Once I lived in Ukraine...

June 7, 2011
5 months

141 days

20 weeks

7,000 miles away from home 

9,300 kilometers

25 scared girls

1 day of training

1 "mild" winter

6 different languages

5 different currencies

72 hours in train rides

5 metro passes

3 big dogs

1 parrot

1 cat

200+ fish

1 host brother

2 babushkas

7 friendly parcels of mail

27 awesome Americans

30+ hours of skype time with family and friends

79 episodes of Gilmore Girls

4 awesome jam sessions on Rock Band

50 hours on a tour bus (approximate)

447 games of Unblock Me

50 metro stops

1 desire to work for the American Embassy one day

1 Black Sea

5 Kyiv Temple trips

1 Cooking class

1 Sleepover with all the girls

6 different months

12 hours of Russian class

3 Tanias

1 culture shock 

1 bathroom shared by

6 people in my house

3 coordinators at my school

2 many hours on facebook and gmail

1 piano to play

1,000,000,000,000+ flying cotton things

1,000,000+ pigeons

40+ visits to McDonalds

39 songs on my "coming home" playlist

42 blog posts

1500+ page views

9 followers

48 comments

1 author, ME

32 hours of total travel time home

3 airports

8 hour layover in Munich

3 different sized airplanes

16 hours of flight time

12 stamps in my passport

1 night in LA for missing our flight

9 hour time difference

1 bag of no bake cookies brought by

2 awesome parents and 

1 sister greeting me at the airport

1 not hungry stomach, but

1 exhausted girl, happy to be back

Thank you all for your support and love =) I have enjoyed sharing all my adventures with you! 


The End

Farewell Munchkins

Well the semester was finally coming to a close and we had to put together a Spectakle for the parents to watch their kids perform.  We decided to center ours on an African Safari theme.  The week before the performance we made little crafts that we could hang up on the day of the performance like elephants, zebras, giraffes, and monkeys.  It was so hard to tell the kids that we had to hold onto their craft but they would get it back the next week.  Kids amaze me by how well they remember things! Every day they would come in and

say teacher do we get our zebra today? I would explain to them, no not yet, and they would say oh ok, next week then. It was the cutest thing.  Along with making crafts to hang up on the walls we had the kids work on songs they would sing to their parents.  We chose 5 little monkeys, the Macarena, Tarzan, Hokey Pokey and the Waka Waka.  The one that took the most effort, time, and planning was the Waka Waka.  We spent about an hour each day with our kids teaching them the dance moves

and the words to the music. I thought it was hard keeping kids attention when we were teaching them English, but I was so wrong! It is so much harder teaching them to dance and sing in English! Their motivation barely lasted more than 15 minutes. So after a few days of struggling with them

we decided to buy squirt bottles and put kool aid inside it. If the kids were singing and dancing we would give them a squirt of juice. They loved it and it kept their attention so much more! It’s amazing what kids will do for a little sugar =) We had 3 Spectakles, one on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Each of them went so well and the parents really enjoyed the performance.  Our kids totally rocked it =) Then came the hard part, it was time to say goodbye.  How do you say goodbye to kids who you have seen everyday for the past 5 

months? Kids who you have come so close to that you feel like they are forever a part of your life?  Kids whose faces you will never forget? Kids who you will probably never see again, who 

won’t ever remember you? It was hard to say goodbye and give our last hugs.  I will miss them so much! Maybe by some miracle I will run into some of them later in life =)

Here are some more pictures of our goodbyes...