Two years ago...

Two years ago we we living in St Labre,(it's french- pronounced Saint Lob -like the tennis shot) Manitoba- in a village much smaller than Nikoliopola -you can find it on a map of Manitoba look southeast of Steinbach, (where we went to church) just north of the Canada-US border, near a small lake (Whitemouth Lake will be a blue dot on the map)- there will be an unpaved road loop off of Highway 210 south of La Broquerie (where the boys went to elementary school and played hockey) which returns to the highway around Woodridge (small town where our post office is.)

Jonah's hockey season was over for the last time (42 km one way for every practice and home game and they finished by losing in the playoffs- the opposition was more than two hours away- I had to pick him up at school for those games- since it was an hour long bus drive home, and you were supposed to arrive really early to dress for games. Thirteen-year-old Jonah was finishing his last year at Arborgate school K-8- and was a little dissappointed to be missing going to high school with his friends. Fifteen-year-old Seth had a great time that last year taking the longer bus ride to Ste Anne with Luke who was getting ready to graduate from high school in June. Seth had enjoyed making new friends and playing on the jv volleyball and basketball teams and had even made the honor roll. Sports at school is what he misses most about being in Ukraine.

As you can see the photo on the blog where it says about me- they were still little boys waiting for that puberty growth spurt which in most of their older siblings, occured around grade 10, they are late bloomers who turn into tall people by the time high school is over (all our boys are six feet plus and our daughter was 5'2" starting high school and 5'10" when she finished.)

I was busy deciding what needed to go into the 8 suitcases/plastic storage boxes that were coming with us to Ukraine. I had selected material for homeschooling for the fall, some drugs and basic first aid supplies, a selection of paperback books, clothes for all seasons (since we were returning to Canada in December)some sheets and blankets and to set up house- a basic set of picnic-style plastic dishes, basic utensils, a big frying pan and a 3 liter pot, a few ingredients I knew weren't availiable here and a small cookbook. We had bought an under cabinet water filter system thsat was on the list of what to bring to live in Ukraine. We were also bringing some DVDs and two laptops, and the boys had gotten nintendo DS's for their birthdays in November.

I also was busy preparing to teach English at the Summer Institute in Dnepropetroesk – just a few days after we were landing in Kiev. I had taught at it the summer before- while Garry was checking out Ukraine as the place for his mission. Of course I was teaching a entirely new class (wait this will be the fourth year and again I have another new class material to prep.) It is a three week school to help people improve their English skills, held every July with Canadian teachers, most who come for a month-long mission trip.





We had a crazy May and June in Canada, applying for visas to Ukraine, last minute details for leaving the big boys in charge of the farm – and trying to get the crops planted- it was a wet spring. Then there was a long series of goodbyes……with the finale being Luke's graduation (that's him stacking cups) on June 30th and the two of us arriving home at the farm from the dinner in Winnipeg around 1 am.










We decided on a nap before heading toward Pennsylvania with Seth and Jonah (the van had been packed with the suitcases and boxes to go Ukraine- so we could leave as soon as we got back.) Garry’s family (he has 4 sisters and 4 brothers) had planned a camping week in a state park there- unfortunately we couldn’t make the whole week- since Luke’s graduation from high school was later than the Americans realized, but were planning on getting there for noon picture taking, and would take over the cabin for a few days that one of his brothers was vacating as his family couldn’t stay all week . Then we had less camping stuff to bring, but got to enjoy a few days of sun, water, picnics and campfires with family and see the crazy carp in the lake by the dam-( they pile up on top of each other- a duck ran across the top of them to grab the bread). Our son Matthew his wife and daughters spent the entire week sharing a cottage with his cousin (who had 3 little boys at the time.) So we got to say goodbye to most of his family, and a sad one to our little granddaughters- Xaris was 3 and Havilah had her first birthday two weeks earlier (our last whole family event before leaving.)





Then we drove to NJ where we would leave the van with my parents until flying back into Newark in December. Garry and the boys (and cousin Melissa) helped bale hay, and Jonah burnt his foot by stepping on a hot sparkler wire on the Fourth of July, while he was enjoying fireworks with his cousins. When we left on the plane two days later we had a lot of antibiotic cream with pain killer for the rather deep wound across the bottom of his big toe, luckily it healed nicely after a couple weeks.

The boys enjoyed their first plane flight and we arrived in Kiev with 7 out of 8 pieces of luggage- Garry filed a report before we went through customs and found Victor, who was driving us from Kiev to our new home. After a long drive in the van, we got here at one in the morning and went to sleep. The next day Victor took us shopping at Metro for the first time, and we got our missing Rubbermaid tub- it came to the Dnepro airport and Victor picked it up with the Summer Institute team. I was going to start teaching in a couple days, and the guys would be on their own for a few weeks, except weekends. Here are the boys in July with Velcro the kitten they brought home from this picnic as their first pet in Ukraine.


You can see more about our first weeks in Ukraine if you click on July 2009.