Travel and graduation

We're home. Our vacation was wonderful! I think I'll have time to write about it, since we're done with school and into summertime now. So, I'll give you all the details, and maybe you'll feel like you get to experience a bit of our vacation right along with us.

We had never done something like this before: not the long-distance travel without Will, not a family vacation. I mentioned that we used to have to travel to renew documents often. Changes in the laws make it so that we don't have to do that any more, which is nice, but we've also actually missed those trips. This turned out to be much nicer, though.

I don't have any photos from the first part of the trip, because the camera was with Will. It was all pretty simple, just very l-o-n-g. We went from here to Odessa on a bus, transferred from the bus station to the train station, ate at McDonald's, and got on our train. No one slept very well, but the train did cool off once we got going, which was an answer to specific prayer. At about 6:00 the next morning, we had an avalanche of people, as Bogdan somehow fell over my legs and onto the floor (landing hard on his poor head), Raia jumped from the top bunk in her sleep to help him, and Jaan tried to catch her--also while he was asleep. Once we got that straightened out, we noticed that we could already see the mountains off in the distance. The rest of the trip was full of oohing and awing over the beauty and the mountains... and the tunnels through the mountains!

We got to Svalyava (there's an active stork nest over the station there!), said goodbye to our new train friends, met up with new Agape friends, and were taken to Polyana, where Will was waiting for us. Late lunch, naps for everyone, and then it was time for the festivities to begin....

Will's class outside the hotel

Aunt Masha working on Raia's hair

The finished product

Asya, too

Will's class at the church

Praying, after thanking the leadership

Getting his diploma (blurry, sorry!)

Congrats from the children

Ice cream at the reception!

Also at the reception

It was almost 1:00 when we finally got to bed that night, after a long, full, happy day.

There should be a lot more photos available soon. There were some very busy and very professional photographers there, and they've promised to share their work. I can link later. Also, Will's posting on Facebook faster than I am, so you can look there, too.

That was all just the first day. More coming soon....