it happened.

I didn't want to. But I had to.

After four months I finally said goodbye to all the students. 

I thought saying goodbye to my kids in Ukraine was hard, but this was so much harder. In Ukraine I didn't have to say bye to over 50 kids. 

This week started out great! On Tuesday we had dinner at Joni's host family's house. It was so fun! We had pasta that was absolutely delicious! And the kids kept giving us chocolate. We had so much fun hanging out with them. They are such a fun family. Tickle fights and wrestling. Reminds me of my family. She is so lucky to have lived with them. 

But then the goodbyes happened.

On Thursday we had to say goodbye to the elementary level kids because they only come on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They did a great job during their Spectacle with the younger kids. They had a little party with lots of goodies and then we had picture taking time before they left. 

I was doing a great job saying bye to the kids, making sure I got to hug all of them. I didn't feel like it was the last time I would be seeing them. I would just be seeing them again on Tuesday. But then I looked over and saw sweet Kamila crying next to her mom and then it all hit me in one big wave and I couldn't handle it. I started crying. I gave her the biggest hug and told her I loved her and if she ever came to America I would go to wherever she was so I could see her. And that goes for all of the kids. 

Friday I had to say goodbye to the rest of the kids. I tried to spend as much time as possible with all of them, which was really hard because that meant I had to constantly bounce between 4 classes.

The other kids had their Spectacle later Friday night and they did a great job too! It was pretty entertaining. There were Pre-K kids running up to the stage and giggling, and some of the primary kids were misbehaving a little, but I didn't stop them. It made it more like them. Plus the parents were getting a kick out of it.

After the performance it was hard to say goodbye to all of the kids because there were so many and the parents were ready to leave. I got to say goodbye to all of the Pre-K kids though. They are so cute. I have seen them grow so much the past few months. They wouldn't speak a word in September or even really sing without their parents singing too, but now they sing and speak and try to communicate. The kids obviously don't understand that we are leaving, but the parents did and they cried with us. 

All of the kids mean the world to me. When things got rough for me it was them that kept me going. They made me laugh and smile and I knew they loved seeing me as much as I loved seeing them. I'm gonna miss them seeing me and running to give me hugs. I'm gonna miss being tickle attacked and not being able to get away. I'm gonna miss being latched on to and the kisses the little boys would sneak. I'm gonna miss it all. 

We all came back to the apartment with Dima and his family after we left the school. We had a little pizza party for ourselves. It was nice to have one last hoorah altogether. It was so hard saying bye to all of them, too. Sophia and Nikole are the best.

Today Hayden, Kelby, Joni, and I went and played soccer with Joni's host siblings that are also in our elementary class, along with Lukash, Amanda, and Amanda's dad. It was such a good time! I have no idea why we haven't been doing this more often. We had it girls against boys. Girls won. Of course. There was snow and ice on the ground, so I definitely hit the ground quite a few times. Not to mention the boys like to beat up on me. So they took me out, too. After soccer we played a few other games like hide and go seek. Lukash and Mose also had the bright idea of setting off fire crackers. So we did a few of those. In doing that we discovered that the "gun shots" we hear all the time aren't actually gun shots. Well, some of them might be. But the majority of them are probably just boys wanting to blow stuff up.

My last Saturday in Lithuania was pretty much perfect. 

And on the bright side of things I can now eat my feelings. 

I apologize for the picture overload. But this is what I'm leaving.

                        

Left: Daniel; Right: Lukas 

Left: Dora; Right: Dora, Simone, and Mose

Left: Olivija and Emilija; Right: Emilia

Left: Nastja; Right: Danielle

Left: Dora and Marijana; Right: Kamila and Samwel

Lukash and Mose 

 Left: Artiom and Daniel; Right: Emilia and Medeina

Left: Kamila and Goda; Right: Lukash 

Polina

Kajus and Gosha

Left: Karina; Right: Anastasia

Nastia

Polina

Karina

Nikita

Birute

Left: Maya; Right: Nikita

Left: Damir; Right: Lukas

Amelija

nine.

I'm going to take this time to write about my Thanksgiving night. I know I already had a post about Thanksgiving, but that was before I had a hilarious adventure.

During Shelbi's class she was talking about Thanksgiving. She was talking about why it is celebrated and what food we eat when Dima called me over. He asked if it was Thanksgiving and I told him it was. He said that if we wanted to, he would take us to Hesburger after teaching to have some hamburgers for Thanksgiving. I asked the other teachers if they wanted to and Shelbi and Kelby couldn't, but Hayden, Joni, and I all could. 

So after teaching we headed on out to Hesburger. On the way there, Dima asked us multiple times if we actually wanted Hesburger. We were fine with eating whatever, but Hesburger was closest. We pull up to Hesburger, park, walk in, and then Dima says, "I don't want this, I want KFC." We all said yes to that and back out we went to the car. It made me laugh that we all went in there, spoke some English a little too loudly, looked around, and then left. Typical Americans. Just kidding.

We ventured off to KFC, playing some good old 80s music on the way. We went inside and ordered our food. I had only had KFC once in my life before coming to Lithuania. Now I have had it at least 7 to 8 times. I'm pretty sure after this I probably won't ever have it again. But that's beside the point. We had our fried chicken and french fries and made that our little piece of home. We had a good time eating and enjoying each others company. 

When we were getting ready to leave, Dima asked if we wanted anything else. We decided that ice cream would be a good decision. Well, KFC doesn't really have ice cream. They have these drink things called Krushers. It's like they're melted milkshakes but not nearly as good. We didn't really think about this though. We just went up to the counter and ordered our Oreo Krushers. Dima was just standing there looking around and we asked if he wanted one, he said no because they weren't that good. We said we knew that but it's all they had here. I mentioned how McDonald's McFlurries are better, so right then we decided to go there. It was a little awkward because we had placed our order and we didn't know how to tell her we wanted to cancel it. Dima told Hayden to cancel it, but she didn't want to. So we booked it for the door. Literally ran. Then Dima blocked us so we could cancel it. But we wouldn't, and then he forgot how to say it in Lithuanian, so everyone is staring at us because we are laughing hysterically trying to get out the door, and finally Dima moved so I ran out and then he and Hayden followed me and then Joni came out after them. It was so funny. 

We went to McDonald's, laughing pretty much the whole way there because we had all just acted like 5 year olds. We got our McFlurries and it was the perfect end to the day.

That was my Thanksgiving day.

On Saturday, I went and played squash (like racquetball) with Dima and then I went to the Gariunai market with the girls. They have all sorts of things there, from appliances to underwear. And everything in between. 

My feet were freezing cold! When we finally left we had to wait for over 40 minutes for a bus. I felt so bad for my feet. But, the fact that we went to Vapiano afterwards made up for it. I had a delicious pizza and some delectable cheesecake with strawberry sauce. That was our official Thanksgiving meal since it was nicer.

Last week it started snowing! I have only fallen twice so far, but I have a massive bruise on my knee to show for it. I'm not very coordinated when it comes to snow and ice.

The kids have their Spectacle at the end of this week, which is the concert/play they put on at the end of the semester to show off what they have learned. So last week we started practicing for a substantial amount of time. Basically, all week I heard Christmas songs non-stop. But there was something about hearing the kids singing them that sent chills down my back and got me in the Christmas spirit. One of the teachers got sick last week, so I got to teach for her. Maybe it was the excitement of the snow, but the kids were CRAZY. It was tough. I can't believe it is our last week of teaching though. I'm going to miss these kids so much. 

This past weekend we went to an antique market with Natasha, Dima's wife, and then on a tour to see underground tunnels in Vilnius. I had absolutely no idea that they existed under the city. We went under the Vilnius Cathedral and saw some crypts and things. Then we went under some other places that had underground parts to them. The tour was in Lithuanian, so I didn't understand any of it, but Natasha and the tour guide explained some of it to us. Most of the time I made up my own stories about what happened in them. It was entertaining enough. Oh, and as cold as my feet were at Gariunai market, they were ten times colder on Saturday. I don't think I have ever felt that kind of pain in my feet. It was insane. On the bright side of things, I got to see the Christmas tree in Cathedral Square and the little Christmas market that they have set up. 

(This was at the antique market. I was crying from laughing.)

Yesterday we went to the Russian Branch for church and I said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting. I was a little intimidated, but it turned out fine. 

Hayden and I tried making some dumplings for dinner. We have basically only had pizza, pasta, quesadillas, chicken, and fries for dinner since we've been here. So we wanted to do something different to at least say we tried it. Well, that was a bad decision. We couldn't even finish it. So, what do you do when you have a terrible taste in your mouth and need something else? You run to Maxima to get a Milka and Sprite. That was a good decision. It saved my poor taste buds. 

Now I'm preparing myself for the final days here. 9 days. That's all I have left. I have to take everything in. 15 weeks has flown by. I'm not ready to leave. Lithuania has become my home.