Potato Chips and Gatorade

Our first few days with Kolya have been great! The language barrier is a bit of a problem since he speaks a mix of Russian and Ukrainian. Overall, we are doing OK and at least communicating the important things through the iPod translator and lots of gestures. Darn that Tower of Babel!. Kolya is very quiet most of the time. When he does speak, he is very gentle and polite and always says "Thank you". He makes his bed every day, clears his dishes off the table, and constantly watches out for the little kids. Just today, he started to really loosen up and tease and wrestle with Caleb for a little bit. It was really good to see him having fun and settling into the "big brother" role.

Waiting for Kolya to get off his flight

Kolya started on his journey to America late evening on Monday in our time and finally arrived in Cincinnati on Tuesday at 7:30 PM. We got him home just after midnight and then stayed up till one o'clock trying to use the translator on the iPod with him. He was pretty tired all day on Wednesday, but seems to have caught up now.

Finally! Kolya and our Family at the airport

So far, we have discovered that he loves potato chips (a man after Nathan's heart!), and seems to like pizza, too! We have enjoyed several trips to the park where Kolya has displayed his impressive soccer skills. He likes playing ball, bike riding, and just being outside. He also likes to play Wii and any game on my iPod whenever possible. He has seen nearly every movie in Nathan's collection and enjoys going through them and watching them one by one each night. We're working on getting an MP3 player set up for him. I had one purchased for him, but I corrupted it by accident when I unplugged the USB before it was done loading. Ugh! I've ordered him a new one, and we'll get the music on it for him ASAP.

Sara and trouble in the making

Today, we spent most of the afternoon outside playing with smoke bombs and little fire crackers and sparklers.

Kolya and Nathan lighting the fuses

Kolya getting sparklers ready

Kolya playing with smoke bombs

Lighting a bunch of smoke bombs at once

Nathan with a blue nose from handling the smoke bombs and rubbing his face:)

The little popper things (that explode in a little "SNAP!" when you throw or step on them) were a huge hit and Kolya enjoyed throwing them right under Libby's feet, since he got a big reaction from her - she screamed every single time, of course.

Libby-girl

Caleb loves following Kolya around and copying him whenever possible - so he threw poppers at Libby and Daddy.

Super-Caleb-Man

Kolya putting a smoke bomb on Caleb's head

Sara ran around grabbing the little bits of paper and burnt bits of fire crackers, having a grand time getting in the way and making a general nuisance of herself, as usual.

Sara running through STINKY orange smoke

Libby and her sparkler

cleaning up the mess

Kolya and Libby and I played a little prank on Nathan, too. When he walked into the living room this afternoon, we blasted him with silly string! Libby unfortunately aimed it the wrong way and sprayed herself in the face. Boy! Did she ever get mad! After she got over her issues, she begged and begged to get more silly string at the store. Um, NO! We had fun cleaning it up; it was everywhere in the living room and dining room! Caleb even found some on the wall in dining room that we had missed.

Nathan covered in silly string!

Kolya and Nathan enjoyed a quick game of chess before dinner and we wrapped up the evening playing video games and watching the Matrix with Josh. We are all pretty beat, so it's off to bed to get ready for Sunday and our first full week with Kolya!

Kolya and Nathan playing chess with an audience