Day 4

Wow! It really doesn't seem like it's been four days! We've made a lot of progress in four days. For one, she doesn't suck her thumb all day anymore. Even when she's mad at us (like when we want her to use the toilet for example) she starts moving her thumb to her mouth and then-usually-stops on her own and slams her hand down on the ground. She really does seem to want to please us.

We're now working hard on 'zakreetya rot' which, we think means 'closed mouth'. We're pretty sure it does, because when we say this, she closes her mouth! Usually it only stays closed for about 1-2 seconds, but once she kept it closed for 5 seconds! Her breathing is a lot better and she CAN breathe through her nose now, but I bet she's never really learned how to because she's been conjested her whole life. We wouldn't be so adamant about her trying to keep it closed except having it open all the time makes her drool and we're tired of carrying around Kleenex to wipe her mouth off with! So, she's trying, and I'm sure someday she'll be able to walk around like most people with a closed mouth.

I just have to keep reminding myself that all this (chewing with your mouth closed, breathing with your mouth closed, going on the big toilet, sleeping in a new place, not sucking your thumb all day) is new to her and each day she'll progress and we'll almost forget about how difficult it was!

Today we walked to the Astor mall. It rained some last night which gave us beautiful, cool weather, but it also gave us-MUD! Jill's new white tennis shoes are now splattered with brown spots. I tried washing them, soaking them, scrubbing them, etc. but it just won't come out. It also wouldn't come out of her socks. Hopefully some bleach will do the trick when we get home. We walked around the mall, looked in the toy store, and rode in the elevator. She is very well behaved. She held my or Wade's hand most of the time, but we let her walk on her own some and she stayed close by and walked nicely. Unfortunately, she then wanted to let go and walk on her own every once and awhile on the walk home, which surprisingly other kids her age seem to do, but the driving around here scares me, so there was no way we'd let her walk alone around here even for one second! This led to a few tantrum like episodes, but I think she understands now that outside she MUST hold a hand.

Potty time in the mid-morning was great! She got on and went (#1)!!! But, in the afternoon, 45 minutes again. (probably a #2 issue) NOT FUN!
Playtime has been great.

We've read all the books, she piles them up and one by one 'reads' them to herself too.

We used the dry erase boards and markers for the first time today. She loved that! When she uses crayons she isn't very successful at making marks on the paper. They're always too light or the opposite, she presses too hard and the crayon breaks. But the markers write so smoothly. We used red and blue and tried to get a start on learing colors. I drew a circle and she tried to draw one too. A few of hers were pretty good!

Later she BUILT with the blocks!!! This is a milestone because she usually just takes them all out of the bucket and puts them back in the bucket. Or, she takes them out of the bucket, puts them in the truck, then puts them back in the bucket. Either way, not much excitement. But yesterday she would hand me a block and I would put it on the table. She would hand me another and I would stack it on the previous one, etc. Then today, she was taking blocks in and out, I wasn't paying too much attention, but I looked over at her and noticed-she had built something! She had two blocks stacked together, then had stacked two more together next to the first pair. She continued stacking pairs of blocks until she had 8! We took a picture of course!

She still loves the nesting cups! She puts blocks in them, or Fisher Price animals, she stacks them together, uses them in the tub, etc.

She played with the Fisher Price doll a lot today too, combing her hair and using the lace from the lacing beads to make a necklace for her.

She continues to be a big eater. Breakfast and lunch were about the same as yesterday. For dinner she ate tomatoes, cucumbers, chicken and potato soup, and bread. These might have been her first vegetables!

The only eating problem we have is that she seems to regurgitate food to chew on later. I'm thinking this must be an orphanage thing, like, when they get hungry again they make themselves bring up a little bit from their last meal and chew on it. I'm really just guessing, but that seems like what she's doing. When we see her chewing and take a napkin and swipe it out of her mouth, then brush her teeth (which she actually likes now!)She did this a number of times, on days 1-3, but today she only did it 3 times between breakfast and lunch and hasn't done it at all since! So, maybe she's realizing that she'll get enough each meal to be full until the next meal and she doesn't need to??? Either that or she has some reflux problem. We really don't know, but are loooking forward to the day that this stops for good.

Sleeping is getting MUCH better. Today, for the first time, she didn't complain about her nap! We had to pat her back, but she didn't scream about it. She's also slept in until 8am the last two mornings! When she wakes up, she doesn't cry, she just says, "Mama" and I go get her.

She hates the microphone we use for Skype, so Mom and Dad, and Ty and Jake don't get to hear her, but she does love to listen to them. She especially likes it when Ty and Jake laugh, she comes running to see where the sound is coming from. I guess getting the camera phone for the computer would have been a good idea. But, in 10 days she'll get to see where those voices are coming from and hear them laughing all the time!

Day 3

Well, it took two days to break the thumb sucking (during the day) habit, and it looks like it’s going to take two days for potty training! That’s not bad at all! Yesterday she only went twice; once on her pillow and once in the tub. Today though, we could tell she needed to go mid-morning. And we could tell that she knew she needed to go. She very willingly went to sit on the toilet, but got up after about 30 seconds. Then she would walk back out to play, turn around and run to sit on the potty again. She did this a few times when I started making her sit longer and longer each time. She cried after about 30 seconds and SCREAMED when we hit about 45 seconds. Wade suggested ditching the pants, that way we didn’t have to go through the pulling them up and down every two minutes. She hated that. SCREAMING, SCREAMING and more SCREAMING!!! When we ditched the pants, we’d let her off the toilet if she wanted, but didn’t let her out of the bathroom (The rest of the room is carpeted!) She really hated that. Crying, SCREAMING, laid on the floor with her head on a towel. I continued to try to put her on the potty, but at this point she wouldn’t sit at all without screaming. Wade said to let her out, but to not give her the pants back. She quit crying when she got to leave the bathroom, but surprisingly she didn’t go but about two feet from the bathroom door. Here she sat, laid down for awhile, cried for awhile, then came back in, sat down on the toilet and WENT!!!!! (both kinds) We cheered and cheered and hugged and kissed her and gave her animal crackers! Surprisingly, she continued to cry through our celebration. She ate the cookie, but cried while eating it. When we got her pants back on, hands washed, etc. you could tell she looked proud of herself. Now, fast forward to after dinner/before bath. She was playing, she was holding herself and whining much like she had been during our mid-morning ordeal (which I forgot to mention only took a mere hour and a half) she went and sat on the potty, didn’t go, got off, went back to play, played 15 seconds, went and sat on the potty, didn’t go, got off, went back to play, played 15 seconds, went and sat on the potty, didn’t go, got off, went back to play, played 15 seconds, Wade said, “If she does that again, ditch the pants.” She did, so we did, and then—SHE WENT RIGHT AWAY! So that time only took about a minute and a half instead of an hour and a half! WOW!

Other good things from today…
She slept through the night, until 8:00am, when she woke up she didn’t cry or anything, just said, “Ma-ma”.
On our mile there and mile back walk to dinner, she only tried to suck her thumb once!
We think her eating may be getting quieter, or else we’re just getting used to it.
She was singing in the stroller, “Mama, Mama, Mama, Dada, Dada, Dada, Mama, Dada, Mama, Dada” while pointing to either side of her where each of us was walking.
She sort of did the puzzle cards! She really just likes to take them out of the bag, then put them back in the bag, over and over and over. We try to coax her into matching them up and putting the together, but she never will. Today, she let us help her do them! We would set out three, two that went together and one that did not to see if she could find the two that went together. Some she got right on her own, some we helped her with, but the big news is that she let us help her use the toy the way it’s intended!
She played with the Fisher Price animals and made the sounds for each animal. She thinks the black and white bunny is a cow though; it’s her bunny that says MOO!
She didn’t scream at naptime, just whined a little, then slept a little over 2 hours!
She didn’t cry, or scream at bedtime, and didn’t even really whine. She called out Mama, Dada, a few times, and now Wade is rubbing her back, our usual nighttime routine, but really, not a fight at all.

She was a good eater at all three meals; a yogurt, bread, ham, cheese, half a granola bar and a whole banana for breakfast….ham, cheese, a few strawberries mixed with applesauce, and crackers for lunch, and A LOT of my chicken stuffed with mushrooms and brie cheese that is so good from one of our favorite restaurants, almost all of the grapes from my lettuce with grapes salad, some of the lettuce, and a roll for dinner.

We walked to a new place today. I can’t believe we didn’t know about it until we went to buy our Aeroflot tickets on Friday. It’s very close to the Azimut and not too far from here. It’s right on the river with a statue of Peter (don’t know which one). The streetlights have a nautical theme to them, the paving is beautiful, there were people swimming over on one side, two big houseboat type boats there, speedboats on the river, 3 men fishing, lots of flowers, a beautiful view across the river, lots of people with kids strolling about, etc. If you are planning to be in Astrakhan, e-mail me and I can try to give you walking directions from the Korvet or Azimut.

So, three days down, five to go. We’ll be in Moscow in no time!

Day 2

We're just finishing up Day 2 with Jill. It's going fairly well. When we're just hanging out playing in the room things are great! She plays well with us or alone. We're having a little trouble with sleeping and using the toilet. I guess that's pretty typical for three though. Here's an outline of how today went...Jill woke up during the night at 1am (patted her back to get her back to sleep pretty quickly) then again at 4am (patted her back, but much longer to get her back to sleep again) then was up for good at 5:30 (after patting her back from 5am to 5:30). We watched Blues Clues: Blues Big Musical until 6:30, then Dada got up and played toys with her and I dozed off until 7:30 when we all got dressed and ready for breakfast. We went down the hall to the hotel restuarant for breakfast where they had fried eggs (They've finally learned that I like my yolks well done!, bread, butter, strawberry jam, banana yogurt, pineapple juice, cheddar cheese, some meat that looked like raw bacon, (but Wade tried it and said it was just smoked ham with a lot of fat still on it), pickles, and coffee. Jill ate about a fourth of one of my egg whites, a piece of bread, a half a piece of cheese, an entire banana yogurt, and almost the whole pineapple juice box. She said 'nyet' to the pickles and ham, and sat nicely waiting for the food. She also sat nicely while eating. What we will have to work on is the acutal eating. She 'chews' with her mouth way open and pretty much sounds like a pig. It's quite disgusting. We've learned the word 'closed' in Russian and have even tried holding her lips closed while she 'chews' to help her understand we'd like her to chew with her mouth closed. The problem is that the word for closed is zat-KRY-ta and the word for open is at-KRY-ta. They sound so similar that she probably doesn't know which one we're saying; whenever we say zat-KRY-ta she opens her mouth wider that I thought humanly possible and makes even more chewing noise than before!!! If you noticed that I put the word 'chews' in quotation marks, I did that for a reason. She doesn't really chew with her teeth. She smooshes the food between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. It takes forever! Anyway, after breakfast we went back in the room and played some more, then put her on the potty. She did not go even once yesterday, despite the fact that we put her on the toilet about four times. But, she did wake up with a wet pull up this morning. So, no luck on the toilet, then we went for a walk. We didn't put her in the stroller since we were just going around the corner to the small grocery store and we wouldn't have to cross any streets. She walked nicely holing hands with both Wade and me. All we needed was bread for sandwiches for lunch, so it didn't take us long. When we got back they were still cleaning our room, so we left again and went to the open market where we bought a couple of tomatoes and some strawberries. When we got back they were finished with the room and we fixed ourselves some lunch. She didn't eat as much today as yesterday, maybe because she had had a bigger breakfast today than she had had yesterday. She ate a little ham, a little cheese, a piece of bread and tried the strawberries three times, spitting them out each time. I think that she's never had strawberries before, as they mentioned that they don't like giving the children red fruits or vegetables. I was not making her try them, they were just on her plate. So, I was surprised that every once in awhile she would poke one with her fork (Something else we had to teach her; I think they only used spoons in the orphanage because she just tries to scoop everything and then it falls off the fork!), smell it, (She smells everything before eating it,even if it's a piece of the exact same thing she just took a bite of!)try it, spit it out and go on to something else. Then awhile later she'd poke another one, smell it, try it, and spit it out! So she's open to trying new foods and even trying them multiple times. You never know, maybe tomorrow she'll like them! After lunch we tried the toilet again. She sat there at least five minutes-nothing again, so-time for a nap. She SCREAMED! Even more than she screamed at naptime yesterday. This surprised me because she didn't even cry at bedtime yesterday. Maybe she just doesn't like naps. Anyway, SCREAMED, SCREAMED, STOOD UP, SHOOK THE CRIB (Which is on slight rockers and therefore we thought she was going to tip it over!)We tried to calm her, but nothing worked, she kept getting up, screaming and shaking the crib, then-she peed all over her pillow (that she was standing on). The only good thing about this is that it didn't get on the sheets. We put her on the potty while I washed the pillow, pillowcase and her blanket (it got on the blanket a little bit) and she cried the whole time. Then, we put a pull up on her and put her back in bed. She cried, but didn't scream like before and eventually we patted her back enough for her to fall asleep. She was asleep by 1:15 and slept until 3:00! I slept the majority of this time too! At three we tried the toilet again, you guessed it-no luck. We gave her a banana for snack and tried to practice the 'chew with your mouth closed' thing. Then played until 4 when we called home! After talking to my parents and the boys for about 20 minutes, we went for a long, long walk to La Vanille (The French Restaurant). For this one she rode in the stroller. I ordered a Ceasar salad of which Jill ate about two lettuce leaves of and a bunch of croutons, Wade and I both ordered chicken sandwiches of which Jill ate about 1/3 of my bread and hard boiled eggs, but minimal chicken and cheese, and NONE of that lettuce, and Wade and I both ordered the fruit salad of which I picked out all of the apples for Jill and she ate them all! A pretty well rounded meal for her! She is very good at drinking out of a glass. If you give her a plastic cup, though, she squeezes it while drinking, thus spilling it! So, we have to use a real glass. Another weird thing we can't figure out is when she doesn't want to drink any more, she dumps the rest of her drink all over her plate!!! This happened twice yesterday, and now we can see it coming and grab the glass and/or move the plate. Weird! When we tried to put her in the stroller for the walk back, she didn't want in; she wanted to hold my hand and walk! She walked at least a half mile when she started to try to let go of my hand, so we put her in the stroller. She DID NOT want to be in the stroller. She got used to it though, (even without sucking her thumb!) and we kept her in it until we came upon a park-like area. We got her out to walk around, but she freaked out when we put her on the grass! She settled down after we walked a few feet over to a pathway where you could see some water. There was a parkbench there too that we sat on for awhile. Then, we began walking towards the hotel again, Jill holding my hand and Wade pushing the stroller. She walked the rest of the way! It was probably about another 1/2 mile. Wade just can't believe she walked a mile!!! We played with blocks for about 1/2 hour after returning to the hotel and then I told her (in Russian) that it was time to take a bath. She put those blocks away so quickly! She ran to the bathroom! She remembered how much she LOVED that bath yesterday! Before we put her in the tub we wanted her to go potty; surely she had to go by now; she hadn't gone since 12:30! It had been 6 and a half hours! She sat and cried, and cried, and sat, and cried, etc. In the meantime, the bath filled up with water, so we took her off the toilet, put her in the bath and then...she looked down, and-THE WATER STARTED TURNING YELLOW!!! I swooped her out of the tub and plopped her back on the toilet. I dried her off as she sat there and cried, and screamed, and cried "NE KEKE" (No potty, perhaps???). After ten minutes of not going, we took her off, put a pull-up on her, brushed her teeth (which by the way she hates), put her nightgown on, and told her it was time for sleep. (By the way, while she was sitting on the potty, we drained to tub---you pee in the tub, you don't get a bath.) She of course didn't want to sleep. We said, sleep(spat) or potty (pisat)? When we put her in the crib and she cried. We took her out and led her to the potty, when she cried there we walked her back to the crib, and again said, 'spat' or 'pisat'? and she said "Spat!". So, into the bed she went; she would rather sleep than go potty! She cried some, but I patted her back and she settled down. It was a little early for bed since we skipped the bath, and so it took her a little longer than last night to fall asleep. But, she's alseep now, and we'll try the potty thing again tomorrow! One thing that is going very well is the breaking of the thumb sucking during the day habit! She did it A LOT yesterday and we would take it out of her mouth. Today, she hardly did it at all. On the walk to the restaurant (about a 1/2 hour to 45 min. walk with the stroller) she only did it twice; once about 5 min. into the walk, then again about 5 minutes later, then not again at all until bed! Wow!

Third Post of the Day!

Well, I had to post as soon as I could after we got her here, then of course I had to post pictures!!! And now that we've spent the day with her I wanted to post again!

She's already saying some words! She says Mama, Papa, Dada, Ty, Jake, Jill, baby, ball, and up. She'll repeat other things we say, but these are the ones I think she really knows.

She played with the blocks and big dump truck a lot today. She actually built some towers with the Lego-like blocks, we played "Boo!" (Dada stands behind the corner, she runs to find him, he jumps out and yells Boo! then she runs away laughing) for a long time, we played with the 'My First Leappad' for a long time using the Winnie the Pooh and Dora cartridges, and she looked through the big photo album of mostly herself several times.

We went for a walk to the grocery store in the mall. She rode nicely in the stroller and it went just fine. For dinner she ate an entire chicken leg (cut off the bone) and some of my chicken thigh plus an adult serving of cole slaw for dinner.

She took a bath and LOVED it, playing with the stacking cups in the water pretending to soap up her hair and dump a cup of water over her head again and again and again and again (for a half hour!).

We all watched an episode of Sesame Street where she imitated Elmo acting like a chicken, made her baby dance to some of the songs, held up 10 fingers in a counting song, and then.......when I laid her in bed and told her it was time to sleep-

SHE DIDN'T CRY!

She's still awake though, so Wade is patting her back like I did to get her to sleep for her nap, but I'm still amazed because she cried off an on for 15 minutes before her nap, and stood up every once and awhile, so I'm shocked that this time she just laid down! Whewww!

So tomorrow will be our first FULL day! I will post when I can about tomorrow's adventures!

6/27/08 The Day We Can Officially Share Photos!

Bye Bye Baby House!

Right at this very moment, Jill is taking her afternoon nap right here in the hotel room! We left this morning at 8:30, met by the driver Voloya and CHI rep. Galina. From here we went to the Ministry of Ed. for Galina to pick up some paperwork and for us to pick up Elvira. After this we went to an unknown building to sign and pick up more paperwork, I believe one of these documents was her new birth certificate! We left Galina and went on to the orphanage to pick up Jill! They made us write out on a piece of 'scrap' paper that we had been given all of her medical information and had no claims against the orphanage. Their social worker told us that her mother had been putting some money in an account for her each year. They said it was minimal and that in order for her to get a hold of it she would have to come here when she was 18 and try to prove herself to be this person which would be hard to do with her name change. They asked us if we wanted to go to the hassles of doing this when she turns 18 or if we would write on another 'scrap' paper that we are aware of the account and will not make attempts to retrieve it. I just found it very nice to know that her mother has been doing this for her! She will be glad to know in the future that her mother cared enough about her to try to save at least a little something for her future! They then gave us her schedule. She gets up at 7:30am, eats breakfast at 8, has a 10am snack, plays outside from 10:30 until noon, has lunch at noon, naps from 1pm-3:30pm (which is right now!), has a four o'clock snack, goes outside again at 5, has dinner at 6, then goes to bed at 8:30pm. Sounds pretty typical to us! The boys schedules were very similar to this when they were her age. We took a few pictures of us in our shirts that say Mother, Father, and daughter in Russian. The staff there really liked the shirts! If anyone's interested I bought them online from a site called cafepress. Then...to the van! Surprisingly she didn't protest at us buckling her in! We drove back to the Ministry of Ed. where Galina was and Wade signed two things, then Elvira took us to buy our plane tickets!!! We are leaving here at 7am next Saturday (the 5th of July) for Moscow. Then, we headed one more time back to the Ministry of Ed. and picked Galina up. She and Elvira came back to the hotel with us. Galina had gotten two younger pictures of Jill on her flashdrive while at the Ministry of Ed! They're not very good ones, but at least they are from when she was probably one or two and I am so happy to have them! The hotel staff brought up a crib, Galina and Elvira stayed a little while while Jill got acclimated and then they left! We're pretty much on our own now. We can call if we need anything, but there is really nothing planned until Voloya picks us up at 5:30am next Saturday to take us to the airport!

We're Very Close!

We leave in 10 hours to pick up Jill!!!! I can't wait to let her walk out those gates she's been hanging onto the last two days and let her get into the van. I also can't wait to see her in the outfit we brought for her to wear! I am SO tierd of the pink ruffled dress and the blue 18mo size dress that is so short that it shows her underwear!!! We're putting her in pink capris with her shirt that says 'daughter' in Russian. We'll wear our shirts that say 'Mother' and 'Father' in Russian. Hopefully Evlira will take our picture outside the orphanage together. Today we stayed outside again. We walked a lot, she stood at the gate a lot, she looked through her photo album, we sat on the steps and read books; it was a beautiful day with extra beautiful weather! Then we went to dinner, then to the grocery store where we picked up some milk and bananas for Jill and some ice cream for us, then we went back to the hotel. I unpacked our "Backpack full of Toys" that we carry back and forth every day putting the books in the side pockets of the futon, the other toys in a big plastic zippered 'toybox' we brought (it was the zippered plastic container a comforter once came in), the 'arts and crafts'stuff (crayons, coloring books, playdoh, Crayola Magic fingerpaints, stickers, and paper)in the end table drawer, the bubbles on a high shelf in the bathroom, I put her clothes in the futon drawers, and the stroller by the door! I also put her clothes for tomorrow, the baby doll, and her photo album of home that she loves, in a bag by the door to take with us in the morning. WE ARE READY!!! Now we're about to fix some ice cream and watch Russia play Spain in the semifinals of the Euro Cup! If they win they'll play Germany in the final match on Sunday. The games start so late we usually only watch the first half of each one, but tonight we're planning to watch the entire thing. And, if they play Sunday, we'll watch that one for sure! We're hoping to be able to find Euro Cup shirts for sale in Moscow too. It's been a fun time to be here!

One More Day!

Wow, I can hardly believe that the day is almost over, meaning we visit Jill for the last time tomorrow and bring her her with us Friday morning! Today we had an afternoon visit, so we slept in, I did a lot of laundry, we watched a movie, and I finished the book Ruby Holler (book review to follow!)We stayed inside for our visit today since it rained a little this morning. They gave us back the little photo album we left for her on the first trip and the notebook I left for caretakers to write notes of memories about Jill's time there. Unfortunately the notebook was only written in by two people; one dated the day I left it there in April, and the other just today! I was a little disappointed about that because I know she has 6 caretakers now and that she has probably had 6 others each year of her life here. I'd estimate that 24 people have worked with her and that's not including her doctor! (The building had about 6 different doctors too.) But, at this point, we'll take what we can get. They also said that they did not have any old pictures of her, that it is against the rules to take the children's pictures or something! I'm going to keep pushing that tomorrow and Friday though. I just can't imagine that they don't take a yearly photo for their records or something that we could get a hold of! They also asked for a $100 donation to the orphanage for medications. We really thought that CHI was supposed to take care of all the donations and that the orphanage donations were included in our CHI fees. So, we said we'd have to think about it. We found out earlier this week that our newest social worker has left CHI and we do not yet have the name of a new one, so I do not really know who to e-mail about that. I thought that maybe if we got some pictures and the notebook back we might, but the notebook doesn't have much in it and so far, no pictures.
When they brought the notebook and photo album out she ran for that photo album! I don't know if she's had it with her the whole time or if she was just seeing it again for the first time since I gave it to her in April. She just loves that book! She carried it to the table and flipped through it, then to the green couch to look at it, then to the black couch to look through it, then......you get the picture! But, she wouldn't let us touch it!!! It was HERS, HERS, HERS! I about held her down with it to try to point out Mama, Papa, Ty and Jake. She whined and "nyet-ed", but eventually let me do it for about a minute and a half. Earlier we practiced saying "Jill" again and WOW! She got the J down right! It sounded great! I pointed to Mama and Papa in her photo book, then pointed to Ty and told her to say "Ty" and SHE DID! Then I pointed to Jake and told here to say "Jake" and SHE DID! Well, it sounded more like "Dake", but that's what most toddlers call Jake. Even Ty called him "Dake" when Jake was born. Then she was off with her book again, taking it from place to place. Twice she sat down and very carefully flipped through each page and was saying things about them. I think she tried to say Ty and Jake again on one page, but I'm not sure. This is how she spent most of the day, but a few other things she did were... brush the doll's hair and put the headband on, actually tried to stack three blocks, but when they fell down, that was the end of that, and hugged and rocked and danced with her baby doll "Lala". Lala is the somewhat 'slang' word for baby. It's really only used by small children. Whenever Jill sees a baby outside she says "Lala" and she calls the baby doll we bring with us every day "Lala" too, so now I call it that as well.
We went to the "French Restaurant" La Vanille for dinner. I got the Ceasar Salad for the first time and it was excellent! Wade go the tuna sandwich again and we both had the famous fruit salad. For desert I got the coffee mouse covered in dark chocolate thing we shared last time, but he got two scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with honey. He loved it!!! His favorite part about it was that is was COLD! He's so tired of everything being served at room temperature, even the milkshakes we got yesterday, and the lack of ice around here. We're planning ahead and thinking if all is going well we may take Jill to this resaturant long about Wednesday. They have a little table that has toys for kids to play with while they wait, and there usually is a kid or two there whenever we go, so it's a good first restaurant to try. If that goes well we may take her to the Chocolate Cafe place sometime too.
For anyone keeping track, we're past the halfway point!!! If we do return on the 9th of July, that's exactly 30 days. Yesterday was day 15, halfway day! My parents and boys celebrated! I guess halfway sounds good to them, but Wade said, "We're only halfway?!" I do think the time will go quickly once we get her in our custody. The 10 days went by more quickly than I thought, and I think she'll keep us busy enough that it will just fly by; and then we can fly home!

Book Review #3
Ruby Holler
by Sharon Creech

This book immediately struck my intrest because it is about two orphans! The children are twins, a boy and a girl, and they are named Dallas and Florida. When they were left on the steps of the "children's home" there was no information on them, no birthdate, no names. The caretakers named them Dallas and Florida because the box was lined with travel brochures and Dallas was laying on the one for Dallas, and Florida on the one for Florida! In one part of the book Florida asked what "that" was; it was a rocking chair. The author explained that she had never been rocked. For some reason I found that to be very sad. I have a rocking chair in Jill's room. I don't know if she's ever been rocked or not, but I plan to hold her in that chair and rock her. Three is not too old for rocking! As for the plot of the book, well, there isn't much of one. There are many stories of these kids-stories while they are living with the nice older couple Tiller and Sairy in Ruby Holler, stories from their past where they were sent to live with some terrible people, all very interesting stories, but no big plot line. By reading the back of this book I was under the impression that the holler was magical and it was a fantasy book, but it is not. I suppose they used the words magical because it was peaceful, full of fresh air, an open place for kids to roam about, run, climb trees, etc. A magical place for children, especially children that had been treated as these twins had been in their past. I really enjoy realistic fiction stories like this, but I like them even better when there is something to be solved or something to really connect the little stories together, some "rising action", "climax", etc! This book, just like Bloomability by the same author, has nice stories about the characters that I enjoy, but doesn't really "go" anyhwere. The ending of Ruby Holler was a little better than the ending of Bloomability as you do know if the kids stay with Sairy and Tiller or not, which, if you call that a plot line, was the general idea of the book. So, there is an answer at the end of this book as opposed to Bloomability which just 'ended'. I would recommend this book more to girls than boys, and I would rate it 4 out of 5 stars. The lack of plotline lost it one star, but I really did enjoy the stories and wanted to keep reading! I finished this 310 page book in two days! I was a little sad when it was over, I'd like to know more of what happened with Dallas, Florida, Sairy, Tiller and they mysterious Mr. Z.

Two Sides of Russia

We left at 10 am for our visit today, but we took a different route! I was excited in the change of scenery. I was even more excited to find that the new route took us by the 'big, nice houses' that we can see in the distance via our usual route. I did find, in seeing these houses up close, that they were not as nice as they looked from a distance. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a heap of wood that used to be a house and 10 being 'like the houses in our subdivision', these were probably a 7. Pretty good for around here. They were straight and upright, a few of the wooden ones slanted some, most had straight shutters and the bricks were only a little worn. This is as opposed to the homes by the hotel that would be anywhere between a 2 and maybe a 5. Shutters are either crooked or falling off, and the roofs aren't constructed in a fashion to keep the rain out. Wade mentioned one walk that just as he thought that a house must be abandoned, we heard people talking. We squinted through the gate, and sure enough, people were outside eating. Now there was one strip of housing that we passed, probably about 6 houses total, on a small river off the Volga that were BEAUTIFUL! I'd rate them over a 10! All brick, HUGE, kept up, garages, fancy fences, fancy cars out front and, as I said, on the water! WOW! Then the area got gradually more and more run down as we grew closer to the orphanage. I'll tell about our visit in a minute, but to tie in with the variety of houses we've seen, I'm going to fast forward to tonight's dinner experience. We walked to the Chocolate Cafe that we like so much (AKA The Chicken Hips Restaurant)and opened the door to find...a child's birthday party! All of the tables had been moved to one side of the room. There were balloons all over, girls in fancy dresses, some boys were there too, a teenage girl dressed as a clown and a teenage boy dressed as a pirate who were leading games, tons of fancy food on the tables, juice in champagne glasses, etc! They were having so much fun! We weren't sure if they were open to other business or not, but they motioned for us to go upstairs and sit, so we did. It was very noisy, but fun to watch. I would guess the birthday girl was turning 8 or 9 years old. The mom, in a fancy black cocktail dress with glass heels had a diamond ring on her hand that was approximately 5 carats! The dad brought the birthday girl an enormous boquet of flowers. They served hot tea and huge pieces of cake, each piece decorated with lots of different bright colors of frosting. Almost every child had a cell phone and they were calling each other on them, taking pictures with them and playing games on them. It was like nothing we've seen here before. The car parked outside was a Land Rover! So, we assume they must live in one of those 10+ houses! Then, in the very same evening, walking home, we passed the "2" houses, "3" houses, and a lady sleeping on a park bench using her purse as a pillow. I know in America we have rich, poor, and every step inbetween, but to see two so very different pictures of Russia in one short walk....

Now for the visit! It was a beautiful day today! I think the bugs have finally subsided and it's so crisp and cool in the mornings, so we chose to walk around outside. We knew she had a bath yesterday and were hoping for a new dress today, and we got it! A very cute pink dress with a nice embroidered hat. We went outside and she walked right to the gate. We told her no (well, we told her nyet)but she whined and shook her head and continued to try to get out. Galina closed the gate (It was open and I think when she saw Voloya and the van from yesterday she wanted to do it again!)so Jill grabbed the bars of the gate and shook it and shook it. She wanted out! It took a very long time to coax her away. She finally did, but had to suck her thumb then (which is what she does when she doesn't get her way). After that we had a lot of fun walking. Her group was outside and she talked to all of them every time we walked by. She gave her caretakers hugs, we got pictures of them together too! Then Wade tried to teach her her name. He would point to me and say "mama" then he'd point to himself and say "papa" then he'd point to her and say "Jill". After he did this about five times, SHE SAID JILL! The J wasn't too clear, it sounded a little like "oil" sometimes, but we praised and praised her and she kept trying. I think it got closer and closer to sounding like Jill every time she said it. We did get it on video too! Very cute! I remember that one of the first things they told me about her on our first trip was that she 'likes to learn and is proud of her accomplishments'.

I know this is very out of order today, but I wanted to mention that after dinner tonight we stopped at this park area on the way back to the hotel that has food and a children's play area. We ordered milkshakes for dessert. We were happy to find out that you sit down and they bring you menus because it's hard for us to order things on a board, which we thought might be the case with this outside BBQ type place. We looked through their menu and think we'll go back sometime and have Shaslik (shishkebobs). Whatever they're grilling out there smells fabulous, and having the children's playset there for Jill to play on while we wait will be fantastic!

Passport Picture Already!

As usual, we left at 10 am for our visit with Jill. What was unusual was that when we got there, we took her off orphanage property, in the van, to a photo studio to have her passport picture taken!!! That was good news for us. I don’t think that Jennifer, Mandy or Catherine got their children’s passport pictures taken until after the 10 day wait, but I may be wrong about that. Anyway, we say, the sooner the better! Now, as soon as we have the other documents we can fill out everything we need for the passport and hope that it comes quickly! She did surprisingly well in the van. She clung very tightly to me as we walked out of the gated grounds and looked back at the orphanage, but as soon as one of her caretakers joined us, she loosened up a bit. In the van she sat on my lap and looked out the window. She didn’t seem scared, and was very calm despite the extremely bumpy ride. At the photo studio they sat her on a chair and the lady took many, many shots trying to get one where she was smiling with her mouth closed. Because of her congestion, she doesn’t close her mouth much. She does enjoy the camera though, so she was smiling in every picture, but with her mouth open. Finally she got one with a closed smile and was satisfied. I was surprised she went to so much trouble; I didn’t think you had to be smiling in a passport picture-I know Wade isn’t smiling in his! Oh, I forgot to mention the bow! I guess when the caretakers found out she was getting a picture taken, they put a big bow on her head! Wade wanted to take it off for the picture, but I think that it’s a pretty standard thing for dressing up kids here. I’m sure they put it on her just for this occasion, and with one of the caretakers there I thought that it may offend her to take it off. It really turned out to be a great picture-too small ruffled dress, big white bow and all! While waiting about 20 minutes for the pictures to be ready, we walked up and down the walkway in front of the building. She just took it all in. Planes flew overhead, she saw several kids ride by on bikes, and a girl walking a dog. She climbed in the van for awhile, so we got in too and read her her favorite book. Voloya, the driver, would peek in at her and smile, she’d laugh, then he’d move away so she couldn’t see him, then he would pop back where she could see him and smile again, and, she’d laugh again. They did this over and over. She really liked him. It was very cute to watch. We got the pictures, then went back to the orphanage and walked around and around the grounds. We were going to take a picture with her group leaders, but only one was out with about half of the kids. The other was in ‘washing children’ she said. So, hopefully we can do this another day. We found out that there are three shifts each day with two caretakers working each shift for 13 children. I think that is a pretty good ratio. Then she had to leave early because it was her turn to be ‘washed’. She really didn’t want to go. I don’t know if she doesn’t like baths, or doesn’t like the person who came to get her this time, or what. Usually she goes very willingly because they tell her it is time to eat. She didn’t throw a tantrum or anything, but needed some coaxing to go.
After the visit we walked to the Horseshoe Restaurant over by the Azimut. They don’t have an English menu, but I remembered what my dad and I ordered the two times we went. Unfortunately they didn’t have the Borscht today. Maybe they don’t carry it in the summer. But, they did have the beef goulash which is like beef stroganoff with a thinner sauce than I make when I cook beef stroganoff. It is served with mashed potatoes (homemade) too! It was excellent! Just as it was the first trip. For dessert we ordered the blinis with icecream and honey on them. They were excellent as well! Just as they were the first trip! Later we went to the open market and got more cherries. I guess the strawberry season is over because the strawberry lady was not there, and no one else seemed to have strawberries. I sure am glad we got them when we did! One interesting thing we saw was a guy with two crates full of live crayfish crawling around. They were packed full and he had to keep knocking the ones that were climbing out back in! We also bought Jill a hat. All the kids here wear stocking caps in the spring, fall, winter and ‘ball caps’ in the summer. Hers is white with bright aqua, pink, blue, and green flowers on it. It ties in a small bow in the back. I really love it and think it will go with all of the outfits we brought for her!
The kids in my last class know that I had a list of books to read this summer. I brought a few of them with me and have read two (my husband even read one-Hatchet). At school, whenever we read a book, we write a book review to share with the class. So…I have written book reviews on these two books to share with any kids out there that are interested! If you happen to be a kid who may be in my class next year, pay attention to the type of information I put in these reviews as you will have to begin doing this in about 8 short weeks!!!

Book Review #1
The Tale of Despereaux
By Kate DiCamillo

I have wanted to read The Tale of Despereaux for about two years, so I chose to read it first. I started this book on the airplane and finished it in just over one week. I could have read it faster, but, to be honest, it did not capture my interest as much as I thought it would. It did pick up the pace quite a bit when it went from “Book the First” writing about the main character, mouse, Desperaux to “Book the Second” when she introduced Chiaroscuro the rat, and picked up even more during “Book the Third” with the character Miggery Sow. I liked the Miggery Sow “book” the best, probably because it was about a person. I have never been a big fan of the fantasy genre, so the mouse and rat tales were just “OK” for me, but I became much more interested when the girl, Mig, was introduced and much of the story took place in the castle with the princess, king, servants, etc… all characters that were people. Now, I have to say “Book the Fourth” did make the overall book very good, tying everything together in an interesting and entertaining way. I hate when I read a book and the ending is for one reason or another not satisfying, and this book does, without a doubt, have a satisfying ending. Therefore, I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. A slow start for me, but it picked up nicely and ended well.

Book Review #2
Shakespeare’s Secret
By Elise Broach

A girl soon to be in eighth grade recommended Shakespeare’s Secret to me during the book fair in January, and then a few girls in my class read it and recommended it as well, so I put it on my list of “books to read while in Russia”. I am so glad that I did!!! This is probably the best book I’ve read since reading Under the Same Sky by Cynthia DeFelice. I would put it in the realistic fiction category which is by far my favorite genre of book, but it is also a little bit of a mystery. I am not a huge mystery fan, but as I said, it is just a little bit of a mystery; in my opinion, “just enough”. The main character’s family moves to a new town, something her family does often. It never goes well for her making friends and this time is no different. But she befriends the elderly neighbor and a popular eighth grade boy. The neighbor and boy tell her that there is a secret about the house her family has moved into, and together they solve the mystery finding something the previous owner had hidden in the house. A second mystery is solved involving the families of the neighbor and the boy. I figured this “secret” out on page 148. Sometimes I figure things out too early in a book and it ruins the rest for me, but there was enough more to happen in this 243 page book that it kept me flipping page after page after page. I enjoyed it so much I stayed up half the night reading last Saturday. I finished this book in two days! I rate it 5 out of 5 stars and recommend it to everyone; boys and girls alike!

More Book Reviews Coming Soon….
Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac (A novel about the Navajo Marines of World War II)
Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech (twin orphans, taken in by an eccentric older couple who take them on mysterious, magical adventures)
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (boy and pilot flying through Canada; pilot has heart attack, boy takes over plane, crashes, boy survives alone in the Canadian wilderness with only a hatchet)

Book I wanted to bring, but couldn’t find in my classroom: Nowhere to Call Home by Cynthia DeFelice (If you have it, please return it!!!)

I Missed Friday!

I just realized I did not blog about Friday, and a few important things happened that day! For starters, it was our friends from TN and AL last day here. But, we did all go to Sans Pizza for lunch with Elvira and Galina. Now, that is GOOD pizza!!! It's thin crust and their pepperoni is really pepperoni, unlike the smoked sausage 'pepperoni' we got on our pizza from the mall. After that we went to the store everyone calls Walmart here. It's not a Walmart, but like a cross between a Walmart and Sams Club. We didn't buy anything, but had fun looking. Then our American friends went for their last visit with their children. I know that was hard for them. Please pray for them to get a court date quickly and travel back here soon to pick up their children!!! It rained again that night (but nothing like Thursday) so we ate in the hotel restaurant. There we found that along with having good pork chops and chicken, they also have good fish! This is good to know, as we may not venture out as much when we have Jill with us.
Something else I haven't mentioned yet is the Euro Cup! We have been watching tons of soccer here because the Euro Cup is going on right now. Russia was not favored to beat Sweden to make the quarter finals last Wednesday, but they did!!! Everyone was so happy and excited and bars and restaurants started posting signs for watching the next game against the Netherlands at their establishments. It was on the news all the time about how the Netherlands were such a good team, and once again Russia was not favored. The friend of Elvira's last night said she couldn't bear to watch the game because she gets so nervous, and Netherland is so good; she just wanted to find out afterwards and then watch! Anyway--THEY WON!!!The score was 3 to 1 in overtime! It WAS so exciting! You should see the newscasts from Moscow! We thought Astrakhan went wild, honking horns and yelling in the streets, but the clips from Moscow were 10 times as wild! Now we wait for Spain and Italy to play tonight to find out who Russia will play in the semi-finals on the 26th (Thursday). They COULD end up winning the whole thing while we're here! That would be SO exciting!
Today was an 'off day'(no orphanage visits on Sundays)so we slept in. At about noon we headed out. We went to a small mall and looked around at the toy store, clothing stores, souvenier stuff, etc. Then went on to the 'French restaurant' to have lunch. After lunch we looked through the things the vendors outside the Kremlin were selling and bought a puzzle of their Kremlin. Then, on to the gift shop I bought souveniers from on my last trip. There we bought two sets of postcards and an Astrakhan coffee mug. One set of the postcards is really neat in that it's a current picture on one side, then if you flip it over it's the same place about a hundred years ago. Very interesting! After gift shopping, we went to the Astor, or the 'big mall' where we looked around awhile, especillay at the children's store on the top floor by the Baskin Robbins. The prices for clothing there were really high, I don't think there was anything there under $40. Then Wade noticed another store that had sale signs in the window. They had adult and children's clothing, so we went in there. It was great! We bought two skorts; one green one blue, in an eyelet pattern, (If you know me, you know I love eyelet!)a tank top that had flowers on it where the stems were made of sewn on twisted green thread and the center of each flower was a button, and an adorable dress that has little hearts cut out at the bottom, but underneath this layer of material is another one in a red gingham so it shows through the cut out hearts! Each piece was on sale for about 200 rubles ($8) so the total was less than $40 for all four pieces! (less than buying one thing from the other store!)Our last stop was the grocery store in that mall where we stocked up on some of our basics for lunch; ham, cheese, bread, pickles, chips, and this time we bought roasted chicken in the deli for dinner tonight. We just had it and it was excellent!!!
We have good news! Galina says that our passport will be here Friday, July 4th! She said we will then drop off papers to the American Embassy on Monday, July 7th which means we'll have our interview either July 8th or 9th. We MAY be able to leave on the Wednesday,the 9th, but if not, for sure Thursday the 10th! Two days earlier than we expected! I know it's only two or three days, but it feels like a lot to us!!! We can't wait to get home and see our boys and all our family and friends!

Big Night Out!

Hello! We just got back from our big night out with our translator Elvira! She asked a few days ago if we would like to go with her and her friend to listen to a band that some of her friends are in. We said, "Sure!". So today at 4:30 we walked to the park behind the Kremlin and met her there about 5. We then got in the car with her and her friend, Monir, who was driving. He took us to the place and we met up with her friend Tanya. We thought it was going to be a restaurant, but it was a very small theater like place. It looked like it should have held about 50 people, but I counted about 65 people there. It was crowded, and hot. But, the music was good. Some songs were definitely better than others, she called it psychodelic rock. They used a lot of synthesizer type stuff and had a video on a screen behind them playing during many songs. I liked the screen; one song's video was the inside of the Kremlin there and all the clock gears which we can't see right now because it is under construction. They used some interesting instruments that I liked. One song had a recorder, two used an accordian, and one of the guitar players used a bow at the end of his guitar from time to time giving it a violin/cello sound. He had a solo once with the bow and his guitar that was very good! There was a girl singing on about half of the songs, and the bass guitar guy sang along on one. He had a good voice. The drummer was excellent! He really set the tone for the group, they all looked to him for tempo changes, he was a very impressive player.
After the concert, which lasted from about 6-8pm, Elvira, Tanya, Wade and I went to a restaurant. They just had tea and dessert, but we split a salad and a pasta in a white sauce with shrimp. It was very good, and Wade had been wanting pasta! Then we walked a little and saw a part of town that we would not have seen on our trip if it weren't for her invitation, and then Monir picked us all up and dropped Wade and me off at the hotel! He also brought us some of the dried fish that everyone says is so good here. We will try it for lunch tomorrow. It was a really fun night, a 'once in a lifetime experience' type thing. I'm really glad she offered and really glad we decided to go!
We spent about an hour outside this morning with Jill. One window must be her room because she'd wave at the lady in there and the lady would talk to her every time we came around to it. Then the last hour we spent inside reading her favorite Dr. Suess ABC book, and 'sorting' stringing beads into cups. Tomorrow we don't visit, so we'll do laundry and maybe go to the mall that is a little farther away that has a Subway in it. Speaking of laundry...we planned to have the hotel staff do it. They have a washing machine and we were told we could either hand wash in the room or they could do it in the machine for a charge. We took all the laundry down and asked how much it would be. The receptionist said she did not know because the lady who does it is not here yet. She told us to just leave it and she'd give it to her later and we could just pay when we pick it up. I was not so sure about leaving it with no idea of the cost, so we took it back upstairs. Later that day we took it down again and the laundry lady was there. She also said she could not tell us how much it would cost until after she did it. I really didn't like that idea. I asked if it was per pound, or per piece, she said she'd have to count. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sign that said, pants...shirts....etc. I said, "Are these the prices?" She said yes and repeated that she would count it as she did it. I looked over the prices (of which I'll convert right to US dollars and not list what it said in rubles) and they were....$6 per pair of pants, jeans, shorts,skirt $4 per shirt, $2 per pair of underwear, $1 per pair of socks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!We would have had well over $200 worth of laundry! So, it bugs us that the lady never pointed out the sign to us, that she just wanted to take it and then surprise us with the cost when we picked it up. Another 'surprise' we got last night was when the couple from TN left and were charged 3,000 rubles ($120) for internet! We thought internet was included in the room! Vika, back in town just for today, called and asked about this; they said, "why would internet be free?" she said, "it is at the Azimut!" Apparently it costs 5 rubles per MB. We don't really understand this and are very worried about how much we'll owe as I've been working on the school yearbook, we've sent and received many e-mails; some with pictures, and then there's the blog that I uploaded some video to. We have no idea what it will be. We were told that Galina and Elvira would speak to the staff on Monday about it. Galina seems unhappy that we were not told this cost when we checked in and they set the internet up for us. We can't find it posted anywhere and we can't find it in any of the information books about the hotel that are in our room. So, if suddenly we quit blogging and e-mailing that's why. And sorry school people, our ship date for the yearbook was early August, but now I'm not going to finish it until I get home (and I only had 3 pages left!) so, it will probably ship early September, I guess that's not too, too late. One thing I am considering is typing a blog each day on Microsoft Word, then walking over to the Azimut, sitting in their lobby where there's free wireless internet, and 'cut and pasting'the word document into the blog quickly and FREE!

RAIN!!!!

It rained today. It rained for about an hour and a half, two hours max. That doesn't sound like a big deal, does it? It rains every other day at home or sometimes for a few days in a row. Ball games might be cancelled, and that's about the extent of it. But not here... For one, it rarely rains here. Therefore, they're not really set up for rain. For example, they don't really have a sewer system. When my dad and I were here on our first trip it rained on Thursday morning for about an hour, then Friday evening when we walked to a restaurant for dinner we had to walk way around the streets full of water. Today, after just two hours of rain we spent one hour and 45 minutes driving back, with water seeping into the floor of the car. There were many, many cars stalled on the road; ours stopped running once, but the driver was able to get it going again. The water was up to the middle of most cars' tires and people were taking off their shoes, rolling up their pantlegs and walking through water halfway up their calves! After 45 minutes of driving in this and observing the stalled cars and very wet people, we were really at a standstill. The driver then asked us if we could walk the rest of the way! We knew where we were, and we weren't too far from the hotel, so we did! I had on sandals, but Wade had tennis shoes with socks, so he took off his socks and shoes like everyone else and walked barefoot. It was about a 15 minute walk, or wade, through the water until we reached the hotel, two hours after we had left the orphanage! (It usually takes about 15-30 minutes, depending on traffic, to get from the orphanage to the hotel.) It was then 8pm and we were very hungry! Surprisingly our friends from TN had waited for us to eat!!! So, we went down the hall to the hotel restaurant and ate with them there.

I know I didn't post yesterday, so I'll sum up Jill's visits from yesterday and today all in one. This won't be too hard to do, as she did mostly the same things both days. The best news is that she now lets us read the books to her! She used to just flip through the pages, but wasn't patient enough to sit and listen. Now, she does! In fact she made me read Dr. Suess's ABC's three times in a row today! She also played with stringing beads. She has very good hand eye coordination and could guide the wooden bead with a fairly small hole in it over the tip of the shoelace type string, pull it out the other side, and slide it down to the end! Later she took the wooden beads and enjoyed putting them into the stacking cups. Another thing she did was imitate something I had done with a bead and the two biggest stacking cups. I had put one bead in a cup, placed a second cup of almost equal size on top to enclose the bead and shook it making a type of homemade instrument. She liked that and tried it with several other beads and sizes of cups. She also liked the Fisher Price doll we brought. It's like a Polly Pocket, but about 10 times bigger. You snap the clothes on and off. She has a brush to comb her hair, a hat, headband, dress, pants, a shirt, and shoes. So, we changed her clothes several times. There are several of these dolls out there; ours is named Gabrielle and has light brown hair. I bought it before we met Jill and sure enough, Jill has light brown hair too! Perfect!

This morning we all (the two other couples and us) went to the Babies R Us type store, Banana Mama. We bought two sweaters for Jill, a pink one and a multicolored one, and a beautiful butterfly dress! I took a picture of the dress, so I'll post it here now. I'll also try to upload my video clips of the 'flooding', one of Wade walking in it and one of how bad it made the traffic.

Jill Loves Books!

I think we will be just fine on the plane as Jill spent at least an hour looking at books today. In fact a good two thirds of the pictures I've taken of her, she's looking at a book. She doesn't let me read them to her yet, but wants both of us to sit on either side of her and flip through them over and over. Sometimes she'll play along if we point to things and she names them in Russian, or makes animal sounds when we point to animals. She also played with her stacking blocks and puzzle cards a little today. She also played a little catch with me, but then went right back to the books motioning for me to sit down by her. The other thing she does A LOT of is SING! Whenever I pick her up, she sings! Today sitting on my lap she sang a few songs, the translator, Alvira, (Vica is with a friend in Volgograd helping her defend her dissertaion (get her PHD))said they were Russian children's songs, the words weren't all exactly clear, but she knew the tunes. I say that she will LOVE our preschool because they sing a lot of songs there!
Wade and I went across the street and bought some cherries from a lady at the open market. It went so smoothly! I had written down how to say "sweet?" (because they sell sweet cherries and sour cherries there and they look very similar) I said it and she said, "da" (yes) and motioned for me to try one. It tasted just like cherries at home do, so I said the word for half and kilo and she scooped some into a bag, weighed them, gave them to us, we paid her 45 rubles (just under $2) and were on our way! We're going to take the American couples there between their morning and afternoon visit tomorrow.
Tonight we went with one of the American couples to the "French Restaurant". This is the restaruant my dad and I went to at least three times on the first trip, that when Wade and I went last week we found they have a new menu and have not yet translated it into English. So, before we went I wrote out the words for the things I remembered we liked there last time so we could order. It worked! We all got this awesome fruit salad in this fancy glass with red sugar around the rim, it's in some kind of 'sauce', but not a heavy syrup, really light and really tasty! Then the other three got a chicken salad sandwich with hard boiled egg, lettuce and cheese, and I got a tuna salad sandwich with hard boiled egg and tomato. All very good! Then the best part-dessert. We just took a look at their dessert display up front and pointed. Wade and I split something I had had before which was a cake like bottom with chocolate mousse on top of that all covered in dark chocolate with coffee beans on top; the mousse had a hint of coffee flavoring too. I looked up how to say "borrow" and "return tomorrow" and held up the menu and asked if I could borrow the menu and bring it back tomorrow and she said yes!!! So now I can try to translate some more of it and try some other things during our stay here as it seems to be our favorite restaurant so far, well it's tied with the cheesy chocolate chicken hips place, we'll surely go back there a few more times too. Well, I'm off to translate! I'll update again tomorrow night-Oh, a BIG thank you to all who have sent comments on the blog! I love reading them and feeling connected to home and to other adoptive families!!! Also thank you to all the friends and family back home who have e-mailed! Keep the e-mails coming; if you know me, you know I like to talk, and while here, the e-mailing is as close to talking as I can get! So...keep in touch! :)

COURT!

We went to court today, at 2:30 our time. The judge asked Wade many, many questions about finances, if we can take care of three children, why adoption, why Russia, health concerns, who would become legal guardians of the children if we were both to die, if we were familiar with the post placement requirments, our religion, she even asked, 'so you are going to choose her religion for her?' of which we answered-yes! Did she think we should ask the three year old who doesn't speak english what regligion she would like to be??? Then she asked me some of the same questions and some new ones, she tended to dwell on the fact that I worked and kept asking what I would do if her emotional or health concerns were so great that I could not work; would the loss of my income make it so we could no longer care for three children, asked if my hours could be flexible if needed, asked how much time I would be allowed off before I would have to decide to continue work or quit my job....on and on and on over this. She asked about how we discipline the boys, how we will discipline Jill, what kinds of activities we like to do on the weekends and if having Jill will change our lifestyle (no), and how we eat (cook, eat out, eat as a family, is Dad home to eat, etc). The other thing she dwelled on like the my working thing, was that we know no information about the father. She kept asking us if that concerned us. She asked Wade, she asked me, later she asked us again together, and at the very, very end she asked us again! But then she, the prosocutor, and secretary all left the room for about 10 minutes and when they came back read a few page long statement that in summary, granted us the adoption of Jill Asiyat Williams!!! We now have to wait 10 days to take custody of her, as anyone can appeal the case in the next 10 days. Soon here we are going out to dinner with two other AMERICAN couples! One couple is from Alabama, and the other one is from Tennesse. They had their Ministry of Education appointments this morning and met their children earlier today, they are still on their second visit and should be back shortly so we can show them around town!

A New Outfit for Father's Day!

I don't know if I've mentioned the lovely pink dress Jill has been wearing all week, but well, it's not the most attractive item of clothing. They must think it is though because they have been putting it on her just for us, then taking it off of her when we leave! Anyway, today she came out in the cutest orange plaid jumper with a white short sleeved shirt under it and the jumper had an orange heart to pull for the zipper on the front. It was very cute! We got a lot of nice pictures of her with it on and with the three of us! I made one of them the desktop on our computer; I'll post it as soon as I'm allowed! She made "Papa" a Father's Day card. I had paper and stickers and crayons and she stuck about 5 stickers on the paper and colored some green, blue and yellow on the paper. Then I wrote Happy Father's Day! Love, Jill on it and had her give it to him. It was very sweet. She played with the stacking cups a lot again, this time she would set them all out and put a crayon in each one. She would correct herself if she ever put more than one crayon in a cup and take one out. Sometimes she matched up all the colors; red crayon in red cup, yellow crayon in yellow cup, etc, but not always, so we don't know if it was on purpose or a cooincidence. She sang a lot. She always sings a lot. Pretty much, if I pick her up, she begins to sing. We have this on tape, it's very cute. I think she's going to love our preschool because I know they sing a lot there! Tomorrow is COURT! Vica went over what we need to know and say, how it will go, what they may ask, so we'll update again when we get back from that!

And a $7.50 Bottle of Water

I hate to be so negative, but the eating out thing is not going too well. We now have a second restaurant on our boycott list. Last night we went to Krem Cafe. We asked for an English menu and got not only an English menu, but an English speaking waitress as well! She asked what we would like to drink and I said water for now. She asked one or two waters, we said one, she said "no gas?" (most water in Russia is sparkling water and if you don't want it bubbly you say either 'no gas' or 'still'), we said yes, and she left. While we were perusing the menu, she came back and as all Russian restaurants seem to do, quickly opened our bottle of water and began pouring it into our two glasses. As she was pouring I noticed the unusual shape of the bottle. It was glass, cyllindrical in shape as opposed to the traditional 'bottle shape' we are used to. I began to flip through the many pages of the menu looking for water. I finally found the page and saw that there were five kinds of water on the menu ranging in price from the 15 ruble (50 cents) BonAqua we've been drinking from the store to the 188 ruble ($7.50) Voss that she had brought us!!!! I quickly pointed out that we wanted the BonAqua water for 15 rubles, that what she had brought was too expensive. I asked if she could take it back and bring us BonAqua. She said no, that it was already opened, she was so sorry. We ordered and I guess we looked annoyed while we were sitting waiting for our food because the manager sent her over to ask if everything was OK. We said yes, except for this and held up the bottle. Unfortunately, the food was EXCELLENT! I had like a chicken stir fry with fresh green beans and carrots and other vegetables with soy sauce and sesame seeds and Wade had spaghetti with seafood (squid and mussels). But we were very thirsty as we were splitting the one bottle of water and were not going to order anything else to drink. Then we paid for the bill, 260 rubles for his (a little over $10), 188 rubles for mine ($7.50) and 188 rubles ($7.50) for our bottled water. Funny, the one bottled water was the same price as my entire meal! Anyway, we kept the nice, glass, cyllinder shaped bottle to use a vase; so now it will be worth about $7.00!

Train Photos

The Train Station in Moscow Our 'Advanced Comfortability Compartment"










Wade is sitting on one seat (which is also a bed) with his feet on the other seat (which is also a bed) with the small table inbetween and you can see our luggage at the end of the seats kind of blocking the door.

We didn't get a lot of shots of the view with the train moving and the glare on the window, but this is a really good one. Not really sure where we were right here, but it is pretty! Most of the trip did have nice scenery!

Shrimp, $3.33 each

Hello again! Today's visit with Jill went very well considering we decided we should start disciplining now so as to not have as much trouble in the hotel. For example, she continued to stand on the couch to touch these posters they have hanging up and the one poster kept falling down. (this was yesterday) So today, when she would stand up on the couch, we would sit her down or take her off. She of course would climb right back up. She would throw a tantrum laying herself down on the floor crying (kind of fake crying) or would sit against the couch and cry sucking her thumb! But, eventually, she no longer tried to stand on the couch! Another for example, she kept hitting toys against the mirror! The director says she does not act like this in her group; she listens and is very well behaved. So, today when she hit a toy against the mirror and we said 'nyet' if she kept doing it, instead of just continuing to say 'nyet' like we have been, we took the toy away. It was the smallest cup in her nesting cups she loves that we took away; this caused a pretty long tantrum. She tried to go get it out of the backpack, but we wouldn't let her, so the tantrum went on a little longer, but when she calmed down and got back to playing....She took a plastic police hat over to the mirror, looked at us, pulled her arm back like she was going to hit the mirror with it, we said 'nyet' and she didn't do it!!! She went and put it back!!! Whewww. So we'll keep this up and hopefully won't be starting from square one when we get to the hotel.
After the visit we came back and I took a nap (I'd been up since five working on the school yearbook, it's getting VERY close!!!)Then we walked to the place where my dad and I went twice on our first trip, Kamilla's. This was the place that had the turkey kebobs and shrimp kebobs, oh and the good banana cheesecake! We asked for the english menu, Wade ordered chicken kebobs where each piece of chicken was wrapped in bacon, (180 rubles= almost $7) and I got the shrimp kebobs again. (260 rubles= a little over $9)We also ordered bread, butter (which costs extra!),fried potatoes, and two drinks. It took a long time for the food, but I knew this would happen as this was the restaruant that took the longest of all we visited last trip. But, it was worth the wait! The shrimp came with a soysauce like sauce that was really good, Wade's chicken came with a good sauce too, the potatoes were like french fries; it was all good, big portions, and filling! Then the bill came...and it was much higher than we expected. We looked it over and found that they had charged 500 rubles for the shrimp kebob. We questioned this and asked for a menu to point to what I had ordered and where it said 260 rubles. She said, 'new menu, umm, new price'. She went and got the Russian menu and showed us the same meal and the 'new price' 500 rubles ($20) We couldn't speak enough Russian to tell her that if we would have known it was over double the price we thought it was that I would not have ordered that! All I could do was point out the word 'expensive' in my translation book. She agreed. She did talk to a guy who maybe was a manager, but we ended up paying the 500 rubles/$20 for the 6 shrimp (they were big shrimp, but still!) We wish we spoke enough Russian to tell her that if she would give us the shrimp for the price the menu stated that we would bring the two families that are arriving tomorrow with us to their restaurant (as we had planned out while we were eating), but if they did not, that we would not be back and we would tell the two new couples coming in tomorrow to not go there! But, we didn't know how to say that in Russian, so, we won't be going back.
We may hit the French Restaurant tomorrow, another cafe a friend recommended or The Academy of Beer that so many people on the Astrakhan Kids website recommend. We are excited to meet the two other families that come in tomorrow, though I know they will be tired as they are taking the 28 hour train like we did. The airport should be open for us to go back, but they leave next Saturday and will have to take the 28 hour train back to Moscow too! Speaking of the train I will post some pictures of the train, compartment, and view!

Three Hour Walk-in Heels!

We won't start with the walk, we'll start with our morning with Jill. We left at 9:30 again today and got there about 10. We didn't try to go outside because the bugs were so bad again. Tomorrow we may ask her doctor if we can use the bug repellent wipes on her and go outside. Vika says they may say no to putting something on her skin, but we'll ask. I'd like Wade to see how different she is outside, so relaxed and less busy. She kind of seems 'nervous' in the playroom we use, but never acted that way when we were outside. Today we gave her the Discovery Toys stacking cups we brought to play with. There are 12 cups of different sizes that stack together, there is only one right way to get them to all fit biggest to smallest. We put them out one by one all over the table so they'd be mixed up; she started putting them together. Whenever she would get one wrong, she'd take that one out and figure it out. Sometimes that meant taking out two, putting in the one she had and then putting the two back in, etc. She DID NOT want help and stuck with it until she got them all together and then clapped for herself as Wade clapped along and I gave her a big yay and hug! I found this very impressive. CHI says to calculate their age that they are 'like' to divide the number of months they've been in the orphanage by 3, then subtract this from the number of months old they are. So, she is 45 months old and she's been in the orphanage her entire 45 months, 45 divided by 3 is 15, 45-15=30 months, so she should act like a 30 month, or 2 years 6 month old child. So I thought the way she sorted the puzzle pieces on our last trip and the way she worked out the stacking cups today to be very impressive for a 2 1/2 year old.
After resting awhile and talking to my parents and our boys via Skype (what a great thing!!!!) we headed out for another walk/dinner. I decided to try to fit in and wear my heels with my shorts and tank top. All the Russian women walk around in heels, and I mean like high stilleto heels! Mine were the all-one-piece-so-I-don't- fall-down-heels which still weren't great for walking through the gravel, sand dirt, broken up pavement, etc. I really don't get how they do this??? I feel like I stood out wearing tennis shoes yesterday, but after today I think that I don't really care! I gave their lifestyle a try and now I'll go back to my sandals or tennis shoes.
The good thing about our walk was that after getting a litte lost we stumbled upon what I call the "chicken hips restaurant"! The last day my dad and I were in Astrakhan Vika took us there with Catherine and Mandy. They have an English menu and we took a picture of the page that had things like "beef in cheesy chocolate sauce", "chicken with chocolate icing" and "chicken hips" on it. My dad ordered the chicken hips hoping that they would be chicken thighs and they were! And, they were really good! So we made it there and there was a waitress who spoke a little English. We asked her what she recommended and she told us that the beef in cheesy chocolate sauce was her favorite, "it's SO good" she said. Someone at home told us that they thought the chocolate sauce was probably a gravy-chocolate colored gravy-being that chicken hips was loosely translated we figured that was probably true and it was their word for gravy. So we ordered one order of that and one of the potatoes I had gotten before stuffed with cheese and mushrooms then wrapped in bacon. Well.....the beef was like an okay steak breaded and fried like country fried steak. It itself was good, but that was after scraping off the cheesy chocolate sauce that was made out of, you guessed it, cheese and chocolate! Not good. The potatoes were great though and we had bread and the meat was good enough without the sauce, so we did end up full. I also had a strawberry daquiri with ONE whole piece of ICE in it! (I do believe I've mentioned Russia doesn't serve drinks with ice.) Now that we know that the menu is correctly interpreted, we know what to try and what not to try. There are three more things on there we think sound good, so we'll go back. There are two more couples coming Sunday night that will be here for a week, so we'll show them all around town! And I'll tell them not to wear heels!
PS These homegrown strawberries are SO good!!!!! We're almost to the end of them so tomorrow we'll go buy cherries!!!

Four Hour Walk

Hello! We just got back from about a four hour walk. Well, we ate dinner in there too. We walked past the bowling alley. Wade wanted to go in just to see it, but I thought we'd wait and go in with Vika sometime. Then passed the outdoor/indoor market my dad and I explored on the last trip, then walked for awhile until we came to the grocery store we used to go to when we stayed in the Azimut, turned and walked along one side of the Kremlin wall, turned left to the entrance we took last trip to enter the Kremlin, but it had a big red sign with an arrow on it indicating that that entrance was closed, so we kept going. Along the next side was the pretty, parklike area that had the jewelry store we went to last time, so we walked around there. There were teens with Russian flags draped around themseleves, or they were carrying them and some had put them on their cars. It is Russia Day today, the equivalent of our Fourth of July, celebrating their independence in 1990. It was fun to see the people celebrating and taking pride in their country. I asked Vika if there would be any fireworks or parades or anything. She said yes in Moscow, but not here. While we were in the parklike area we went into a small mall and checked out a few clothing stores. (saw some cut swimsuits and a pair of pants I liked, but didn't buy anything-still not confident enough in my Russian language skills)Then we found the last side of the Kremlin and it was open so we went in. It was so under construction that it wasn't much to see. Even the church we went in and bought necklaces in was roped off. So we left pretty quickly. We then were quite close to the French restaurant that we frequently went to last trip, so we headed there for dinner. I asked the girl for the English menu. She said, "Nyet" I began telling her, (in English so I'm sure she didn't understand a bit of it) that I was here 6 weeks ago so I know they have one English menu. Then she did say "new, new menus" OH NO! So,they have new menus and no one has translated one into English! And, I didn't bring my translation book because I knew we were going there and that they had an English menu so I didn't think that I needed it! Well, I can read it pretty well and remembered that I liked the salad called the Freshness salad (the only salad I've found in Russia that has lettuce in it)So I flipped through the (10 paged) menu and found it! We both ordered that, motioned with our hands to help her figure out we'd also like some bread and ordered Coca Cola (the same in both languages!) and it worked! We got exactly what we wanted! But there were so many other things I liked there that I'm not sure how to order now. So, I don't know if we'll go back there again or not. Then we walked back, but stopped at the big mall, the Astor. We went up to the second then third floor just to look around. On the third floor is a children's area with a ball pit, climbing rope, etc. for free, an air hockey table, water shooting game, and another game for 5 rubles each (about a quarter), a sizealbe children's store with toys and clothes, and a Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Shop. We'll definitely be there a lot when we get possession of Jill! Then we went back to the hotel. All in all about a four hour trip, but the weather is nice, about 85 but no humidity. The one problem is the bugs! There are like little gnat/mosquito things everywhere! Tomorrow we will remember to use the bug repellent wipes we brought along. If we use them at the orphanage on us and on her, maybe we can stay outside longer. Until tomorrow....

Jill meets Papa!

We were picked up at 9:30 today and got to the orphanage about 10. I think Jill remembered me, but it's hard to tell as she will go to anyone and give them a hug, so she probably would have come up and hugged me even if she didn't remember me. After we hugged and she put her forehead against my forehead (something she did a lot last trip) I introduced her to Papa. She was not shy at all, said hi and did a hi five to him just like she did with my dad when he was here! We went outside and walked around the building once. She walked awhile, I carried her awhile, then Wade carried her. She really warmed right up to him! Then, since the bugs are so bad there in the summer (not too bad in the city though)we went in. Wade read her books, played volleyball with a balloon (she has very good hand-eye coordination!) she did this all while holding her favorite baby doll. Then she got out those puzzle cards she likes so much. She pretty much just put them in and took them out of the bag over and over. This bugs Wade; he wants her to play with them, so tomorrow we are just going to put them in the backpack loose so there isn't a bag to play with. He tossed her up and down and she laughed and laughed! She colored a little with the purple crayon on some blank paper I brought. There were two French couples there with their soon to be children (both one year old boys) and Jill wanted to be the center of attention. She gave hugs to all four of them and their translator. She shared her toys with the babies too which was really sweet. It was funny to have three different languages being spoken in the room; when she would give something to the baby the mom would say "merci"! Wade describes her as an "active little girl", which is true, but she was always a little more active in this room and calmer and more laid back outside. Tomorrow we'll take the bug repellent we brought in hopes to spend more time outside.
After our visit we went to the Astor, the big mall. We ordered a pizza, then went in the grocery store that is on the first floor. We bought a huge container of water, 2 liter Pepsi, 1 liter Sprite, cheese, Ritz-like crackers, Pringles-like chips, freshly baked bread that was still warm, some ham, cups, plastic utensils and paper plates. (for $20 US). Then our pizza was ready, so we picked it up and went back to the hotel. Before eating the pizza we went to the pharmacy and bought some medicine for Jill; one for cough and one for congetsion. She still is so congested! The dr. there says that all the kids in her group are, that it just gets passed back and forth and they all just always have that. Vica says that's true, that most kids in the orphangage have a cold at all times, then when adopted it clears up in a few weeks. But they gave us the name of those two medicines if we wanted them to give them to her to help her feel better. Then we went across the street from the hotel to the open market and bought 1 kilo (2.2 lbs.) of home grown strawberries for about $4. So, we're set as far as food goes for awhile. We're pretty far away from all the restarants we went to last time, so we may only go for dinners and eat lunch here. With the market so close and the grocery store too, we can just go day to day and get what sounds good. The pizza was pretty good. It had good cheese, and olives, Wade liked the "pepperoni". I was OK with it. I put it in quotes because it wasn't like our peperoni, it was like our summer sausage. It was pretty big too so we ate a little more than half and put the rest in the fridge. We don't have a microwave in the room, but the front desk will heat things up for you if you ask. So, now we're watching a little BBC. I'll probably work on the yearbook a little and then we'll take a walk and try to find the "French Restarurant" that my dad and I went to many times last trip. I'll update again tonight or tomorrow!

6/9, Travel Day: Planes, Trains & Automobiles (but not in that order)

(Blog by Wade today!)
6/9-6/10: The Planes
Well our travel day finally arrived. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight out of St. Louis. However, the plane that we were supposed to leave on was late getting into St. Louis. I started to get worried as I knew we had a very short connection of 55 minutes in Atlanta. We ended up taking off from St. Louis 40 minutes late. We made up a little time in the air, but when we landed I knew it was going to be close. Unfortunately for us the plane parked at gate 3 in terminal A and we had to get to gate 33 in terminal E. I say unfortunately because that is the furthest possible distance someone would have to travel making a connection in Atlanta. We got to the subway transfer station in about 5 minutes, leaving us less than 10 minutes before the other flight was scheduled to depart. Also keep in mind that they typically close the aircraft doors a few minutes prior to departure. After getting off the subway we ran, well at least I did. Someone else decided to wear crocks, and couldn’t quite keep up. So being the athlete that I am I ran ahead to stop them from leaving without us. When I arrived at the gate they were making the final and I mean final boarding call for the flight to Moscow. Even the flight attendant didn’t think that we were going to make it since our flight was so delayed. And now comes the funny part. So we get on the plane (hot, sweaty and tired from running) sit down buckle up and the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we are having some maintenance issues and that we will be delayed about an hour to make the repairs. Amy said that there weren’t any delays on the first trip and maybe I was bringing on some bad luck. She may have a point as the in-flight movies only worked for the first 2 hours, but other than that it was pretty smooth all the way to Moscow.
6/10: The Automobile
After landing in Moscow we met up with Mia our translator who told us that we were actually leaving for Astrakhan today instead of 6/11. This was actually good news as there was no point in staying the night in Moscow anyway. So we left the airport at about 12:00 noon and went straight to the train station (yes train station as the airport in Astrakhan is closed for remodeling.) The car ride was an eye opening experience to say the least, as driving in Moscow is like a game of chicken. There’s lots of traffic and not many rules when it comes to the road. I’ve driven in New Jersey & New York before and they got noth’in on Moscow. That being said our driver was excellent and got us to the station safely in 1.5 hours. Our train left at 3:15 p.m. so we did have some time to buy some snacks and review the next leg of our journey.
6/10-6/11, The Train
We boarded the train and got all 4 pieces of luggage, 2 backpacks, umbrella stroller, camera case & purse into our quaint private compartment. Luckily it had some overhead storage for 2 pieces of luggage and the stroller, and some under seat storage for another suitcase. It had 2 long padded seats that faced each other with a small table in between. It also had a big window and a small flat screen TV as well.
We knew ahead of time that the train ride was supposed to take approximately 28 hours, and now we know why. This train reminds me so much of the Metrolink only on a larger scale. If you are not familiar with it the Metrolink in St. Louis goes from the airport to downtown. It goes relatively slow and makes frequent stops at all the stations along the route. Well our train was very similar to this as we stopped at every city, town & village along the route. Some stops only lasted 5 minutes and some last 45 minutes. You could get off, walk around and buy things from vendors at the station but we choose to stay on. The other issue with the train was speed, for most of the trip it was only going about 30 mph. It’s capable of higher speeds as during the night it got up to at least 45 or 50 mph. The scenery along the route started out as rolling hills with heavy vegetation including lots of white birch trees. The closer to Astrakhan we got the terrain became flatter & drier with less vegetation.
We arrived at the Astrakhan station at 7pm our time (10am St. Louis time)and Vica and Voloya (translator and driver) were waiting for us. We were driven to the Korvet hotel. We have a very nice, big room. It is kind of sectioned off into three rooms and a bathroom. There is a refrigerator too. It is close to the "big mall" and a large outdoor market with people selling home grown fruits and vegetables as well as chickens and eggs. Tomorrow we will go see Jill at 9:30 am then go to the grocery store and outdoor market.