Great Visit with Vladik today

We got to hang out with Vladik today from about 11:45 until 1pm. We have very limited visits right now because he did not say yes to the adoption yet. There has to be a teacher from the orphanage with us at all times until he says yes to the adoption (which will hopefully be on Monday!). We brought a whoopie cushion from America for him and he was SO excited to get it! And also brought some nerf balls that change color when you touch them (thank you Mom) that he loved too. And we brought Uno cards and the Bop It to play. We also brought a Sprite and a lot of candy. And we brought him his MP3 player. We had planned on holding onto it until it was time to leave so he would have it for the train ride and the flight and at home but we decided to go ahead and give it to him it that would help him make his decision. There is a mentality that love is shown through giving gifts so that is what we did. We had so much fun playing with him today. We played Uno, and played games on our cell phone, looked at pictures, and Keith and Vladik had a "sword" fight with these long skinny balloons we brought. Sergei, our translator, helped us have a serious conversation with Vladik. We wanted to remind him of all the fun we have together and how much everyone at home loves him. And to remind him that he called us a family and he called Jackson his brother. We told him that families live together and they love each other forever and that is what we want to do with him. We told him that we know this is a very tough decision for an 11 year old boy but he must be strong and make the decision he wants to make (which we know in our hearts is the decision to be adopted by us). Also, my parents and Jax woke up at 5am their time to call and talk to Vladik. I think it really helped for him to hear their voices too and know that it is more than just Keith and I that want him to be a part of our family. We can not go tomorrow because there will not be a teacher available to supervise our visit so we will go back Monday and they will ask him if he is ready to make his decision yet. Please keep praying for him to be strong.
On another note...
We went out to dinner last night with the other two American families who are here adopting and also with our translator Sergei, who is great. We went to a pizza place and the food was wonderful and very cheap! For a large and a small pizza, a coke, 2 glasses of wine, and a portion of Sergei's meal, and the tip, we only paid 120 hryvna (sounds like greevna) which is easy to convert to dollars by dividing by 8. I'll give you a minute to do the mental math... only $15!!! I think we will be visiting this restaurant often!
Tonight we are going out with them again to a place called The Silver. I am so glad these two other families were here before us because now they can just tell us all the good places to eat and shop. Tomorrow we are going to go to an open air market... like our version of a flea market I suppose. We will see what treasures we can find there!
Thanks for all the support and continued prayers!