4/9/07 Brought Ira to Kharkiv today

Although we had planned to do some shopping in Kharkiv with Ira today, it is a holiday (day after Easter) and most everything is shut down. The churches were packed yesterday, we got soaked getting our Easter buns blessed. It snowed last night , just sticking to buildings, but not the roads or sidewalks. And boy is it cold. Windy and + 1 degree C. We are trying to make the best of it, but the language barrier makes it tough to communicate. We spent the afternoon at the orphanage and had an Easter party with Ira and her classmates. The CD's did would play since our CD players were not able to read the format (formatted for a different world region). But we had fun anyway. The boys badgered me into playing soccer. They wore me out. I had to take off my coat and was sweating and out of breath for most of the 2 hours they had me out there!!! Bye for now...