Exactly five years ago, we were in Ukraine, in the home stretch of our five-week adventure for Masha’s adoption. For a few more days, I’m posting excerpts and a photo or two from each day. Sometimes funny, and sometimes proof of how naive we were, I hope you’ll enjoy our little trip down memory lane… Monday June 11th, 2007 – Headed to Kiev! Our last full day.  We had recently become less diligent with our “shower whenever you can” strategy; the water hadn’t gone off in nearly a week. However, we woke up to find that our hot water was out […]

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Exactly five years ago, we were in Ukraine, in the home stretch of our five-week adventure for Masha’s adoption. For a few more days, I’m posting excerpts and a photo or two from each day. Sometimes funny, and sometimes proof of how naive we were, I hope you’ll enjoy our little trip down memory lane… Sunday, 10 June, 2007 – The Home Stretch Our stay is drawing to a close…and time is running short! Today, we left the apartment at 11, picked up Kseniya and Lisa, and then met the second car at the orphanage where we picked up the […]

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Exactly five years ago, we were in Ukraine, four weeks into our five-week adventure for Masha’s adoption. For the next few weeks, I’m posting excerpts and a photo or two from each day. Sometimes funny, and sometimes proof of how naive we were, I hope you’ll enjoy our little trip down memory lane… Saturday, 9 June, 2007 – Borsch Day We are coming to the realization that we’ll be leaving soon, which is met with both anticipation and panic. We’re not too worried about the “We’re gonna be parents” thing…that’s settling in well. The panic is actually related to shopping […]

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As part of the 15 Habits Of Great Writers Challenge, I’ve been dared to practice in public–to post something here like nothing I’ve ever posted before.  And while I have posted a few short creative pieces here in the past (Moonlight, The Hitchhiker, and one about my mother’s death), I’ve never shared any bits of fiction. In my defense, I started this story last Christmas break, before the news was filled with zombies.  It came out of reading Zechariah 14.  So it’s a bible story.  Sort of.  That means that my mother-in-law will forgive me for using a bad word in it.  And […]

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Exactly five years ago, we were in Ukraine, three weeks into our five-week adventure for Masha’s adoption. For the next few weeks, I’m posting excerpts and a photo or two from each day. Sometimes funny, and sometimes proof of how naive we were, I hope you’ll enjoy our little trip down memory lane… Friday, 8 June, 2007 – Eta Mama, Eta Papa As I’ve mentioned before, our time with the girls is getting a pretty routine. [At the park] they checked out a teeter totter and a slide you could fry an egg on before settling on a row of four […]

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