What are we doing today?

Everyday David and I get asked what are we doing today?

Since a year ago today, was the day we went to court for the kids, we thought that we should celebrate. So last night we were asking the kids what they wanted to do. We talked about what we should do tonight and what was going on Saturday, Sunday, Christmas day, Dec. 27, which is our nephew's homecoming, and soccer and dance for next year.

So what questions do I get as soon as we get in the car this morning? What are we doing today? What are we doing tomorrow? When do we go to Grandma and Grandpa's?

I think I need to get both of them a calendar and so they can write down everything that we have planned. Then I can tell them to refer to their calendars.

By the way, I really didn't intend for our first anniversary with the kids to be undercut by the "what are we doing today?". We are glad that they are with us.

Rita

Last spring Tania had been talking to Rita since the Straders were in Ukraine adopting Sveta and Dosha. Rita convinced Tania that she wanted to be adopted here in Utah. So we went to Nannette's and convinced her to bring Rita over during the hosting program.

It was wonderful to have Rita visiting during the hosting program. Sveta, Dosha, Rita and Tania were best friends back in Ukraine. We spent many nights driving kids all over the valley so that the girls could be together. There were many long phone calls made to Rita. When Rita went to stay with the Lawrence's, Tania was able to get their phone number and calls were made to Rita at the Lawrence residence. When it was time for Rita to leave, Tania knew that the Lawrence's wanted to adopt Rita and that they were leaving in November. Rita should be back by the end of December, maybe first part of January. Excitement filled the air knowing that the four girls would be together again.

Yesterday when I got home, Tania asked me to log her onto the computer. I told her I would and that she needed to read something on the Internet. I brought up the Lawrence's blog and had her read about Rita. I decided that was the best way to tell her about what was going on. She read their post and I stood by to answer questions about things she didn't understand. By the time she finished there were tears in her eyes, which of course made me cry. I suggested to her that she stay up late that night and call Rita. She said that she would like that. She then had a very solemn call to Sveta and Dosha.

Later, she was asking what was for dinner and I reminded her that she had volunteered to make dinner the day before. Matthew had made dinner Monday night and Tania was kind of complaining that she didn't like what Matthew had fixed. Why didn't Matthew fix something that she liked? So I suggested to her that she should make dinner so that she could have something that she liked. So she said "OK I'll make dinner tomorrow and it will be eggs." So Tania made eggs for dinner Tuesday night. I think that was kind of therapeutic for her to cook dinner and get her mind off of Rita. I had to leave for while to help with the PTSA fundraiser but when I got back home things were still rather solemn and more phone calls were made to Sveta and Dosha.

Tania stayed up late and called Rita. David said they talked in very even tones. She didn't sound sad or mad. I think Tania was very concerned. This morning Tania told me that she didn't talk to Rita for very long. Rita needed to get to school. Rita wasn't able to tell Tania why she didn't want to be adopted but Rita did say that she didn't want to travel any more. Tania also talked to Antonina, who was Tania's caretaker in Ukraine. Antonina was very disappointed that Rita had decided not to be adopted. I'm sure that Antonina expressed her opinion to Rita very strongly.

We are all very sad that Rita has decided to stay in Ukraine.

On a different note, our fundraiser has not gone very well. The PTSA president decided to sell TAG 10's this year. The kids have had a very difficult time understanding the concept of the TAG10's which has made it hard for them to sell anything.

TAG10's are sheets of 10 tags. You register the sheet on a website so that you can follow the progress of the tags. The goal is to encourage acts of service. When you perform an act of service you give the person you have given the service a tag. That person hopefully would then write about their experience on the same website. They should then do an act of service and pass the tag along. The website keeps track of five acts of service per tag. It is rather fun to go on the website to see what has happened with the tags. If anyone is interested in purchasing a sheet they are $10.00 a sheet.

Also if anyone knows of a school organization that might need a fundraiser, we would be willing to sell our extra sheets to them at our cost.

And on another note, Sasha doesn't understand why I help out at school. Remembering back to last September when I helped with Reality Town, Sasha asked if I was getting paid to help. I said "no, I am just volunteering." He thinks I am crazy to help at school and not get paid.

Boo

I had to add this picture of Katelyn and Boo sleeping. Boo loves to be touched and really doesn't mind people putting their heads on him.

Jean-Marc and Monique

Jean-Marc and Monique came to visit us for two weeks. A great time was had by all. We took them to Temple Square, Park City, Moab, Las Vegas, Festival of Trees, our Ward Christmas dinner, Gardner Village, Quilted Bear and the Gateway Mall. We also had some of Sasha's friend over for dinner so that Jean-Marc and Monique could meet them. The boys didn't stick around Jean-Marc and Monique very much but we really didn't expect them to hang out with the adults.

We went to dinner on our last Tuesday night together. We had a great time laughing at Sasha.

Monique cooked us a French meal.

The trip to Park City.

Park City again.

Jean-Marc and Monique brought a map of France so we spent an evening talking about different places in France.

P.S. Katelyn thinks I am a slow typer.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. David's brother, sister and I take turns hosting Thanksgiving. I was supposed to host Thanksgiving last year. Going to Ukraine became more important than having Thanksgiving, so last year we didn't host Thanksgiving. To make up missing last year I hosted year. Also, we decided that it was an important year to have Thanksgiving since we had Jean-Marc and Monique visiting from France and this will probably be my father-in-law's last Thanksgiving.

This is Jean-Marc holding a great nephew, Sam. His mother, Tricia (our neice) is sitting in the chair talking to her sister-in-law, Jaime. (Jean-Marc and Monique loved all of the little kids. I wish we would have taken more pictures of the little ones.)



Monique is playing with with Jaime and Michael's youngest daughter, Cambry.

This is Jean-Marc, Monique, my mother and father -in -law, sister-in-law (Delores), Tricia with her husband Jared and our brother-in-law (Earl). David's sister, Earl's wife, Mary had surgery the Monday before Thanksgiving so she was unable to come to dinner. Also, David's brother, Delores's husband, had to work so he wasn't there.

This is us just talking before dinner. Jean-Marc is handing off Sam to Sam's father, Jared. Monique and I are talking. Helen and Grant are having a great time watching everybody.

David - Draper's policeman of the year

David received Drapers Policeman of the Year award. Of course, he doesn't like to smile for the camera.

I had to add this picture. We love our dog, Boo. One of the many things that make us laugh at him on a regular basis is when we give him an object to hold in his mouth. He will proudly display his prize. He will come close to you to show you his prize but not close enough so that you can take his prize away from him. He will not chew on it. He will prance around the house with whatever it is he has. Now this is an almost 100 lb. dog prancing with his head held high. This can last for as long as 20 minutes. I hope you can visualize this and understand why we laugh.

Ukrainian hosting program

I have decided that if you need more of a social life, just be a part ot the Ukrainian hosting program and your whole life will change. Now I'm not saying that our social life is boring (and we still haven't hosted) but we were sure busy driving kids to see their friends. It was a lot of fun to see all of the kids together.

While the hosting program was going on, we were able to get several of the kids together. All of the kids were thrilled to see each other. It was amazing that our house is still standing though. The noise level was probabaly at the highest level it has ever been.

This is a rare picture of Pasha. He did not like to have his picture taken.

Rita and Tania



Rita and Sveta




Dasha, Lena and Tania

Rita, Dasha, Lena, Sveta and Tania

Katelyn's play

As many of us have discussed, it is always interesting when there is a new event to attend. Tomorrow night we are going to Hillcrest's play "Curtains". Both the kids do not understand what a play is. They have both asked if it is going to be like the fundraiser that we went to for band last year. That was the band and orchestra's Marti Gras. We had dinner and the two groups performed while we ate. After dinner we were able to dance to their music if we wanted to. Of course, we had both kids up dancing for one dance.

Anyway, try explaining a play to kids that really aren't trying to understand what a play is.

BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS! Tania actually ate HALF A HAMBURGER tonight! She is now eating pepperoni, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches that are fried and HAMBURGER. Maybe in six more months she'll move onto some other type of meat.

For those of you who don't know, Tania is an incredibly picky eater. She won't eat any meat except for what is listed above. She will eat potatoes except funeral potatoes because they don't have potatoes in it (according to Tania). She will eat salads. Her two favorite fast food places are Wendy's and Subway. At Wendy's she will eat the chicken nuggets and at Subway she gets a pepperoni sandwich. If we go to a sit down restaurant, she orders a salad and french fries. She will also eat bread, chips, candy and of course fruit.

School Pictures

Today the twins are having their school pictures taken. Through out the week I have been telling both Tania and Sasha that I would like for them to dress a little nicer than just T-shirts for their pictures.

Shasha was all worried that we were going to make him dress up in something like a suit. Tania kind of understood why I wanted them to look nice.

Yesterday, I had them look at the family picture on the wall and at their school pictures from last spring. I told them I just would like for them to look nice for their pictures.

So, last night we went shopping for some clothes that were school picture quality. Tania was pretty easy because she already had a shirt she just needed something to go under it. Sasha on the other hand needed something but of course he didn't want to go shopping. Sasha ended up giving Tania instructions on what type of shirt to get. Guess what color the shirt is. You got it. Black. It is a very cowboyish looking shirt. And of course Shasha has to roll up the sleeves.

To complete the outfit Katelyn had to run to the store last night to get gel for Sasha's hair. (We think Sasha will be the next Ukranian Zak Efron.)

Tania started getting her hair ready last night. It's a good thing school doesn't start until 9:30 on Friday's or she would never have been ready on time.

We will see how their pictures turn out. Someday soon we need to get a new family picture for the living room.

Sunday, June 28, 2009


I’ve been trying to get to a computer for the last week. I thought that I would let everyone know things have quieted down on the Harris front. We are in Alaska on vacation and I think this is the best thing we could have done with the kids. They are really enjoying themselves. I thought I would start with Tania and Sasha’s birthday though which was three days before we left for Alaska.


First, we took the kids to a car show at Ardell Brown’s. It was a fundraiser for a special needs park. Sasha and Matthew were fun to watch. Sasha has a love for Mustangs and there were quite a few Mustangs. Matthew just has a love for old cars. It was fun listening to Matthew tell us about the different cars. He could tell us what cars were really rare and how certain cars had been changed. The caretaker for the cars was there also and it was quite interesting to what he has to do to take care of the cars. Katelyn picked out what she thought would be David’s favorite car. Later we found out she was right. Just before we were ready to leave, one of the owners of the cars started his car. Sasha practically ran to see the car running. It had that low loud rumble the old cars that have some power have.


We also had a birthday party for them. We had some family come and some friends come. Anna, Shelby and Bailey came for Tania. Michael and Jake came for Sasha. Bailey, Michael and Jake all go to the same school as Tania and Sasha. We also had a friend of Katelyn’s come. Laura is almost our 3rd adopted child.


We had the kids open gifts after dinner. It was different from our older kid’s birthday. Katelyn and Matthew were always willing to show everybody their gifts. Tania and Sasha didn’t really show off what the received. They looked at their gifts and then put them aside. I must say we were tickled because Sasha would leave his friends for a few minutes and come back and look at his gifts. Once Michael and Jake left, he really spent some time looking everything over. We gave Tania a camera and she was excited. She giggled when I said that she really needed her own camera since she was always using mine.


After all the birthday celebrations were over, we had to start getting ready to leave for Alaska. Tania didn’t really get too excited about getting ready to go but Sasha was really concerned about how we were going to get there and about how all our luggage was going to fit on the plane. You see when we go to Alaska, it is not just a matter of packing clothes. Along with clothes and food, we always bring up something strange. This year it was rocks for our driveway and tile pieces that we were not able to order from Home Depot in Juneau. In years past we have brought up saws, electrical boxes, and stereo equipment just to name a few strange items.

We always take up the maximum amount of weight in each piece of luggage and with the airlines charging for each piece of luggage, we had to be even more careful. Of course Sasha did not understand why we were so worried about the weights and the pieces of luggage. But he thoroughly enjoyed helping pack everything. We packed our rocks in plastic totes. David started to weigh the totes but Sasha thought that was fun so he became the weight official. We always pack a cooler full of food and this year because of the number of people in our group we took even more food then we normally would have taken. This year we also tried ordering food from Costco in Juneau and sending it up to Gustavus so we didn’t have to buy as much food at the grocery store in Gustavus. (Half a gallon of milk in Gustavus is $5.25.) Since we needed use the maximum amount of weight we made the kids share suitcases. None of the kids wanted to share a suitcase with anybody else. We were rather surprised that it was an issue. I mean who cares if you had to share a suitcase, so we told the kids they would just have to deal with it.

Trying to explain our flight plans to Tania and Sasha was another interesting experience. I had to purchase the tickets four different ways in order for us to have the cheapest flights. We had sky miles with Delta Airlines, mileage with Alaska Airlines and a $50 companion fair ticket with Alaska Airlines. Even though Delta Airlines is partners with Alaska Airlines you cannot get tickets to fly into Gustavus. We can only get tickets to fly into Juneau. We could from there get ticket to fly into Gustavus on the Alaska Airlines jet or we could have them fly a little Cessna airplane from Juneau to Gustavus. We chose the Cessna. We also had the challenge of getting Katelyn and Tania home in time for girl’s camp. The whole point of this is when we all flew together from SLC to Seattle on Delta and then from Seattle to Juneau on Alaska Airlines. When we got to Juneau we split up. Tania, Matthew, Katelyn and I took the Alaska Airlines jet into Gustavus. It was a long flight of about 12 minutes. David, Michael (our nephew who came with us) and Sasha flew in the Cessna to Gustavus. These puddle jumpers only hold 6 people. We all arrived in Gustavus at the same time and I really wish that I could have seen Sasha. Apparently, he was all smiles during the flight over. They hit a little turbulence when they first took off and that scared Sasha little bit otherwise he was really excited.


Our friends picked the boys up first, so they rode over to they rode over to the Alaska Airlines terminal in the back of our friend’s truck. Sasha and Michael thought that was great fun.

Since then, we have been fishing. Tania was quite excited to catch a fish off of the boat dock. All the kids have caught several double ugly fish. I don’t know what they are really called but they are ugly fish. One fishing trip Sasha caught 52 fish. He also caught an eel. Of course they haven’t brought home any fish that we can eat yet.


On Thursday, we started to clean up our lean to. We got four feet of snow in one day last winter. The poles apparently had disintegrated at the base and the whole lean to fell over. There were a lot of exposed nails in the broken boards so David told Sasha that we need to pound the nails down in each of the boards. We did not want anyone stepping on any nails. As the other kids came out to help, Sasha told them to give him any boards that had nails because he was in charge of taking care of the nails. He was having fun cleaning up the mess and he felt important to have specific job.


Yesterday, we had 7 yards of rock delivered to our house. It is much cheaper to use rock for your driveway instead of cement. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t spread the rocks out very well so we had to do it by ourselves. David and I were quite surprised because Sasha and Matthew were excited to move all the rock around. We asked them if they wanted to return some borrowed items to our friends, it would have been much easier but they both turned us down. Distributing the rock was much more fun than returning borrowed items. Today Matthew and I, at least, are sore from working so hard.


Today we hiked to the plane wreck. It was a large military plane that crashed back in the 1950’s. We have hiked to the plane wreck many times in years past. When we first started going there much of the cockpit was around. People have since taken bits and pieces of the plane. Most of the cockpit is now gone. The boys and Katelyn really enjoyed climbing over the plane. It really did my heart good though when we heard Sasha yell out “be careful Katelyn”. We couldn’t see what they were doing but it was so nice to hear the kids have concern for each other.


We then went to the lodge. As soon as we got there we saw a whale in the bay. We hurried down to the boat dock and just watched. We think that there were probably two whales but we are not sure. While we were on the boat dock, Sasha found a watch.

From the boat dock we walked down a trail and saw a small black bear. We had to laugh at Sasha though. Sasha was more interested in his newly found watch then the bear.

We also hiked along the trail another and David got the boys started scarring each other along the trail. Katelyn got a good video of Brady scarring Tanya. I will post these pictures below.


July 1, 2009


David told me I had to write about Sasha’s fire. We have two ways to heat our house. We have a wood stove and we have a propane gas heater that they use in the large RV’s. We mostly use the wood burning stove because wood is in abundance here and therefore, cheap. Anyway yesterday, Sasha brought in 7 pieces of 2X4’s. He literally stacked them one on top of the other with a few pages of an old Field and Stream magazine laying flat in between each of the boards. David said it looked like a layered cake. David saw this and about had us all in stitches. He took the boards out and proceeded to teach Sasha how to build a “happy fire”. David’s words not mine. He also told Sasha that a fire needs oxygen to be a happy fire. To get oxygen into the fire you wad the paper into a ball, then put card board over the paper and then put little sticks over the cardboard and then put larger pieces of wood over the little sticks. We must place everything with air holes so that air can flow through the fire and then we will have a happy fire.

We also burn our garbage outside of the house. We had steak last night and Sasha put his fat scraps in a box and went outside to burn it. I think he took some wood from our big burn pile and started a fire. He was being so diligent with his fire. He decided it was much more important and exciting then to come in to eat chocolate pie. He was quite serious about his work.


July 13, 2009



As a final note, Tania did call me “Mom” to my face while we were in Alaska. It really did make my heart jump. Tania has called us mom and dad to other people but not to our faces. Sasha just calls us “huh”. I think it is hard for them to realize that we are truly their parents. Tania does keep in touch with her biological father and Sasha keeps in touch with the couple who hosted them in France. I think that it is confusing to them as to who are really their true parents. As time goes on, I believe that they will understand that we have really taken on that responsibility and their biological parents were just unable to take care of them.

It has been harder for the kids since we didn’t know the kids before we adopted them. I watch the blogs of the Keller and the Lawrence’s and I can understand some of the turmoil that they have gone through. Sometimes, I really wish that we had been able to host Tania and Sasha before we adopted them. I think that they would have been more ready to be a part of our family if they would have had something to look forward to in Ukraine.

Tania's first time making cookies.

Tania opening gifts on her birthday.

Sasha opening gifts.

Bailey, Tania and Shelby

More gifts

David putting swimming goggles on one of the dogs. David, Matthew and Katelyn love to dress up the dogs.

This is our lean to that collapsed. Luckily we built the carport last summer so our car wasn't under all of this mess. Unfortunately, our next door neighbors had parked their car under the lean to. It did'nt come out very well. All the windows were smashed in and it had lots of dents.

Sasha is trying to pull out one of the poles from the lean to.

Sasha with the pole that he pulled out of the ground.

Katelyn asked what this was. David told her it was the first Atari game paddle. It really is just a piece of junk that we need to get rid of.

Sasha is helping David install our countertop.

Sasha was helping take the price tag off of the tiles. He thought it would be funny to put the tags on David's back.

The countertop is done. We did install a sink but I don't have a good picture.

Everyone enjoyed taking pictures of Sasha especially when he was asleep.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Sasha.

Tania fishing off the boat dock.

Sasha , Tania and Brady fishing. I'm sure that Matthew, Katelyn and Michael were there also.

Tania caught a double ugly.

Tania is trying to move a yellow flower closer to us. It is in a very beautiful pond.

Katelyn on the wrecked plane.

Tania came in from fishing. She cried "I peed my pants." She really tried to jump over a little stream and missed. The tide was coming in so when they were walking out to the river to fish the stream was small. When they decided to come home the stream had grown. The tides up here have extreme changes.

The tide was really low this day and for some reason David had an itch to climb this ladder. The ladder reaches down to the boat dock and goes up to were you can park your car to get to the boats. It is probably 30 ft. high. The problem was since the tide was so low there was a big gap between the boat dock and the bottom of the ladder.

This is our house all cleaned up. Please notice the rock that has been distributed around the driveway. The rock will help lessen the amount of sand that everyone brings into the house. It is amazing how much sand gets on the floor even when you have people take their shoes off before they come in the house.

A moose that we saw on this trip. There were notices all around town about the moose that would charge people. Of course, the area they were talking about is right about where our house is.

This is my all time favorite picture of the trip. Sisters. Need I say more?

Both Tania and Sasha need braces.

I must admit I will be glad to be done with doctor and dentists for a while. Both kids have had a root canal.

Sasha has had two fillings taken care of. Tania has 6 cavities and I'm not sure where we are with the fillings. I just know that we are not done.

Plus they both need to have their wisdom teeth removed and to have teeth removed to make room for their other teeth. Next month Sasha will have a total of 8 teeth removed and Tania will have 7 teeth removed. Tania would have 8 removed but she had already had a tooth removed in Ukraine. She told us that a rather large woman (to put it nicely) just twisted her tooth around until it came out. She didn't have anything to lesson the pain. Apparently when she had cavities filled there she also did not have anything to take care of the pain. She told me that she didn't have a shot before the dentist filled her cavities.

We went 4-wheeling just before Matthew's jaw surgery. Both Tania and Sasha were excited to go but Sasha was a little worried about snakes. As soon as we pulled the 4-wheelers off the trailer and hit the road, David found a little snake in the road. Of course he had to bring it back for all to see. The kids named the snake George. Matthew wanted to bring the snake home but I would not let him.

Matthew holding George.

Sasha holding George.


David found an even bigger snake!

Sasha looking for George after we let him go.

Tania and Katelyn are ready to go.

Tania and Sasha were all tuckered out.

This is the tree Tania killed. We are not sure what happened. David and Tania were out riding and David realized that Tania was not behind him. He went back to look for her. Tania was standing on the dirt road and the 4-wheeler was on top of this tree. Luckily Tania wasn't hurt but the 4-wheeler didn't fair quite as well. I am glad we made them wear helmets.