Weekend in Crimea

Too busy having fun to Blog! It is Tuesday morning at 6 am in Zap.  We arrived at 1 am this morning from our wonderful getaway! The trip back we rough but we will not talk about it as the weekend was too nice to mention the negative right now.

Yalta is lovely! Sat. we drove along the sea coast a place called Balaklava, to a museum that used to be a soviet hidden submarine base. The boys like it. I felt about it, the way David feels about Disney Land. Then we went to a place like a picnic area but they serve Turkish food on covered picnic tables with a view to die for!  We then climbed down to the sea to swim! Derrick really liked this beach less jelly fish, more  waves! I had to start climbing back up 10 min before Yuri and the kids as it was so steep! I am slow! (pant, pant)

Sunday we drove to the mountains and cliffs and ate Turkish food again. Lovely, lovely. No Branch in Yalta. I keep forgetting  it is not Utah with a ward in every town! It is funny how you  take for granted the wonderful blessing it is to keep the Sabbath holy even though I have made it to church 3 out of 4 it has not been the same here!  When we got back Ilia, was still loaded with energy so   Yuri took him swimming. I watched it was hard enough to miss church. I did not want to swim on Sunday.  Lydia  and Derrick took the Sunday afternoon nap!
 Monday we actually let the kid sleep in until 8 am. We had to “register” as visitors and pay a fee. We then went to the palace called Livadia in Yalta. This palace was built by the last Russian Tsar for a summer palace before they were murdered. This is also where the Yalta conference was with Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. We started with a Ukrainian group, but right behind us was a English speaking group with their guide form a cruise ship (mostly Canadians and a few American)we tag along with them when invited. I tried to get the Ilia and Lydia to stay with Yuri and the Russian speaking  group but the kids would not be separated from us, so they enjoyed it as much as I did the submarine base! We tried to go swimming again but the wind caused  wave which caused the beaches to be closed. The waves were not that big but as the beaches are stone and the piers cement it is not like a California beach! We ended the afternoon by packing up and loading picture for Yuri on a flash drive. Then we called the Knkiapol (not spelled right) Orphanage so I could say goodbye to a certain little boy with the promise to call him from American!

We got on the train at 7pm with strict instruction to make sure we got off at Zap quickly at 1 am The kids assured me they would not sleep and we would be ok. We did not prepare well for the train I only had a tiny bit of food, the mp3 , iPod, phone and computer all only had a little bit of charge. So of course by 9 they were all asleep! So I had plenty of time to ponder. A friend and I were talking once about the Lord and how he sent Nephi back to Jerusalem twice He said the lord is not always about efficacy, but lesson learned.  As I contemplated another trip back here for a certain little boy it would have been easier to stay longer and get him now. But both David and I know this was meant to be done in two trips. I may not like it, I may worry about how to get the money but feel strongly in my heart we are doing it the way  the Lord has in Mind!