This morning, we walked ...

... with Liliya to Tamara's apartment ...



Where Tamara served us tea and cake ...



at 10:00 in the morning. Then we flagged down a young Ukrainian driver to bring us back to our apartment to hang out and play with "Aquadoodle." (Thank you, Sara! This is proving to be a favorite!)



We had lunch at a Russian cafeteria where Katya wanted a mayonnaise-y salad, potatoes and more potatoes, but no meat. We limited the potatoes, but stopped by McDonald's for ice cream, just because.

This week a boy at #5 ripped apart Katya's backpack after he hit her on the head with a brick. Because Bill coudn't rip him apart, we did what we could, and went in search of a backpack. Backpacks are hard to come by. Thankfully, we found one with one of the 101 Dalmations on it, rather than pink skulls after searching floors 1-4 at Athena Mall. I'm not sure what happened to the one with the pink skulls. Tamara has refrained from mentioning it.

From Athena Mall, where you can view a statue of Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, we headed to the playground. Katya LOVES to swing. She patiently waited her turn. After a little while, another girl came and said "Dia-vuch-kah pahsh-a-loo-stah," which I know means "Girl, please." I guess that was the polite way of communicating, "Get off the swing." Katya very willingly hopped off the swing, ran to the merry-go-round thing (which I think has been outlawed in the U.S.), and enjoyed a spin-around. I was proud of her since I personally have seen her be less than cooperative when her will is interrupted.

Out to dinnner at City Pizza where Katya INSISTED she wanted "pizza with shellfish." We had given her the Russian menu so that we could see what she liked. Both us and Alex, our waiter, were a bit surprised, but he took her order. This is what came out ...



If you look closely, I think you can see the squiddish - octupus stuff on it. We were pretty impressed with Katya's culinary daring, however she took one look at it, said, "Yuck," in perfect English, and proceeded to take a piece of OUR "Viennese pizza, " scraped off EVERYTHING, and ate the crust. Because we had not had enough sugar today, we found it necessary to order Katya some sort of Black Forest pudding dessert to round out the meal.

Home again, home again ...


For a shower, teeth brushing, "Find the Duck," Bible story, and prayers so that this little cutie...



can hit the hay ... once she crashes from her sugar high.