Water Park

The boys loved the waterpark in Simpsonville. We stayed and rode the slides and swam for hours.

Watermelon

The boys love watermelon! They can't get enough. I belive we've eaten 4 since they've been here.

Greenville Drive Baseball

The boys went with Crystal, Matthew, and Poppie to a Greenville Drive baseball game on Friday. Afterwards we stayed and watched fireworks.

Saturday

Today Matthew and Jason had a big day with Vlad and Benjamin. We started by swimming at the pool for a few hours. We jumped off the diving board and slid down the slide. Benjamin is swimming on his own very well now. He even does front flips off the diving board!
Next we headed to the Saluda River where we fished with cane poles. Vlad and Benjamin caught 4 catfish, 1 bass, and 10-15 bream. They insisted on saving the larger bream to cook and eat. We will have them with some soup for lunch tomorrow. After the fishing we picked and ate a few blueberries.
Next we finished off the night by taking the boys to the Greenville Pickens Speedway. We weren't sure at first how the boys would react to the loud cars but they loved it. Vlad and Benjamin both had a big time and insisted we stay and watch every race!

North Main Rotary Park

Crystal, Matthew, Liam, Vlad and Benjamin walked to North Main Rotary Park today. The boys had fun playing in the creek and found a snake skin. That got them interested in looking for a live snake which they eventually found after about 20 minutes of searching. The boys had a lot of fun watching him swim downstream.

**After a little reasearch I believe the snake is a northern watersnake. Obviously, non-poisonous.**

Vlad & Benjamin have arrived!

After nearly 31 hours of travel time including:
- 10 hour bus ride from Belarus to Moscow, Russia
- Flight from Moscow to Munich, Germany
- Flight from Munich, to Charlotte, NC
- Bus ride from Charlotte to Greenville
they finally arrived at our house Sunday evening.


We are very excited that the boys are here to stay with us for the next 6 weeks. So far they have played continuously with Tree Dog and played card games with Crystal and I and one another. We had chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner and then eggs, sausage and orange juice for breakfast. Today the boys are going swimming with Crystal and Liam while Matthew works.


Please pray that God blesses our time together this summer and allows good relationships and love to blossom.
Thank you!