Well, here we are........we made it home "safe and sound" (Alyssa's favorite saying).  Sorry we haven't updated, our computer has been crashed until last night.  Lets see, hmmmmm.........what has gone on in our lives in the past 4 days............

First of all, let me say that we are having the time of our lives!!!!!  It has been SOOOOOOO much fun these past few days at home!!  Wow, how the Lord has blessed greatly and I wonder if life can be any better than this? 

OK, now that doesn't mean that our kids are perfect, because by all means they are NOT!!  Ha Ha!  :)  Brayden whines more than the girls do combined, Abby is as stubborn as a mule, and Alyssa, well.......she thinks she is the "big sister" because she can speak English and she LOVES to tattle on EVERY thing that they do!!! 

Thursday night..........We started packing up all of our stuff for the flight home.  The kids were extremely hyper, running around, jumping on beds, doing flips, etc.  After telling them to settle down about 137 times, we decided to just let them burn ouit their energy :)  Well, that wasn't a bright idea, because we soon heard a loud crash and glass shattering.  (Keep in mind that we were staying an an old lady's apartment <she was staying with a friend> and this old lady was really protective over her stuff, she told us before we left to pretty much not touch anything.  There was even a giant stuffed chipmunk that the kids were playing with while she was still there and she said "Nyet, Nyet, Ne Nada" and put the thing away where they could not reach it.)  Back to the crash........when we heard it we both ran into the living room and sure enough, a HUGE lamp that was the ONLY lamp in the room was shattered inot a gazillion pieces.  My first reaction was to of course yell and ask who in the world did it, but when I saw the loook on little Abby's face, I knew she was the culprit.  Poor thing was terrified!!!  I asked Alyssa what happened and turns out she was involved too.  The were jumping on the bed/couch and Alyssa "accidentally" knocked into Abby and she fell and knocked the lamp over.  Since Abby was so mortified and was shaking pretty badly, we dicided to comfort her instead of what we wanted to do :)  I told her that it was OK and tat accidents happen, but tried to expain to her that she and Alyssa should have listened to us and stopped horsing around and because they didn't listen, the lamp got broken.  I think she understood.  We told her and Alyssa both that they had to tell the babushka (oold lady) that they were sorry in the morning.  They were both really worried about doing that.  Even the next morning when they first got up, we could hear Abby talking about the babushka.  Well, the Babushka came, we told her what happened, gave her $50, and made the girls tell them they were sorry.  It seemed like she was OK with it.  Whe our driver arrived to take us to the airport, we lugged all of our stuff down the 5 flights of stairs and were all ready to go until I realized that we left our travel alarm clock in the room.  I ran back pu to get it, rang th doorbell, and the babushka answered with a stern look on her face.  I tried to explain to her that we left something in the apartment and she decided to drag me into the bathroom and was pointing to the toilet seat and was almost yelling at me in Russian.  Aparently, the toilet seat lid was broken???  I told her that I didn't know why it was broken (the lid was about 2 mm. thick made of plastic, it could probably break if you shut it hard enough) We did not even have the lid down the entire time that I know of.  I felt bad for her, but decided to make a run for it, besides, we had already have her $50.  I ran into the living room, grabbed the alarm clock and ran right past her saying "Spaceiba, Dasvidanya" (Thank you, goodbye), all while she was still shouting things in Russian.  :) 

The airport, well, that was an experience also!!!  To get the kids out of the country, you have to have all of the necessary paperwork to do so.  We knew we had all of it, so thought we were good to go!  An official was thumbing through all of our documents and then asked for the court decree.  We had a copy of it, but he said we had to have to original.  We had 2 originals, but they were sealed up the the documents for when we land in the US (these documents are not allowed to be opened).  He would not let us go and told us we needed the original.  OK, that is when my anxiety started to kick in.  We called Sveta and told her the situation.  She started to panic to and said she would call us back.  Int he mean time the official was calling several people over to ask them if we could get through without the original.  Sveta called back and told us that Leo, our driver, was on the way with the original after he picked it up from her apartment.  Well, the airport is 30 min. from her apartment.  About 10 minutes later, they finally let us through with the copy.  We called Sveta to tell her and she said that she had just gotten off the phone with the US Embassy, and they told her that a copy is all that is required and the man obviouly didn't know what he was doing.  WHEW, big releif!  As soon as a turn around, a lady stopped me to search my carry on.  Of course I had liquids on it.  I was for some reason thinking that they lifted the liquid ban, um...........nope............they took all my liquids out (luckily we still had our check on bags with us at that point so we put them in those).  I did have some hand sanitizer and lotion stashed in a pocket in the bag that she didn't see though :)  It was funny, because in Alyssa's carry on, there was a mesh pocket on the outside that had a ziplock with toothpaste in it and the lady didn't catch that. 

On the plane..........Brayden and Abby were beyond excited to be on the Samoliyot "airplane".  We let Brayden sit next to the window.  I sat next to him and Alyssa sat in the seat across the isle from me then Chis and Abby.  It was so sweet because Alyssa knows I don't like to fly, so she grabbed my hand on take off and said "Mommy, I'll hold your hand, it's OK, you are all "safe and sound" with me"  Awe, how sweet was that??  Take off is the absolute most terrifying part for me!!!!  As we took off I think I squeezed Alyssa and Brayden's hand so hard that it had to hurt them.  Once we got up and settled, I was fine, and the kids were having a ball.  After we ate, I really wanted the kids to sleep, so I gave them benadryll, but it didn't work, so a little later I gave them more, still, the didn't budge.  Well, Brayden did finally sleep for maybe 1 hour and Alyssa and Abby maybe 30 minutes.  Chris and I didn't sleep at all.  On our leg from JFK to ATL, I was sitting in the very back with Abby and Alyssa, both zonked out from the time we first sat down until after we landed.  Brayden was up front with Chris and was playing the Game Boy the entire way home while Chris slept.  Remember me saying the take on the way out of NY to Ukraine was very bumpy and scary?  Well, the take off out of NY to ATL was just dandy, but once in the air, it was 200 times scarrier than that take off to Ukrane.  The weather was bad, so the plane was bouncing around all over the place.  It wasn't like normal turbulence, this plane was on a rollercoaster ride!!!!!  It would drop and then shake and then dip down to the left and then drop some more and then dip down to the right!!!  AHHHH!!  I was mortified, and all I cold do was sit there with each girl layin on my lap asleep praying to God not to take us now!!  It is kindof compical now that I am thinking back on it, but at the time...............Oh no, not comical in the least bit!!!!  I was thinking of poor Brayden up in the front all alone while Chris was somehow managing to sleep through all of this.  The reason I knew it was bad is because the flight attendents all were trying to make it back to thier seats and could barely walk to them.  They even looked a little scared!  Oh, and Alyssa's tray was down with 3 cups of water on it and when we dropped one of the times, the waters bounced off and and landed right on her.  Poor thing was so tired she didn't even wake up.  But, as you can see, we landed all "safe and sound" :)