Farewell Party

What a day we had! Being in Ukraine and not having Christmas advertised everywhere really makes it hard to feel like tomorrow is really Christmas Day. It is nice, in away, to get away from all the stores and things that are just "screaming" Christmas at you. Not what the true meaning of Christmas is but Christmas as most people look at it, presents and gifts and forgetting Jesus amongst all the hububub. We are starting to see a few ornaments and twinkling lights in some of the stores. And we're seeing little Christmas trees here and there about town. They even have fresh cut trees out now and they are very tiny compared to the sizes of them in America. Actually, most everything, especially portions, are much smaller here. Ted has found this out when he went to buy a bag of potato chips. No Big Size bags here just average size bags that most homes in America never buy because there too small. The milk comes in quarts(we are always getting milk ever other day) and ice cream mainly comes in bags or ½ quart sizes. The fruit is smaller and more ripe or bruised looking. BUT the food is better tasting(in my opinion) because it is much more natural and not so processed as in America. Cheese and meats are wonderful(they have SO many different salamis and sausages) Fruits are much more sweeter and have more flavor to them. Breads are baked fresh. But I'm getting off the subject of how our day went. We did go to the store to pick up treats for Natasha's party. We needed to get enough food for a class of 25 children and any teachers who may happen to be there. We left it up to Natasha to get what she wanted for the class. At first we thought we made a mistake in doing this the way she was loading up the cart!(Plus we thought we'd end up making the class sick with all the sweets she was getting!) We limited her on some of the quantity on things but other than that she ended up doing a great job in getting all different varieties of food without getting too much of one thing. Our cart was really full and we were wondering how much this party was going to end up costing us! But again, we were pleasantly surprised that the whole cart full of groceries ended being a mere 30 dollars and 80 cents! This is another thing I like about the food in Ukraine very inexpensive.
We headed to the Internot with our stash of food and Natasha and Luda (her supervisor who is such a sweet dear!) helped us get all the plates and drinks and the food situated around the table. As Michelle was telling me, parties in Ukraine are a bit different than parties in America. Instead of taking your plate of food and going and finding a place to sit, you put all the plates on the table and everyone sits and gathers around no matter how many people or how small the table is! And this is what we did. It was a lovely party and Viktor taped the whole thing. Each of the children got up and said something to Natasha and said their good byes to her on tape. Lena VP, Inna has a long schpeel(sp?) for you to see when we get back. I hope the tape in the camcorder Viktor used will be compatible with our systems in America. It was a very sweet farewell from all of her friends. After we cleaned up we played some games and Michelle went and got some of the children who we brought Pen Pal letters and presents for. Katia, Babushka Lennard's pen pal, wasn't there as she is currently in America on a 3 week visit that an organization plans out every year around Christmas. So Michelle will give her her things later when she returns. Sasha was there and enjoyed her letters and only wanted to open one of the gifts to her. Michelle told us later, that Sasha was probably too shy to open her gifts in front of us but that she was excited about her things and was showing all her friends upstairs the letters that she had received.
We then said our good byes and headed out for dinner. Berger's, we saw Yuri again and said "Hello". He is such a gentleman! So sweet: ) We ended up going to the Greek Mall's cafeteria again(the one with all the paintings, Natasha's choice, she enjoys it!) And afterwards we headed to a little Baskin Robbins that was close to the mall. It is probably the only time as a family that we'd be able to get Baskin Robbins ice cream! Again, it was very inexpensive 8 dollars for us all and a wonderful treat to end the day.
And now tonight on Christmas Eve we will watch Miracle on 34th Street and then put the children to bed in hopes of Santa arriving tonight. We will spend Christmas at Michelle's friends, Butch and Dawn, who have graciously asked us to come and celebrate Christmas with them all. Then we will come back to Lela's house, which will be the best part of the day because we will get to call home to wish our family there a Merry Christmas.
We hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow and we thank you for all your gifts of prayers and notes to us along our adoption journey.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Love from
The Carrizales'

Pictures are of beautiful Nastia(Natasha's best friend) with her compelted knitting work; Natasha, Luda and Ariana helping to distribute all the food; all the kids gathered round the table(and some were off to the side because there was no more room!); a display for Christmas of some of the needlework that the children have worked on(VERY wonderful work by these children!); Pen Pal Sasha, and us enjoying our Baskin Robbins! (we even got Viktor to join us in a scoop)