Picture Day!

I have decided today to figure out how to post pictures on the web. On our computer at home, I have downloaded a fancy little program that does it for me. Without that program, I am a little lost. However, I figured I have an entire day, with nothing else to do, and I am a reasonably intelligent human being, I should be able to figure this out! So, with any luck, there will be only a few words, but lots of pictures today!


Quite some time ago, I talked about shopping at the outdoor market in Odessa. This picture was taken in the fish market section. All the hanging fish were smoked. John and Vladimir bravely purchased and tasted one of these fish, but were quickly turned off by the blue blood in it! Our favorite memory of the fish market is seeing one lady manning her little stand full of smoked fish, with a fly swatter in hand to keep the bugs off her produce! If I could have taken a picture, I would have, believe me! Also at the market are fresh fish - seeing all the fresh fish laying out on the stands in the hot weather, might just convince you to steer clear of eating fish in Odessa!


This picture was taken in the fruit and vegetable part of the market. Everywhere you look there are people (and this was a weekday!). It was hard to capture the size, busyness and character of the market, so you'll just have to take our word for it!


This is the infamous building that houses the National Adoption Center. I'm not sure what else is found inside this building, but the NAC offices were on the top floor.


I took this picture after we left the NAC for the second time, after requesting a referral to the sibling group we chose (and are still waiting to visit!). John's goofy smile reflects the joy and happiness that were in our hearts after that monumental decision. This archway is the entrance to the NAC door off of the main street.


And here we are at the front door of the NAC. You enter through this door, climb about 4 flights of stairs, and then you see...


This picture/sculpture is on the wall (it is huge) as you come up the steps to the NAC office.

So, we'll see how this works! Off to publish....

Ok, back again. It seems with a little tweaking, I managed to figure it out! So, I will add more pictures. I know all these pictures will make your pages slower to load, but I hope you enjoy them. From now on, now that I know how to post pictures, I'll try to post them with the appropriate journal entry, rather than all at once!


A favorite summer activity for Ukrainians is to head to the beach. Last Sunday we went to Ilechovsk with Lena and Vladimir. The Black Sea was beautiful, the sand beaches were filled with people and the sun was hot! Since John and I had both gotten a lot of sun during the previous two days, we decided to just watch, and not swim.


In downtown Kiev there is a beautiful area called "Independence Square". It has a statue and these beautiful water fountains. Kostya and his son enjoyed the cool water fountains after our appointment at the NAC. This Independence Square was built after Ukraine's independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.


So far, we have ridden on the overnight trains twice. There are little compartments on the train cars. Each compartment holds four people. There are two bottom bunks, and two top bunks. Ideally, Kostya has explained to us, you buy out the entire compartment, so you have it just to yourself. However, in the summer, you are just quite happy when you get tickets! John, Lena and Vladimir in our train compartment on the overnight train from Odessa to Kiev.


John and I in our train compartment, ready to head to Kiev for our NAC appointment.




The children in Ukraine have really caught our attention because they are so cute! I took these two pictures on the Black Sea boat cruise.


As you know from our journal, our hosts have been pleading with us "to rest, to relax, to enjoy!" Honestly, we are relaxed, rested and enjoyed out! Last night, after John asked to please help with dinner, and was told once again "to rest - you have many children very soon and no time to rest, you must rest!" he dramatically plopped himself on the living room floor, claiming he felt like a jellyfish, he was so rested out!


"Resting, relaxing and enjoying" in front of a boring (is there any other kind?!) soccer match on TV!

So, that ends the photo album for the day. Our digital camera has an email picture format which, at the same time it creates a 5 megapixel picture, it creates these small-size email-version pictures for posting. They aren't the best quality, but hopefully they give you a general idea. We forgot to "turn on" the email format until after being in Ukraine for awhile, so some early pictures we can't post because they are too big.

However, from here on out, until we run out of room on our server, we will try to consistently post pictures for you to enjoy.

On one more note, our FedEx is getting close to Paris, so hopefully we will see it here in Kiev on Monday!