Elizabeth is 20 months old today......Day ?? (Who know's...we lost count, lol!)

Hi everyone ~

We got to see Elizabeth this morning again. We think that we will get to go in the mornings from now on, which works out much better since she's in a better mood and doesn't make us out so late in the evening. We celebrated her 20 month birthday with.....a banana!! LOL! We went to the markets close to here last night and we couldn't find any bananas, so thank goodness that Bryan and Tamera let us have one of theirs. All of the kids there really like bananas. Elizabeth was in a good mood again today and she seems to enjoy spending time with us and we haven't heard her cry for a few days (Yeah!) She had on size 12 month jeans (cute, with flowers) but they were pretty tight on her. She is just as beautiful as ever. Tom tells me that our blog says the same thing over and over...she is beautiful. I have to tell you that it is hard to explain it, and her pictures don't do her justice. You will get to see for yourselves as soon as we get home :-) Today she let Tom lift her in the air and she loves that. We played peek-a-boo and she liked that, too. Today her and CJ just started playing with each others toys and Tom even tossed CJ into the air too. I really am glad that we are here with Bryan and Tamera and it looks like we may even get flights all the way to Chicago together (maybe they'll share toys on the plane, too).

We are hoping to find out soon about our final travel plans back to the USA. Today was day 3 of our 10 days, so each day we are a step closer to home and to our families. We are paid up at the hotel until next Monday, but will probably be there Tuesday evening also.

I was telling Tom earlier today that I was beginning to have Wal-Mart withdrawal (all you ladies will understand this since I haven't been there for over 3 weeks!). We have done a lot of shopping here (seems like all we do some days) but it just isn't the same as the US, since the stores are very small and most only have a limited supply of items. Well....today I got my fix...Bryan and Tamera found a huge Supermarket about 1 mile from our hotel and we went there with them. It had shopping carts, nice wide aisles, it was clean and it had just about everything as far as groceries were concerned. It took us 1 and 1/2 hours to grocery shop. We were able to find some jelly (for pb&j) and some meat, cheese and bread. You all know that I hate to cook, but I'm really missing home cooked food. They have pretty good food here, but nothing that tastes like home (so far McDonald's is the closest thing we've found since we got to Kharkov).

We had pizza for lunch. It was good (not like Pizza Hut, though) and we were able to get 2 pizzas and 2 sodas for 38 khrivna which is only about $7.50....so at least the food is cheap :-) Tomorrow we are going to have lunch with Bryan and Tamera and the other American couple that is here from the same adoption agency. Their names are Sue and Mark (they are the ones who are adopting the other 19 month old named Victoria, she was born on 4-4-04, cool, huh?)

We got to talk to Chris and Kayla on the phone last night. It's always a treat to hear from my baby. Yes, I'll always consider Chris my baby, too :-) Sounds like they are both getting along fine.

We love you all and miss you all greatly!!
Tom, Valerie and Elizabeth