And we're off...

Everyone but Joe (and Rick, of course) are still asleep, so I thought I'd post a quick update of how things are going so far.

Their flight landed at 10:15ish and we left the airport by 10:40 or so.
The were quiet at first... AT FIRST... checking things out, getting their bearings, etc.
But by the time we got to the car it was a different story.
Daniels, especially, is a chatterbox.
Of course, I have no idea what he's saying, but most of the time he doesn't seem to mind.

We did figure out that they were hungry, so we stopped at a McDonalds on the way home; and with full bellies, they promptly fell asleep for the rest of the drive.

It was after midnight by the time we got home and EVERYONE was tired.
But once D & D  saw the inside of the house-- they caught their 2nd wind.
It was funny to watch them- going from room to room, exclaiming over this and that. Daniels would drag Diana into one room to show her something, and then she would drag some somewhere else.
So, Rick and Joe and Kyle went to bed and I stayed up.... till 3:30. (And I've decided I'm WAY too old for that!)

Their favorite thing in the house so far:
Daniels-
the big TV, the iPad, Rick's toy tractors, mp3 player, the Wii.
Diana-
her closet full of clothes, the iPad, mp3 player.

Honestly, Diana's reaction when I showed her clothes was possibly the best of the night...
You could see the progression of her thoughts clearly on her face--- "Wow... thats a lot of clothes"... "Those are all for me?" ... "Really?" ... "no way!" ... "SERIOUSLY??!!"... "Those are all for ME!!"
After that I could hardly pull her away from the closet.
Then, when I explained to her that I had to guess her size and that if things didn't fit we would get things that DID fit, she was just as amazed as before.

Daniels reaction to the cheap-o mp3 player was almost as good. He was THRILLED! I got a HUGE hug-- several of them, actually, and a litany of "Spacibas"and "Spaciba bol-shoys" (Spaciba= thank you, spaciba bol-shoy= thank you very much.)

I'd forgotten, though, how exhausting hosting is. Of course, I only got about 3 hours of sleep that first night. But still... it's exhausting.

With Mareks last winter it was EASY. He was fluent in English and he already had a more "Western" way of thinking and doing things. I didn't have to ask him to take a shower or brush his teeth or change his clothes. We could talk without using the laptop. It was EASY.
I don't think I realized just how easy it was until yesterday.

Yesterday, there were a couple of times where one of them was in the middle of an extended (one-sided) conversation with me and the other one will remind the one talking that I can't sunder stand them. (I don't know EXACTLY what they're saying, but it's some version  of "ya-knee-pah-knee-my-you"-- what is what *I* say when I don't understand them.)

Both D&D are very talkative-- and every now I'll catch a word that I recognize... but I OBVIOUSLY need to work on my Russian.