Monday ... it has officially been one week since we left!

Today was an amazing day!! Yes, as Dani mentioned the girls are grumpy sometimes, but only because we are a little tired sometimes. :) And as I said before, I think it's good that we're getting tired on this trip. :)

We got to spend the entire day today 2 hours outside of Yerevan in the town of Gyumri. It was made famous some years ago (1988) after the giant earthquake they had there. There is still evidence of the earthquake in the city, but they are definitely rebuilding. Well we spent the day visiting orphanages.

The first half of the day was spent at an orphanage that housed over 70 children from the ages of 4 to 23. The older kids were away at school, but they were able to spend their summers at the orphanage until they were able to establish themselves and graduate. Some of the children sang for us and Joe juggled for them. We also worked in the play yard that they had with various projects. The boys did something that required muscles, and they found a rat? I'm not entirely sure what happened because I was on the other side of the yard pulling weeds and playing volleyball, so I will let one of them fill you in on what they did.

In the afternoon we visited another orphanage that is the only one of its kind in Armenia. It houses children from birth to 6 years old that have a variety of physical and mental disabilities. It was absolutely heart wrenching. I wanted to take each and every one of them home with me. We had a great time playing with the kids. They absolutely loved Joe's juggling, it was so cute how amazed they were by it. We were able to give them stickers and stuffed animals and we played with the kids for a while. The kids all had great smiles, and it was so sad to leave them. Please pray for the workers at the orphanage because it definitely takes a special person to deal with dozens of disabled children that are so young and not able to take care of themselves.

Well it's getting late and Joe got mad at me for stealing his computer last night for over an hour, so I should probably let him have it back now. :)

See you all soon!

--Anne