Playing at the Park

Saturday 4/30
Our plans for picking up our son on Saturday did not materialize.  Our translator, Lisa and I were taken by our driver to the orphanage.  We arrived the same time our son and all of his classmates were boarding a bus for the city.  They had planned an outing already.  So we did not think it right to pull our son off the bus to go with us.  I told our translator that we had to plan better.  I had asked him in the past to call the orphanage to ensure there were no conflicts but he was not willing to do so.  So we were bummed out over the dry run to the orphanage and over not getting time with Jonathan Evan.

That night, we watched one of the Star Wars movies in Russian or Ukrainian.

Sunday 5/1
Sunday was a holiday.  Lisa and I worshipped in our apartment since scheduling made it hard to get to church and to the orphanage.  We heard a fine sermon by Tony Merida of Temple Baptist (tbclife.net) that he apparently preached from Jerusalem on Resurrection Sunday courtesy of downloadable MP3 files.  We also listened to some beautiful piano music of some of our favorite gospel hymns from jesus-is-savior.com. 

Our driver picked us up at 12 and we went to the orphanage.  We picked up our son and went back to town.  There we visited a facility containing several things of interest.  Tickets for the translator, Lisa, Jonathan and me were only about $10.  Sergei, the translator said something about the cheap tickets for the old man.  I don't know if he was trying to say adults or senior citizens; his english is not that good.  I told him there were no "old men" in our party.  He blushed.   We took a train ride through the park where there were many city dwellers who were picnicking on the beautiful sunny holiday.  Jonathan was kind of bored with this 35 minute rideIn addition to a small zoo, the park also had a terrarium with some snakes, some large ones, and Jonathan loved this.  It also had an aquarium and he enjoyed the fish also. .  Afterwards we also watched him play on a huge inflatable slide.  He loved this.  He also enjoyed playing in the McDonald's style playgym set once he got the hang of what it was about.  It was nice seeing the world through the eyes of a child again. 

When we were done, we went home to the apartment.  Jonathan and I played ball outside while Lisa cooked chicken and rice and broccoli for supper.  Then we came in and all played with toy trucks and cars.  Then we put together a puzzle of 2 kittens.  (I hate puzzles and I don't like cats but I enjoyed spending time with Jonathan.)  Then we had supper.  He liked the chicken and rice and cheese.  But, in a reminiscent universal way, he pointed to the broccoli and said with a grimmace, "no, papa, no."  We laughed and said okay.  After supper, we finished the 100 piece puzzle and left for the orphanage.

We watched another Star Wars movie that night.