WE HAD SOME FUN



Me, with bad hair, and Rachael



Last week we had an invitation to meet some mostly e-friends for an IRL experience.  And it was so much fun! 

For a couple of days we had had the blessing of a visit from (respite, in a sense) for a darling boy from Ukraine, being hosted by a family in our parish.  Oleg's host family was finding the language issues exhausting, so I offered my Russian-speaking household for a couple of days to give them a break.  And, happily, on one of those days Rachael invited us to join two of her sisters, Natalie and Lori for some tubing fun at Natalie's house.  Rachael is hosting a 14 year old boy from Ukraine, and Lori is hosting a 15year old girl.  Add them to Rachael's vim-full Russian daughter and three bio-children and Lori's and Natalie's adorable little ones....  In addition to Oleg, I brought Sergei, Zhen and Maxim - it was quite a bunch!

I had honestly forgotten that I'd been tubing before.  But, watching the kids brought it all back. I remember why I didn't like it!  I hate having my body slammed about like that - it is the same thing I don't like about riding a roller coaster.  But, the kids had no such qualms.  Every one of them was in seventh heaven, and couldn't get enough.  Natalie was beyond generous as she piloted the boat for hours....as she couldn't even watch the kids, that was a real act of love. 

Sergei had his own style

It was so much fun to meet the Ukrainian kids and see how they were falling in love with their families.  Rachael is so clearly giving her mama's heart to her Sergey, and there is lovely bond which you can see between the adorable Anya and Lori.  Meanwhile, yes - I had to fight falling in love with Oleg, even in the two days we had him visiting us, especially knowing his host family, with their highly structured home, and one much younger child, were not a fit and won't try to adopt him.  But, I also knew that Ukraine's laws are more restrictive in terms of parents' age and we are just a bit too old for him.  So, I tried to keep that guard up around my heart (not all that successfully, frankly.) As Rachael pointed out, it was also surprising to see how the host kids stuck with their host families rather than gravitating to the other Ukrainian kids.  Seeing Oleg do that with us, only made things harder, I must say. He would be a super brother for Zhen.



Zhenya and Oleg (Zhen only looks mad; the downside of candid photos.)



Here is the photo of Oleg from the available children's site on the New Horizons website, along with what I wrote about him:

Thanks to Lori for the use of a couple of her photos!