Shoe Shopping

Alex and Allie were the only ones that did anything really exciting today, so I had Alex write about his day.

Today we did something fun for Allie. Allie's stepfather travels a lot and I am always hearing about where the clothes she is wearing are from. When we got here, the thing that Allie liked most was all the high-heeled shoes. I decided that we would find a pair of Ukrainian shoes for Allie. I figured these shoes would be more special than the other clothing items that I am always hearing about (and definately much cuter!) because rather than saying, "These were brought back to me from Dubai" she could say, "I bought these in the Ukraine."

We had looked at shoes when we were in Kiev but they were very expensive and Elena suggested that we look at shoes in Dnipro because they would be cheaper. I had seen many stores in Dnipro but was too intimidated to go in (I think you are very brave, Wendy, to shop for a swimming suit in this town!). So, because Allie and I were leaving for Kiev tonight, I wanted to make sure we went shoe shopping here. I asked Elena to come and thought that the orphanage lawyer, Anya, might have some store suggestions since she wears a lot of unique fancy high-heeled shoes. Well, the girls decided that they would make this an outing and Allie and I were picked up today by Oleg, Oksana, Elena and Anya. They made me sit in the front with Oleg and immediately all the girls in the back started discussing their shoe options and planning their attack. At this point, I wasn't too worried. We arrived at a mall, something like a small strip mall, that was still in Dnipro but on the other side of the river - known as "left Dnipro". We went in and it only had one shoe store but the girls said that it was their favorite store and that they had bought several pairs of shoes here before. They started showing Allie shoes slowly and I didn't interrupt, walked around and looked at some shoe options. Ann's comment: Alex has very good taste in shoes. He likes shoe shopping much more than I do - hence the reason that he went today and not me. However, anytime I suggested a shoe, I was quickly "shot down" by Anya. It happened a couple of times and I learned my lesson, sat down, and shut up. It was funny because it was obvious that Allie was looking for heels, but the store clerk didn't get it. She took Allie over to the children's section, showed her a pair of flat shoes, Allie looked at them and then wandered back over to the high-heel section. The girls then explained what type of shoe Allie was looking for to the store clerk.

The girls finally narrowed it down to three pairs of shoes and since I was the one with the money, I luckily I got discuss the final choice with Allie. The choices were 1) a brown heel with a cute flower, 2) a black heel with wooden heels, and 3) a very odd white heeled boot that looked like an open-toed heel with an extension above that made it into a boot. Allie's favorite one was the white one, which of course was not my favorite one. Allie said she liked it because it was original. I told her that I could appreciate originality but that this shoe took it too far. I didn't tell her this, but it looked like a boot that a hooker would wear. So, in the end the brown one was eliminated because it wasn't comfortable (although who says that women's shoes are made for comfort!) and we settled on the black one because the wooden heel made it seem a little less mature and more Allie's age.

Thanks girls for your help! Allie had a blast and loves her new shoes that she got in the Ukraine!