Saturday, April 7, 2007

Tom and Jenia went to pick up Max and Oskana. They came back to our apt. I will not give much detail about our apt, but it is a USSR type apt. We spoke to the children and explained that we wanted them to have American names along with their Ukrainian names. When speaking to Oskana, we explained that her full name will be Maria Oskana Uhrig. She agreed. We told Max that his name will be Matthew Maksim Uhrig. He immediately stated that he wanted to be called Matthew. He jumps into anything quickly. We also explained that we have an exchange student from Germany until June. The exchange student, Florian, will leave but they will stay. They stated that they understood. It is such a delight to work with Jenia, our translator. She is so good and thorough.

We then headed to Khortytse island. This is the island that they Cossacks used as a rallying point before fighting. It is a beautiful island with a museum. We found the museum interesting. They had a soldiers uniform from 4 B.C. to WWII. The museum gave history from this time period also. We also found out that Germany occupied Zap for 2 years. The battle to free Zap was a long and hard fought battle. In fact, the east side of the river was freed 2 months prior to the west side. Much of Zap was destroyed in this battle. Buildings were bombed or burned to the ground. That is why Zap is a USSR made city. Stalin had to rebuilt the city.

After the museum, we ate at the restaurant on the island. The food was good but the service was slow. We were at the restaurant 2 hours. The children were well behaved. It was hard for all of us to sit that long. We then left the island and went to the mall. We purchased the kids one toy each. They were happy. Tom and Jenia left with the kids to take them back to the orphanage.