of three different pink photo albums, each holding 200 photos with room to write beside each one. We lit up when Masha chose one that was bright pink with “Family” embroidered on the front. Then she wandered over to another area adn remembered the girl’s perogative to change her mind. She selected an ivory wedding album, with a small ribbon. Go figure!?!?

The final stop at Kohl’s was the jewelry department, where Masha found a set of three pairs of earrings in preparation for the scheduled Ear Piercing Extravaganza coming up on Tuesday night. We called a translator to make sure that Masha understood that even if we bought these earrings, she would still have to wear the starter studs for a few weeks while her ears healed. We also explained that she might find earrings she liked better at another store, but she had her heart set on these. Fortunately, they were half off!!

She asked for a makeup kit on the way out, which was met with another firm “Nyet!” I’m not quite ready for this sweet little girl to be a teenager! Give me at least another week!!

We headed home, tidied up the house a bit, and then Masha worked on filling up her photo album for a little bit. Around 3:00, the Felgers arrived bearing a vanload of kids and food! Gary and Dawn used to work with Mark at Central Soya, and have adopted four beautiful children from Ukraine. Through the course of this adventure, we have gotten to know them much better and we take a lot of advice and inspiration from this amazing family!

Even after lending a supply of Barbie dolls and a bike for Masha to ride during her stay, Hannah brought MORE Barbies with her today. The girls played ball for a while, then grabbed the camera and took pictures all over the house before heading up to Masha’s room to play Barbies. Everyone pitched in to prepare a summer dinner of burgers, salad, and corn on the cob.

Farm chores called, and the Felgers bit us good night…Little did I know that I was about to experience my first real “Mom Moment.” I looked up from the kitchen into the family room to see a bright orange soccer ball flying through the air. Now, Masha is pretty coordinated, but the ball was just a little too close to several things that could break! Mark failed to see the risk, but I put my foot down. There will be no hurling of soccer balls around my family room…period! They changed course and began balancing on the soccer ball instead. I have to say I’m glad I didn’t see that!!!