Olia has been asking us to make shish kabob on the grill. So yesterday we went to the produce market and purchased a lot of fresh veggies. I had made a pot roast earlier in the day. Olia and I washed and sliced the vegetables and Dan fired up our charcoal outdoor fire grill. We have a regular gas grill, but Dan thought it the shish kabob would taste better grilled over charcoal. Dan purchased one of those metal fire pits and often burns wood outdoors on the patio on a chilly night. Olia loved skewering the vegetables on the skewers. Then she and Dan roasted them on the grill, they were delicious and she was thrilled because it had been her idea! We put four different types of peppers, mushrooms, potatoes, zucchini, onions, and beef on the skewers.
Olia and I went shopping for bathing suits yesterday. Olia had to try on every single size 12 bathing suit in Kohls! She found two bathing suits she really liked, but she had to get them in size ten because she is so thin. Olia is in a bathing suit a lot during the summer because we have a pool so the suits get a lot of wear!
This morning I made blueberry buckwheat pancakes. My friend Gennady had told me that Ukrainians like buckwheat and Olia really loved the pancakes. I think she liked them better than the buttermilk pancakes I usually make. They have a different taste, more grainy. They are probably healthier.
My friend Linda can't adopt a child they had hosted because Ukraine just changed their adoption laws. She found a family for the 13 year old girl they hosted over the holidays. They love the little girl and want her to find a home. The prospective adoptive parents miss the age cut-off by one year. It is so sad because a 13 year old orphan in Ukraine has little hope of ever finding a family. They also were going to fund their older daughter to go and adopt the girl as a single, but Ukraine now does not allow any singles to adopt. So many children in orphanages will now not ever find homes. Ukraine's hope and plan is that foster families in Ukraine will take in orphans because of the stipend they will receive for the child. There are good and bad foster homes in the U.S., but I hear more negatives than positives. I have had many students who lived in foster homes and they never really felt that they were a part of a real family. My personal experience is that the kids in orphanages in Ukraine are treated better than they would be in many U.S. foster homes. I hope Ukraine plans major oversight if most orphans are placed in foster homes.
