Nathan and Katelin Day

Shortly after we bought our tickets to fly to America, my Aunt Nora (who lives in Houston) wrote and said that while she was thrilled we had purchased our tickets to the US, it felt like a long time until we would be in Texas in January!  She generously offered to fly us down for a weekend.  Nathan and I briefly discussed her offer, but it seemed like a lot of money for a short amount of time.  However, one day as I was washing dishes in Ukraine, I had an idea.  “What if Melissa and I flew down for Mema’s birthday (Nov.14^th) as a surprise?  To sweeten the trip, I could stay for two weeks and be there for Mom’s birthday (Nov. 23^rd) and Thanksgiving (Nov. 24^th)!  It would be awesome if it could be a surprise for Mom and Dad as well.”  Nathan was up for my idea, so I wrote Aunt Nora and asked what she thought.  She was excited about my proposal and so we started planning my surprise trip to Houston.  We worked hard not to spill the beans!

Melissa and I flew from Denver to Houston on a Friday and Aunt Nora picked us up at the airport.  (My Aunt Kathy and cousin Megan also flew in for the weekend as a surprise for Mema’s 85^th birthday.)  We had a fun “girls party” at Nora’s house that evening.  On Saturday, we headed to Nora’s piece of land out in the country, where the birthday party was to take place.  Aunt Nora called my parents and asked them if they could come 30 minutes early.  Sure enough they did.  Melissa and I were rocking on my grandma’s birthday gift – a wooden swing/glider when they pulled into the clearing.  In the car, my Mom immediately spotted us and was so shocked that she couldn’t get any words out except for, “Katelin!”  Dad said, “What Katelin?”  ”Katelin!” And with that Mom opened the door and bailed out of the still moving vehicle, ran across the field with tears in her eyes, and wrapped us up in a big hug.  Dad meanwhile calmly parked the car and came over to give us a hug too! :)  About 30 minutes later, after Mema had arrived and been shown her birthday present, Melissa and I walked out of the woods and surprised my grandparents!  Everyone was ecstatic that we were going to be visiting for two weeks.

It was a wonderful two weeks!  I really wanted to spend it with family and keep the social aspect low key.  It was a sweet trip full of spending time together, making memories, watching Melissa with family/friends, shopping for needed items, going through my stuff in storage, and celebrating birthdays! :) Now we are back together as a family in Colorado, enjoying our time here.  We still have plans to make a family trip to TX in January!

Click here to see pictures from our TX trip.

Nathan continues to wait for the pre-approval letter regarding the loan for buying a rent house.  He has also been busy setting up an LLC for our first rental property.

I’m enjoying getting back into the routine of things here in Colorado.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up with my daily exercising and studying Ukrainian.  Once Nathan has a pre-approval letter in hand, I’d like to go out with him to look at a few houses.

As far as Melissa goes, some of her favorite activities are:

• Playing outside
• Swinging
• Watching and petting animals (cats, dogs, cows, chickens, goats, etc.)
• Drinking smoothies

Melissa is almost walking by herself.   She is standing confidently and walking with one finger help from a bigger person.  She can walk by herself, she just doesn’t know it yet.  But she loves to push chairs, boxes, laundry baskets, toy cars, etc.  Her language has really developed lately as she tries to parrot many words and babbles up a storm.  It sounds very intelligent.  I just wish we knew what she was saying!

As Nathan said in our last quick update, we had an good, safe trip to America!  It was eventful, but God worked everything out for us and provided smooth sailing.

We are currently with Nathan’s family in Colorado and enjoying our time together.  Even though it took her a little while, Melissa has adjusted well to her extended family. They bring so much “life” to her little life!  We’ve established a daily routine and that seems to be providing Melissa with good stability.  Thanks to my kind mother-in-law, I’m enjoying a restful break from running a home and attending to domestic affairs.  In its place, I’m enjoying studying Ukrainian at my own pace, exercising regularly, playing the piano, and reading!   There are still some adjustments for me living in America.  For example: When I walk into Walmart, I’m a little overwhelmed and would just love to take some time and slowly walk the aisles.  :)

Nathan is still waiting to hear about his pre-qualification for a loan (for another rental property) and then the house hunting can begin.

And last but not least, here are some pictures!  Hope you enjoy!

The three of us, along with all our bags, arrived safely in Colorado on Tuesday! Melissa was a trooper. Except for the last half-hour of our eight-hour flight from Munich to Newark, she was a (mostly) happy little camper, and charmed our traveling companions with her cuteness.

Greetings!

As the title of this posts states, we are two weeks away from our big trip to America!!  We are very excited!  Obviously, the last month has been busy for us as we’ve been making preparations and finishing projects here.  Although I’m not expecting a baby, I sure feel like I’m “nesting!”   I’ve been writing lists for weeks now, accomplishing organizational projects and deep cleaning tasks, checking my lists again, inventorying items in our house that we need to purchase more of in America, setting things aside to be packed, etc.  I don’t think I was like this before Melissa was born!  ;)  Our last two weeks here will be full, no doubt, but hopefully they will progress smoothly and stress-free.

As we have written in past posts, we leave L’viv on October 24^th and arrive in Denver on the 25^th.  We will be staying with Nathan’s family while in Colorado.   During this trip, one of our goals is to buy a second rent house in the Colorado Springs area.  Nathan will begin looking at houses as soon as possible.  He has already started the ball rolling from here (loan pre-approval, searching for houses online, etc.)  As a side note, our current rent house is being managed by a professional property manager and things are going well.  January will be spent in Houston with Katelin’s family.  We then plan to return to Colorado and finish work on the house, flying back to L’viv whenever all of our business is taken care of.

We would appreciate prayer for a smooth and safe trip.  I’m a little apprehensive how Melissa will do on such a long journey.  I have special toys and treats set aside that I hope will help to keep her profitably occupied.  I’m really thankful that on the long, transatlantic flight, we have bulkhead seats with a bassinet.  Let’s just hope she uses it and sleeps!  ;)  Also, please pray that Melissa will adjust well to our new life in America.  She is a homebody and likes her routine.  We won’t be coming “home” for a long while and are hoping that she will settle in to a new normal for the next couple of months.

We are grateful that a Ukrainian friend of ours will be staying in our apartment while we are gone.  He will make sure the rent and bills are paid and that our apartment doesn’t flood the neighbors below us!

Click here to view the latest set of pictures.  There seem to be alot of Melissa!  :)

Melissa is always going and growing.  I’m amazed at all the things she has learned to do in 9 months!  She is crawling proficiently, standing up and cruising, and would push chairs around the house all day if she could (and if they wouldn’t run into the wall and stop going!!)  She has 7 teeth and is enjoying the ease of chomping down on hard foods.  Melissa loves to be involved in whatever we are doing and is quite the go-getter!

My apologies for the silence on our blog this last month.  July was a full month for us and I have many pictures to share as a result!  I realize that it is now August, but I wanted to catch you up on what took place last month.

As Nathan mentioned in our last post, my language teacher went to the Black Sea for a month.  I thoroughly enjoyed my break from lessons and was very refreshed as a result.  Also, my good friend, Rachel, from TX, came to visit for two weeks.  She went on a mission trip to Romania and decided to “pop” over to Ukraine for a visit.  It was great having Rachel and getting to share my world with her.  Nathan was definitely outnumbered by us girls, but he was a good sport and survived all of our talking! :)

And now, without further ado, here are the July pictures.

Melissa is growing and developing so quickly.  She is now sitting up, pulling up, and crawling on hands and knees.  She is so attentive to anything that moves and keeps us smiling, laughing, and praying for wisdom to raise her well.

Now, it’s back to the books for me.  Nathan continues fulfill his team duties as Bible First! progress is being made.  And Melissa is busy cutting new teeth and pulling up to her feet so that she can reach something new and interesting!