Weekend update

I (Teresa, in case you don't realize who writes this) have been in Canada for a couple days now. Garry went to Kiev with me on the train Tuesday so he could apply for a new passport at the Canadian embassy Wednesday after I flew out. He needs to get a new one before our trip we have booked in April to Sharm El Shiehk (Egypt, Red Sea) with our friends who went with us last year.

This was his second trip to Kiev by train to try to do it, because the first time it was a Friday, the day after he found out he needed a new one (it will expire less than three months before we go, he had planned to do it while we are in Canada in May for our son's wedding), and he wanted to get it done quickly because it said 20 working days to get the passport.

The embassy only does them Monday through Thursday mornings, which is why he had to go back.

Unfortunately, now he has to go back again because he has to do a long form application because his passport was lost or stolen two years ago (you may remember that he turned the entire house upside down looking for it while I was in Canada), and he had filled out a short form. He did go to see the Kiev farm show that morning before his train trip back to Dnepro; so it was not too boring waiting until 5 pm for the InterCity (fast) train. He plans to take the overnight train Monday evening and get his application in on Tuesday morning. Hopefully all will work out this time.

Sadly, when he got back  to the village there was bad news. Yana (our milker lady- now student work supervisor/herdsperson) needed to leave for her home village because her father was dying. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the summer. She went on the bus Thursday morning and he passed away the next day. On Saturday Garry drove the van  with Max and a few other co-workers there for the funeral. Yana's mother also milked cows for us for a couple years until she retired at 52 about two years ago, so it was important to go support them.



I arrived in Winnipeg Wednesday evening; only a couple hours behind schedule. The plane from Germany was delayed about 50 minutes getting into Toronto so missed my flight and had to wait four more hours. Thursday morning I went on a mission, Garry needed his birth certificate verified and the lady in Kiev had said to just take it to Service Canada and they would send it to them. The Steinbach office could not do that, so I phoned the 800 number they gave me and Friday morning I was off to Winnipeg before 7 am. The Passport Office did photocopy it, but I have to phone them with a file number for them to send it to Kiev. I will do that Tuesday morning after Garry gets it when the application is in. I hope.

Saturday morning I drove over to Matt and Kari's for the reason I came home, I am spending a week with our granddaughters while they are away on a mission trip to Nepal. They left for the airport shortly after two am, with Seth driving them into Winnipeg very early Sunday morning. I have four girls and a schedule until next Sunday when her parents take over.

I was awake to say goodbye when they left anyway, it takes a couple days for my body not to wake up at 3 am because it's 11 am in Ukraine!