Sitting

Last night Alex stopped by and was a little excited – I think his day in the court had pumped him up. We had to get revisions to one document from the state – adding the words "domestic & international adoptions" behind two statements. The court is accepting a FAXED copy of this document! Huge!! Again, it seems like such a little thing but this is what the H family had to do and in the "big picture" does make sense…even tho it's such a little thing. So I immediately emailed our Waukesha office and they jumped right on it. Sue and Heather are so wonderful! They even called last night to clarify what needed to be done. We love calls from home and remember if you use our Russian calling card it's cheap! I saw this morning now also that Alex had sent them emails while we were sleeping and he had written the same things I had told them to do so that was good – LOL! They had the letters written from the State by 11am their time, were faxing him the copy so he can start translating and the apostilling will be happening today WI time. Then the Sec of State office will fax a copy of the apostilles to the BCS office so they can fax them here to Alex. This is such great cooperation with the State of WI! Under two days turnaround time.

And our light switch? I don't think he realized what really had happened but said he has a "friend who knows electrical things" and he'd send him over. And he agreed we need more than a new light switch!

Alex also said we'll be practicing for court tomorrow (Thursday) – thank goodness! We needed that last week but maybe he too didn't think it was going to go past the medicals submission? Regardless, now we all think we have some ideas of questions that will be asked – and we also know some of what the H's were asked – so we are going to be better prepared. Alex explained in detail our adoption timeline in Russia since 2004 and some of the answers I gave last Monday, even tho they were trying to make me appear I didn't know what I was talking about, WERE the right answers. But now I can answer with more confidence!

Here are some pictures of us from the past days with the frog from Justin getting around the city! I'll have to get some with Brian holding it next!

Here's from the celebration dinner for the Holmes adoption! Mike, Skip, Harry and Judy on right. Volga, Keesha and Irena with me on the left. Notice the vodka? ;) The M&Ms were personalized in honor of Harry and the veggies on the plate were one of the "salads" – there are two others in front of Judy if you can spot them. They were all delicious!

So we are now back at the apartment to end the day. I entitled today's blog "sitting" because that's about all we did today. We sat around the apartment this morning (self-imposed, just lazy to get ready), sat in the car all the day to Cheremkhovo and back and then sat for dinner just now. I miss our daily walks -- back at them tomorrow!

Our trip to Cheremkhovo was nice because we had one of Andrew's friends, Igor, in the car with us. He is a paramedic in IRK and works 24-hours on and then is off 72-hours. He lives in Cherem so hitched a ride with us. He apparently has also been carrying some of our paperwork to the Guardianship committee so he had been working for us. He spoke quite good English and asked many questions – later we found out that he had taught himself English (had taken German in school). He also told us that he had "never spoken to foreigners before"! It was good to have him in the car also as he explained about some of the villages along the trip – one is called "half" because it's halfway between Moscow and (the easternmost city the Trans Siberian Railroad goes to) V something. Also we went through a "military town".

Because of Igor riding with us Brian got the front seat of the vehicle. So he sat in what would be our driver's seat – his comments about this is that he was able to see what would happen before the driver would and Brian says I wouldn't be able to handle that! They had Brian put his seat belt on but when he asked Andrey why he didn't put it on he said he'd be able to spot the police and put it on in time! (Kathy F, Andrey says "hi" back to you)

Once in Cherem we visited Galena at the guardianship committee office – she was very cordial and wishes us luck. Alex had sent copies of the paperwork we received this week so she can be assured this Bethany/Nightlight alliance is all legal and valid. We then went on to the orphanage where we waited a bit to see Genya but once he came in the room he was again happy to see us. We played with blocks and cars, read a few books (Sarah C, he loves the Dr Seuss one and repeats the sounds so well!) and flew paper airplanes. Brian and he had made some that flew long distances – mine? Flew about 6-inches! He laughed at that! And later, when he was leaving, he collected his and Brian's airplanes to take along but he crumpled mine up and tossed it away! Oh, also, when he came in the room he showed us how he had colored the Snow White coloring book we had left him at the hospital and he pointed out how he made the witch's nose red – he just laughed and laughed, like father like son?! (Brian and his red nose sayings I'm referencing). We had a much calmer visit this time – we wouldn't let him get crazy and I didn't pull out the balloon. We did get some really good pictures also that we'll be developing tomorrow to present in court. The funniest was when he and Brian had barrettes in their hair! (Kirstin, I thought of Vince when we were doing this!). So anyway it was a nice visit and when he was leaving the speech teacher had him say, in English, "I love you" and I said it back in Russian. They said he'll wait for us! And also his eye is just fine – you wouldn't even know it was injured last week!

The trip back to IRK was in the dark so not a lot to see until we hit the traffic of the city. JJ, we were in a traffic jam! It was crazy! There was an accident and between that and the cars and the trolleys and then someone with a flat tire in the middle of the road – let's just say if we would have video taped you would KNOW why we don't even think of driving in Russia. We got back to the apt after 8pm so we missed the Rotary meeting – we'll have to go to that café and explain what happened! We were very hungry as we hadn't eaten since before lunch so we went across the street again to the place we had pizza the other night. Tonight we had a little bigger meal – we both had Greek salad to start (excellent – cucumbers, peppers, cheese, tomatoes and olives and put your own vinegar & oil dressing on); then Brian had 'spaghetti with meat' which was spaghetti with bacon which he said was good. I had Friscesse (?) with Chicken which was chicken breast pieces with onions, carrots and maybe something else in a light sauce – excellent! We also both had deep fried potatoes – comparable to In n Out's or 5-Guys! This was our $25 dinner but was very good and we hadn't spent money today! We do have to get grocery shopping again, the cupboards are bare!

Yesterday when we were down by the river we saw on the railing all sorts of engraved padlocks on it

Today we asked Andrew what that was about – he said it's a new custom, he thinks it came from Moscow, that when couples get married they put the lock on to symbolize the lasting marriage. We didn't think to ask him if they threw the key in the river then?!?

Tomorrow we're developing our pictures and then practicing for Friday's court. The stress level will be starting to build! Keep those prayers coming – when I start to get a nervous knot in my stomach & my heart starts racing I just think of all of you and it goes away!