July Update

Mike

• Teaching/co-leading at the 'Kid's Summer English Camp' at the Life English office.This is the 3rd, week-long camp at the school this summer.
• Went on a 3-day camping trip to the mountains with youth from the church and the English school.
• Spoke at the Friday evening Shabat service on the 13th and the 20th. Our friend, Nadia, leads a ministry to assist the elderly, Jewish folks in our area (many of them survived the Holocaust).
• Co-leads the weekly 'Conversational English Class'. This group now meets at our apartment once a month.
• Continues to meet with/mentor several young guys from church. 
• Recently began joining his friend for an early morning exercise and prayer time on Fridays.
• Giving Solomiya rides in her bath tub.

Annie

• Continuing therapy 2 days a week with Yulianna (2 1/2 year-old girl with Down's syndrome) and seeing progress!
• Evaluated young guy with an old TBI (traumatic brain injury) last week. Planning on a more thorough eval tomorrow and looking at muscle strength, sensation, vision and cognitive issues.
• In the works: meeting the directors of a local 'special needs' school.
• Making yummy 'American' cookies for the  'Conversational English Class' when they meet at our apartment (made peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies- they were a hit!).
• Giving Solomiya baths in her bath tub.

Solomiya

• Crawling around really fast and following us around the apartment.
• Working on 3 more teeth coming through (with 3 already visible).
• Screaming as 3 more teeth come in.
• Strolling around town.
• Being a very adaptable baby with no set routine.
• Eating buckwheat.

We had a huge thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago. The wind was so strong, we felt like we were in the midst of a tornado. If you look close- you can see this apartments windows were damaged. The left window has a broken pane of glass and the right window was bent inward. Amazingly, Mike's socks were out on the clothesline and they all survived.

Traditional Ukrainian Folk Band. We were able to see them perform at this outdoor museum. The guy playing the drum is our friend. He also works with the Jewish ministry and attends the Shabat services weekly.

Also watching them perform was a tour bus full of Americans. It was strange to hear people speaking English. Or maybe it was strange that we could understand the conversations of the people around us.

We had our language tutor, Marina, over for brunch. She brought Solomiya some bright, yellow socks!

Solomiya gets very daring sometimes and tries to jump off people's laps.

Tub rides with Tato.

good times.

strollin'.