Adopting Sister

Family

2008-11-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

Hello! Just wanted to comment a bit on Jill's talking. She's gone from saying one word, to two word phrases, to a few three word phrases over the past few months. Then, about two weeks ago she must have noticed that when we talk we use some smaller words in with our important words. So, at Jake's soccer game she said, "car?" "car?" and I ignored her because the game had just started and we had a long time to go before getting back in the car, but then she said, "do......you.....car?" It was so cute the way she asked! She was just trying out words and guessing if she said it right or not, but I knew what she meant and filled in the blanks for her, "No, I don't want to go to the car right now; we'll go after Jake's game." Then, a week later she did come up with a real sentence! On the refrigerator there's a picture of Jill riding on the giraffe on the carousal at the zoo. My mom stood by her and my dad took the picture (They took her to the zoo one Monday-she loved it, especially seeing her favorite animal-the elephants!) She comments 100 times a day on that picture "Jill giraffe" "Jill-Wheee" "Jill Myama (grandma)", "Pah picture", "round a round" "merry go round" etc, etc. But this day she said, "I'm going round!" I was not sure I heard her correctly and said to Wade, "I think she just said a sentence!" Then she said it again, "I am going round!" Turns out my mom has her repeat after her in the car whenever they are going somewhere, "I am going __________" (to school) (to the store), etc. And, I guess she transferred the 'I am going' to the picture of her going around on the carousal! The next amazing thing was tonight when I was pulling up pictures for our first post placement report (can you believe it's that time already?!) I pulled up a family picture and she yelled out while pointing at the computer, "Jill's family!" Wow! I know at school they do a lot with 'family'. Like we've gotten several projects where she'll for example glue on five teddy bears in a house and they'll label them with our family members names, or that they have a prayer book with a family picture of each student and they take turns praying for each family, etc. So I guess she is learning what family means because she didn't say that for any of the other pictures I pulled up, but said it again when I clicked on the one of the five of us! The social worker tonight asked me to tell a favorite memory of time with Jill and that's the one I picked-it brought tears to my eyes that she realizes she has a family, and seems to know what that means, and that our family is now complete because of her!

Jill at Soccer

2008-11-09T10:46:00.001-08:00

Fall Leaves

2008-11-08T19:33:00.001-08:00

Jill's First Halloween

2008-11-08T19:04:00.001-08:00

For Anyone Who Hasn't Given Up on Checking This Blog...

2008-10-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hello! Sorry it has been so long! Just as we all got settled in, school started and I was back to planning lessons, grading papers, attending school events as well as all the extracurricular activities the boys are in and helping them with their own homework and tests-I just haven't sat down to type! So....

Jill is doing great! She started school the Tuesday after Labor Day. I peeked in on her a lot the first day. It was funny when I heard the teachers say, "If you are a boy, I want you to line up behind Miss Carol; if you are a girl, I want you to line up behind Miss Connie." She had no clue. I was afraid she'd get teased for not knowing if she was a boy or a girl. But, the teachers helped her out! They say she follows along well. She is always proud of her projects. Her first one was two handprints with a poem underneath. When I pulled it out of her bag she got SO excited and kept saying, "Mama-Hand-Push!" over and over demonstrating what she did to make it. We do the sign language sign for I love you with her and one day another preschool mom came in and told the teachers that her son had come home and showed her that sign. He told his mom that Jill had fixed his hand like that for him, but he didn't know what it meant. They told her it meant "I love you." How sweet. She really likes that little boy, and his mom says he likes her too.

She was baptized on September 7th. It was so special for so many reasons. It was Wade's birthday, it was also my brothers baptismal birthday and he is her Godfather, my mom made her dress, and it was the day of the All Church Fair, so we had a big celebration afterwards. She just stepped up onto the stepstool and didn't flinch or anything as the pastor baptized her. She looked so sweet, and so did the boys as they watched on. At the fair she played a few "duck pond" type games, but then she went in the 'bounce house'. I was a little nervous about it, but she LOVED it! Afterwards she kept pointing to it and asking, "Jill jump?" So we let her back in it three more times!

Her birthday was September 15th, so now she is four! We had a small party with mostly adults. Because they also celebrated her birthday in preschool, she can sing happy birthday pretty well, she also picked up on how blow out the candles very quickly. We had Elmo plates, napkins and an Elmo cake which she loved; especially the Elmo and Big Bird characters that came off the cake to play with! She got lots of baby doll things. This was also the day she said her first three word phrase, "Jill like baby". She's gone from saying words, to two word phrases and now sneaks in a three word phrase every once in awhile!

She had a cold a few weeks ago and was wheezing. Luckily we have a nebulizer for the boys' asthma, so I got it out and filled it with the capsule of albuterol. I was prepared for a lot of screaming and fighting to keep the mask on her face, but instead she helped me put it on and started breathing in an exaggerated way like she knew that is what it was for! I flipped on the switch and the noisy machine didn't bother her one bit. She just sat there and breathed it all in (while watching Sesame Street). Then, when I turned it off, she took the mask off, held it out to me and said "Thank You!" So, I'm pretty sure she must have used one of these over there-but they didn't tell me that! What if I wasn't experienced in wheezing and/or didn't have albuterol or a nebulizer? I would have been in a panic!

We ordered an Abby Cadabby costume, the fairy that's friends with Elmo, off the internet for her to be for Halloween, so I'll post pictures of her wearing it after Halloween! It's her favorite character now, she likes her even more than Elmo!

That's about all for now! I'll try to update and post pictures after Halloween!

Family Photos!

2008-08-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

We went to a great place called Portrait Innovations to have family photos taken last Friday. All together we had 88 pictures snapped! We ordered quite a few and were given a CD of all 88 shots. I asked if it was legal to post them on the blog and they said yes!!! So here's a sampling of how they turned out!

Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of Photos

2008-08-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Wearing her cool sunglasses holding her cell phone at Ty's baseball game.

Jill played her very first 'board game', Cootie, with Ty, Jake, and Mommy, and SHE WON!

The winner gets hugs and kisses!

Jake and Ty both love to spin her around until she's dizzy. She falls down, gets back up and wants to do it again, and again, and again, and again!!!

Story time in the laundry basket. Good thing Jake was willing to read because Mommy doesn't fit in the laundry basket very well.

All of her Band-aids from her shots and blood work. At least they matched her dress!

We don't have a baby stroller, so she uses her shopping cart. She loads up every baby doll she has and then walks around and around the house.

This was her first day playing in the yard. She ran, chased bubbles, and played on the swings and the slide!

Her first swimming experience in our friends' in-ground pool! She loved it! She called it a 'patsa' which is the word for bath in Russian.

She also loved the Drumstick our friends gave her after swimming!

She loves the play food and little kitchen. She fills up plates for us and for her dolls.

The sandbox is her favorite thing to play with outside. We have "gems" hidden in the sand and she digs, finds them and puts them in the pail, then lines them all up on the steps before burrying them again.

No More Snoring!

2008-08-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, what a week. Two Tuesdays ago Jill had her CT scan. It went well. They were hoping to not have to give her anesthesia to do it by just giving her something "like drinking two margaritas" to make her relaxed enough to lay still for it, but they said she kept moving at the last second, so they ended up giving her the anesthesia. Luckily she came to quickly and felt fine, eating Cheerios and drinking apple juice right away, so they let us go home more quickly than we expected.
The CT scan showed that the hemangioma is not anything to be concerned about!
Then last Thursday she had her tonsils and adenoids taken out and her ears cleaned out. There was so much wax and dried blood in her ears that the doctor couldn't see her eardrum! It's amazing to hear (or should I say not hear) her breathe now! She can close her mouth and breathe through her nose!!! She doesn't snore any more-at all!!! She does have to be reminded to close her mouth because it's such a habit. She's breathed through her mouth her whole life! She has her ups and downs recuperating. She's cranky, then we give her pain medicine, then she's great, then she's tired and either cranky again or falls asleep, then wakes up cranky again, then we give her pain medicine, etc.... The biggest problem is getting her to drink water! They told us she should drink a liter a day to keep the packing stuff in her throat from drying out, but bare minimum she must drink 500 ml. This really didn't look like much, but it's almost impossible to get her to drink it! At first I thought it was because it hurts, but now I think she's just being stubborn because she eats fine, but won't drink! The first day home (Friday, because we spent the night in the hospital eating only broth and orange jello)she ate oatmeal and yogurt, then Saturday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce and banana, Sunday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, banana, flaked salmon, canned peas, and macaroni and cheese. Yet, she screamed, whined, cried, etc. when we wanted her to take a drink. Today (Monday) she was to the point where she would spit it out at me when I made her drink! The other reason I think she's just being stubborn is because when my mom tells her to drink, she does! My dad was over and I was trying to get her to drink and she wouldn't, but when I gave it to my dad and said, "Here, tell her to drink this." she did! Wade had a little better luck than I do in making her drink, but it's still not easy. So, that's our biggest frustration right now.
We don't have any new English words to report because her speech is tons worse now from the surgery. I do think this is temporary, her mouth and cheeks are kind of swollen and she's got a big excess saliva problem (and doesn't want to swallow it) so she sounds really funny when she talks. She also kind of holds her head down a little all the time now and all this makes her voice sound different. So, hopefully a week from Thursday we'll move forward with words and language some more as we were told this surgery had a two week recovery period.
Hey, the school secretary told me this week that a new girl just enrolled in Jill's preschool class and she was also adopted from Russia! they're only a month apart in age, but the new girl was adopted at about a year and a half. Still, I can't wait to meet them!
Bye for now!

Ours for One Whole Month!

2008-07-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

Wow! Sunday was one month from the day we picked Jill up! Today was a crazy day! Our pediatrician had told us to make an appointment with a pediatrician who deals with international adoption, so we did. We had a 1:30 appointment today at Cardinal Glennon's Medical Center. My grandfather passed away last night, and therefore my dad was home from work today and said he could watch the boys for awhile so they wouldn't have to sit through yet another of Jill's doctor appointments. Thank goodness, as this 1:30 appointment didn't end until 4:30 after a thorough examination, developmental tests, four shots and five vials of blood! She hated the shots and bloodwork. In fact she started screaming when the nurse put alcohol on her arm! I don't know if she just didn't like the alcohol's feel or smell or if they do this before giving shots in Russia and she remembered it. She was so worn out afterwards that even though she had a package of 3 graham crackers in the car, she fell asleep after eating only two!
Here is a list of words she says in English...
up
shoes
ball
my
show (as in TV show)
jump
more
banana (pronounced nana)
apple (pronounced bopple)
no
book
fish
hello
brush (as in teeth)
teeth
touch
it (put together as "no touch it")
Mama, Dada, Jill, Ty, Jake, Grandma (Myma), Pah (what we call my dad)

She seems to understand most all of what we say!
In the car we listen to the CD from this summer's VBS a lot and today after Jake's ball game (nothing was playing at the time)Jake said, "She's singing a VBS song!" I listened and asked if he was sure and he said that it was "Never Let Go" I listened and yep, it was that melody and rhythm, so I put the CD in and she sang along in her babble words right on with the melody and rhythm and even got the word "go" right every time!

Tomorrow is her CT scan, I'll post how that goes later!
Maybe I'll try to get some pictures up soon too. Also, since I translated most of the menu for the "French Restaurant" I'll post that for anyone going to Astrakhan soon! You've got to get the fruit salad!

Bye for now!

Yes, We are Home!!!

2008-07-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Yes, we are home, and have been for 10 days. Wednesday, July 9th we left the hotel at 9am and drove an hour to the airport. We met up with the family we first met at the doctor's office and sat with them waiting until it was time to board our flight. Hooray, hooray! The in-flight movies/TV shows, etc. worked! Jill didn't want anything to do with them, but since she occupied herself looking at the Sky Mall magazines and such Wade and I got to watch some movies. After two hours of looking at the magazines on the plane it was time to eat, then she took a two hour nap! After that it was time to eat again, then she read the books we had brought. Then we ate again and she napped about a half hour to hour, then she and the other three year old girl played together with stacking cups and other toys for the rest of the trip! So, it wasn't bad at all for an 11 hour flight. We had a three hour layover in Atlanta, then a one hour and 22 minute flight. But... we boarded the flight and he announced that it was an hour and 22 minute flight, we started heading to the runway, then stopped. He announced that the winds had changed and so they were changing the direction of takeoff. A little later he announced that there were 50 planes that were to take off before us. I really, really thought Wade misheard that, there couldn't possibly be 50 planes before us! But, he hadn't misheard. I started counting as planes would take off and fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later when the pilot announced that the winds had changed again and we were turning around to takeoff another way, but the good news was that there were now only 11 planes left to take off before us. We finally took off a little after we were supposed to have arrived in St. Louis! I slept the whole way and so did Jill. I'm not sure about Wade. So, we finally arrived and it was SO good to see the boys!!! They both grew a few inches this month! They were super excited to meet Jill and started trying to play with her and tickle her and get her to say their names. She of course had been woken up from a much needed good night's sleep and wasn't too into the commotion, but did OK. When we got home she perked up a little playing with the balloons the kids and my parents had decorated the house with. Then, about midnight here (9am the next day-24 hours since we left the hotel) we went to bed. She was so tired she fell asleep immediately, no crying or anything. The next day Wade made pancakes and sausage; the boys favorite breakfast. We pretty much just hung out the next three days. My mom came by, we played outside, I brought up a bookcase and some toys for her and set it up in the living room, etc. Ty taught her to climb up the fort and go down the slide; she loves that. I pushed her on the swing; she likes it too, but jumps down with no notice which scares me! The boys pick her up and swing her around until she's dizzy and falls down, then she says "up?" and they do it again, and again, and again, and again, 20 times if she wants! They've hardly gone downstairs this week, and they usually hang out there all the time because that's where all their stuff is! Saturday we went to my parents and she met their dog, a big Golden Retriever. She wasn't to thrilled about that. She pull her legs up while someone held her so the dog wouldn't lick her feet and she yelled "nyet" if the dog got to close. But she was OK sitting on my mom's lap with the dog close by, she just didn't really want to touch it. On Sunday we went to church and she had tons of fun saying "up" because anyone and everyone wanted to pick her up! Later that day we went to Ty's baseball practice where she and Jake and I played on the playground, then we all went to our friends' house to swim in their inground pool and have dinner. She like sitting on the step of the pool, but didn't want to go further at first. Little by little we coaxed her in and it was OK; then after awhile, she loved it. She even would get out and I'd say, "one, two, three, jump!" and she'd jump in to me! Then I'd hold her middle and she'd kick her legs to 'swim' to the other side, get out and jump in again! Monday started our week of doctor appointments. Monday we saw our pediatrician. I was so surprised to hear that she was in the 10th percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height! I had heard that orphans usually aren't on the chart when they first arrive in the country, and she was a premie baby too! He agreed with our going to an ENT and eye doctor and told us to also see an International Adoption Specialist that we know of from a workshop we went to. Tuesday we didn't have any doctor appointments, but Ty's new teacher came to visit. At our school the teachers make home visits to each child in their new class over the summer to get to know them, give parents the emergency contact forms, computer use forms, supply lists, etc. Monday night I had three of those visits to make. Anyway, Ty's teacher came over during the day, then Ty had a baseball game that night. On Wednesday we went to the ENT and she does have HUGE adenoids and HUGE tonsils. Both will come out on August 7th. But before that she needs to have a sedated CAT scan because of a hemangioma (not sure how to spell it). If you noticed in the pictures what looks like a blue vein or a bruise on the bridge of her nose, that's it. Since it's on the inside it can sometimes spread or something inside and the doctor wants to check it out. She did say that it's usually nothing. After that we grabbed lunch at McDonald's then the boys had piano lessons and then Ty had an allergist appointment. He had to do the back prick test thing again which I hate; it just seems like torture to poke someone, have their back swell up with huge itchy mosquito bite like bumps and not let them touch or scratch it!!! So for the second time he tested highly positive (3++ to 4+++) for every tree except Mulberry, every grass but one, three fall weeds, and a bunch of animals and dust mite things. So, we're going to start allergy shots because he's so extremely allergic to so many things. If they work he'll probably be a much more agreeable kid and do even better in school because he won't feel miserable in September, October, March, April and May! (over half of the school year!)Wednesday night I went on three more home visits! Thursday we had her eye appointment. According to the eye doctor, she is not cross eyed; it's called pseudostrabismus where her eye appears to cross, but it's really an illusion due to her large nose bridge. We're going to watch her after her adenoids are out and see if they still looked crossed after the swelling goes down some. He said to come back in November and he'd check her out again. That's good because I don't think I'd want to have two surgeries so close together right now. Thursday night I had two more home visits! Friday we didn't have any appointments until my home visit at 7pm!!! So we hung out at home until 3:15 when I drove to drop off Ty with a friend to take him to the Cardinals game! His baseball team went and they even got to walk on the field before the game!!! Today, Saturday, Jake had a 9am baseball game, Ty had an 11:30am baseball game, Ty and Wade had haircut appointments and then we had friends over! Tomorrow will be church again, then Jake's baseball pictures, Jake has a baseball game, and then Monday morning starts a week of soccer camp at Lutheran North which is about an hour drive for us, but the camp is well worth the drive. We usually have to leave at 7am to make it on time, but there are lots of people I like to sit and visit with while the boys participate in the camp and a number of them knew last summer about the adoption and are probably anticipating meeting Jill this summer! I'll continue home visits next week, then Wade's brothers are coming into town, we have two days of teachers meetings August 5th and 6th and then Jill has her surgery the 7th with a two week recovery. Whewww! We've been busy, and it looks like we will continue to be busy! But, all in all she's doing really well. She goes to bed easily about 8pm every night. She eats well, she's done some weird things like not eating watermelon one day, then eating a ton of it the next, or not wanting to eat off her own plate pointing at Wade's plate, then when Wade dumps her food on his plate-she eats it! Just stuff that has no rhyme or reason, but nothing big deal. I recently found out that most 2-3 year olds chew with their mouths open! That made me feel better; I just don't remember the boys ever doing that. And, I think it will be easier to teach her when the tonsils and adenoids are out and she can breathe. She does great with the potty as long as it's just pee, but we're still fighting the other using something called Miralax and still going only every five days! She says up, shoes, my, show (as in TV show), jump, more, nose, banana (well, nana), apple (actually bopple), no, book, fish, hello, and sit! Along with these she knows all of our names. She understands more than she can say; for example when I say, "put that back" she does! And today when I got her down from breakfast after two big bowls of Raisin Bran even though she wanted more and said, "come wash hands" she whipped her hands behind her back and shook her head no! So, it's really going well. The boys really help out a lot playing with her and keeping her content. They're exceptionally good with her! Hopefully I've covered all the bases from the flight to what we've been up to (why I haven't blogged for so long!) to doctor appointments, to what she's learned so far and how she's adapting and how the boys are adapting. If I think of anything else I'll try to get on and add it or write it down for the next time I have some time to blog again!

Last Day in Russia!

2008-07-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hello from McDonald's again! Did you know that in Russia you can get carrot sticks in your Happy Meal? And, I had a salad topped with shrimp! It took some coaxing to get Jill to eat a carrot, but once she did, she liked them and has eaten a bunch along with her chicken nuggets. Not terribly much to report today. After eating the hotel breakfast buffet, we came back up and started packing a little. We had plans to go to the zoo after the embassy appointment, but someone needed to use the toilet-but wouldn’t. She would sit on the floor and rock back and forth trying to hold it in, or she would walk around in circles holding her bottom with her hand and whining. But, if we put her on the toilet she’d scream and cry. This went on from 10am until we had to leave at 1pm, so we put a pull up on her and left. We knew she’d be uncomfortable until she went and so going to the zoo would not be a good idea. We almost missed our 2pm US Embassy interview. The driver was there right at one, but Mia was not. She came shortly after one from the airport with a family who just arrived for their first trip. She got in the van with us and we headed to another hotel to pick up a CHI mom and daughter going for their US Embassy appointment at the same time. About 5 minutes into the drive from our hotel to theirs we hit some construction traffic! We sat or inched along and finally got to the other hotel. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic getting from there to the embassy and we made it; 2:00 right on the dot! In the embassy were at least 10 other adoptive families! We met up with the New York, California and Texas families we met yesterday and met some new families from Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and another family from Texas. We got all of the paperwork squared away and got Jill’s passport back with her visa in it! We were driven back to the hotel and after about an hour of whining, rocking back and forth and walking in circles holding her bottom-she went! YAY! We were really hoping she’d do this before the flight. Now she’s a lot less cranky and has happily been playing with her doll that has the snap on clothes, her stacking cups and the cardboard cut outs that came with her meal on the Aeroflot flight. She’s pretending that the long rectangular piece is a brush for her hair, the littlest one that looks like a sailboat she’s pretending to be a hairclip and the big one must be make-up and the medium one a make-up brush because she swipes the medium one along the big one, then brushes it on her cheeks. She has watched me put on make-up everyday since last Saturday; it’s very cute to watch her imitate. We haven’t decided what’s in store for dinner, possibly McDonald’s again since we still have some packing to do and don’t want to be out too late. The driver is picking us up at 9am tomorrow for our 1pm flight. Wade thinks this is crazy, but I think it might be right on with about a 1 hour drive to the airport standing in line for them to rummage through all of our luggage, time to eat something, then time to go through security and board. My biggest fear is that the in flight video system won’t work again. On the way here they only worked for about the first two hours of the flight and then they went out. The family we met up with our first night in Moscow sent us an e-mail that they arrived home safely, but that the in flight video system didn’t work for their entire flight! We have her doll with the snap on clothes, stacking cups, cardboard pieces, two dolls, all of her board books, Play-Doh, Crayola Magic fingerpaints/paper, 2 coloring books, crayons and stickers packed for the flight, but we were hoping she’d spend some time quietly watching TV! I guess there’s always the laptop which will last about two hours. Well, thanks to all who have kept up reading my ramblings about our big adoption adventure! And another big thanks to all who have left comments or sent e-mails! My next post will be from HOME!

Sunny Day in Moscow

2008-07-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

We went nonstop today! First we enjoyed the excellent breakfast buffet that’s included with the cost of the hotel here, then we headed off for our 9am doctor’s appointment. While there we met a couple and their newly adopted three year old girl who are from Texas, another couple and their newly adopted 13 month old girl who are from New York and another couple with a newly adopted 13 month old girl who are from California! Jill’s appointment went fine; the only thing she didn’t like was when he looked in her ears. This made me think there may be something wrong with her ears, but he said they looked great! He did say that we need to see an ENT as soon as we get back to take care of her adenoids and tonsils. That’s why she can’t breathe! Ty had his adenoids out a few years ago, so we know just where to go! After the doctor’s visit we headed to the zoo! Mia had given us Metro directions; we followed them exactly and made it! This was trickier than our usual Metro outings because we had to change lines, but we did it! Actually, we had a little help. As they announced the stop for the zoo I said to Wade, “It’s the next one.” A lady overheard me and said, “Are you going to the zoo?” We told her yes and she said she was going that way and would show us where it was. That was very nice of her as there were two different ways out of the subway station and only one took you to the zoo. Also the zoo is a couple of blocks away from the station. So, we got to the zoo, took a few pictures and a little video outside, then went up to buy our tickets. There were a lot of people standing around looking through the gates, standing by the cashier booths, out front milling around, but there weren’t any people working at the cashier booths. There were workers inside the gates hosing down areas and sprucing things up, but the zoo did not appear to be open. I guess there wasn’t a sign up saying anything about them being closed because all sorts of Russian people were walking around looking as confused as we did! We decided to take a walk and look for something to eat, then come back and see if they had opened in the meantime. We saw a sign that said McDonald’s 1.5 km, so we headed in that direction. We ate at McDonalds then walked back to the zoo to find new people milling around the cashier booths looking confused. We also saw many adults walking away with some very disappointed looking children. We decided they must not be open today for one reason or another, so we headed back to the Metro station and figured out how to get to The Red Square. We took some pictures around St. Basil’s Cathedral, looked at the things vendors were selling around the square, and generally just strolled around taking in the sights. We went in GUM mall where no one I know could afford to buy anything, then went across from The Red Square to a normal mall. That was more fun to look through, although we still didn’t buy anything. Every store was either a clothing store, shoe store, or sold accessories like jewelry, hats, or purses. There were no household stores or Halmark type stores. We found that somewhat strange. It was only about 3:30 when we were pretty much finished looking around The Red Square area, so we got back on the Metro and went back to Arbat Street. We went back to a store we had been in yesterday, and I bought an amber necklace and earring set. Russia is famous for their amber. We also bought a small flag of Russia. I think I forgot to mention that we bought a handcarved chess set yesterday! Wade got a Euro 2008 T-shirt and a hat that says Russia yesterday, and today he bought a Hard Rock Café Moscow shirt after we ate dinner there. We split their huge plate of Nachos. Wade was so happy eating nachos and drinking iced tea-with ice! Jill ate an entire chicken fingers and fries kids meal with milk! As we headed back down the street to get to the Metro we ran into one of the couples we had met this morning at the doctor’s office; the ones from Texas! We chatted some more with them and found that we both have 2pm appointments at the American Embassy tomorrow! We told them our zoo story and said that we may try again tomorrow after our appointment. They asked if they could join us, so of course we said yes! So, now we’re back, Jill’s had her bath and is in bed, and we plan to sleep in tomorrow. Then, after the big breakfast buffet, we may look into the hotel pool before going to our 2pm Embassy appointment. After that we do hope to visit the zoo with the Texas family for the rest of the day and possibly join them for dinner. And then……..sleep, get up Wednesday, eat, go to the airport and begin our journey HOME!

Rainy Day in Moscow

2008-07-06T08:08:00.001-07:00

Picking up from where I left off yesterday afternoon…After I returned from McDonald’s, Jill was up from her nap. We decided to go looking for the German restaurant that others have recommended. Mia had told us that it was across the street past the Metro station. We walked past the Metro station which is a nice park-like area lined with stores and restaurants on either side. It was a nice walk, but none of the restaurants looked German, and none of the names per my ‘sounding them out’ sounded German at all. So, we gave up about the time it started getting windy and looked like it might rain opting to go back and eat in the hotel instead. Wade got the $18 club sandwich and fries and I got the $10 bowl of Borscht that was pretty much a ten dollar bowl of beef broth. The Borscht at the Horseshoe in Astrakhan had beef in it, chunks of potatoes, chunks of beets, and shredded cabbage, carrots and such; it was so good. This had some shredded vegetables in beef broth and that was it, very disappointing. After dinner we met up with another CHI couple. It turns out they are from Kansas City and they were both raised in the St. Louis area!!! What a small world! We chatted for a long time, then Wade went with them to the market to buy some bottled water while I put Jill to bed. Her bed here is not a crib like it was in The Korvet. It is actually a chair that pulls out like a pull-out couch and makes a twin bed. It’s the perfect size, but we were curious to find out if she would stay in it or get out whenever she wanted to. I helped her with pajamas, teeth brushing, and read her her favorite book; then I kissed her goodnight and patted her back a few times. She didn’t cry or fuss at all! I headed to the bathroom and soon heard her behind me. I told her ‘para spat’ (time to sleep) and ‘go back to bed’ motioning for her to go back. She Did! She went and climbed back into the bed and stayed there! This morning we met up with the KC couple for breakfast before the headed back home for their 10 day wait. We also went to the lobby to catch Mia before they all left to ask her for the name of the German restaurant. It’s something that starts with a K and sounds a little like kielbasa. While there the couple offered us one of their umbrellas since we didn’t bring one! How nice! Even though it was raining, we decided to head out to Arbat street (since we now had an umbrella) for some shopping. We met a couple that spoke English on the subway; the man was from Scotland and the woman from India. They were very nice. We got off at the same stop, but split up then. We didn’t go ‘up’ from our stop the same way my dad and I did on my first trip here, so we didn’t see the church that was my sign for which way to go to get to Arbat street. We walked around the block and still didn’t see it, so we asked someone who pointed us in the right direction. Finally, we found it! We did have a poncho that covered Jill and the stroller, I had my water-resistant jacket with a hood and Wade had his water-resistant jacket as well as the umbrella. The rain let up every now and then, and we had an enjoyable time strolling up and down both sides of the street going in and out of shops and looking at the various things the vendors in the middle were selling. We ate lunch at Sbarro’s Pizza. It was OK; it would have been much better if it had been hot, but it was barely even warm. I’m also not sure if it had any sauce on it. We found a closer Metro station right at the end of Arbat street and headed down. Unfortunately, we found out the hard way that it was a different line. We figured this out only two stops in, got off, headed back two stops the other way and asked someone which way to go. She directed us to go one more stop and then change lines. We went one more stop, but weren’t sure how to change lines. We knew we needed the red #1, but were unsure of where that was. A man who spoke some English could tell we were trying to figure something out and stopped and asked us where we were wanting to go. We told him and he pointed us in the right direction, how nice!!! Then we got on and rode back to the hotel! So, in all of this Jill missed her nap. She seems to be doing okay, though, she was going strong until dinner, then had a few fits during dinner because we don’t like her to hold onto the prong end of the fork after each bite getting her hand all yucky, but for the most part she was fine. We did find the “German” restaurant and it was FANTASTIC! Wade had some kind of German beef and mutton sausage with sauerkraut (that he didn’t eat) and French fries, I had beef stroganoff with mashed potatoes, green beans and a salad. Jill ate a ton again! After having this HUGE piece of pizza and a banana this afternoon, she ate most of the tomatoes from my salad, about a third of my beef stroganoff with beef and mushrooms, an ice cream scoop size of mashed potatoes, and LOTS and LOTS of fresh green beans! Tomorrow is her doctor visit at 9am. Our American Embassy Interview is in the afternoon on Tuesday, then, we’ll head to the airport Wednesday morning; we’re very close!!!

Free Photos courtesy of McDonalds!!!!!

2008-07-05T03:52:00.001-07:00

Reporting From Moscow!

2008-07-05T03:51:00.000-07:00

Hello from Moscow!!! We found out last night when Lena dropped off Jill’s passport and other necessary documents that Voloya wouldn’t be picking us up until 6:20am! Yay! One extra hour of sleep! So, since we were pretty well packed last night, we got up this morning, got ready, each ate a banana to tide us over until the flight served breakfast, and headed to the airport. Volyoa was so nice helping us with our bags, cutting into a different line and somehow getting us up front where we got our boarding passes and checked our bags. Then he walked us through to the security area, made sure we knew where to go and what to do and said goodbye! We were worried about not having a translator with us, but Voloya was just as good, or better (it looked like he “knew people” there)! When it was time to board we could see the plane from the waiting area; it was about 150 yards away. Wade figured we’d walk right up to the plane, but I warned him that we’d probably have to board a bus; that’s just how they do it here. Sure enough, I was righ.We spent 10 minutes boarding everyone on flight and all of their carry-ons onto a bus, then drove about 1 minute over to the plane, then spent 10 minutes getting everyone and all of their carry-ons off of the bus to stand in line to go up the steps to board the plane. Luckily they let families with children board first, and we walked right up and got situated without a crowd. The flight was uneventful. Wade played with the doll making it jump up and kiss Jill on her cheek so that she would laugh for about ½ hour, then it was time for breakfast. The adult breakfast was a ½ piece of ham, a piece of something that looked like fatty turkey, two pieces of Swiss cheese, one pecan, ½ cucumber, ¼ tomato, ½ piece of bread, a dinner roll, and a brownie. We also each had a glass of orange juice and cup of coffee. Now, Jill got the “kids meal”. Her meal consisted of a vanilla yogurt, a strawberry yogurt, ½ piece of bread, a dinner roll, a whole green apple, a juice box and a pastry that was like a small pie crust filled with a chocolate icing type treat. It also had a cardboard punch out thing to play with. After lunch she watched Sesame Street on the laptop, and then we were heading down! She whined a little on the way down; we thought she might have been queasy or that her ears were hurting, but all in all she did OK. We landed, waited about 15 minutes for a bus to come to drive us to the terminal, waited another 10 or 15 minutes to get our luggage, then met up with our Moscow translator, Mia, who helped us with our bags. The driver, Eugene, got us to the hotel Holiday Inn Solkoniki where Mia and I filled out a small stack of paperwork for the Embassy. After the paperwork was out of the way, Mia and Wade headed across the street to McDonald’s. Jill and I waited here until Dada brought back two BigMacs, two orders of fries, two Cokes (WITH ICE!), and one cheeseburger. She SCARFED down the entire cheeseburger and then ate a handful of fries! The boys have some competition in their McDonald’s eating now. This room has one double bed and a chair that turns into a twin bed. So, I changed the chair into a bed for her nap. She really didn’t want to sleep, but really only cried about 5-10 minutes while I patted her back before she drifted off. Lucky for us she’s a very sound sleeper because a minute after she fell asleep we had some kind of construction noise going on. It was LOUD, but she slept right through it and is still asleep now. I want to say CONGRATULATIONS to my cousin Adam and his beautiful bride Jennifer who are getting married today! I so wish we could be there, we were so close to being back in time! Have a wonderful day and we’ll try to catch up with you the next time you’re in town!

Days 7 and 8

2008-07-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

We ate our last breakfast here this morning! 3 hot dogs each, peas, swiss cheese, bread, butter, yogurt, juice, and coffee. Jill just woke up from her last nap here! Pretty soon we'll go have our last walk to dinner. We have plans to go to the "French Restaurant", La Vanille, for the last time. Last night we visited our other favorite dining establishment "The Chicken Hips Restaurant", Chocolate (Hut?), for the last time. The girl who waits on us there speaks quite good English, so we told her we were leaving town soon and that this was our last visit and we thanked her so much for being so friendly and helpful through our trip. I know we ate there at least 7 times. We're pretty much packed, except for the toys that Wade keeps packing and then I keep getting back out so Jill has something to play with the rest of today! We have to leave at 5:30 am tomorrow morning and will not have a translator with us! Voloya, the driveer will pick us up and take us to the airport. Hopefully he will help with our luggage, but once in the airport we're on our own! I hope I remember how to maneuver my way around the place; I think I will as it usually 'all comes back to me' when I see it. We take off at 7:30. We hope Jill will watch an episode of Sesame Street for half of the flight, then there's a meal served, that will take about 10-15 minutes, which leaves about 45 minutes to fill with looking at her photo album and other books. I think it will go fine, really. We're excited to meet up with the other Americans in Moscow, we're excited to have a McDonald's Big Mac!, Wade's excited to see The Red Square/St. Basil's etc. and shop on Arbot street, since he hasn't yet had a chance to explore Moscow. Jill has a doctor's appointment one of the days there, probably Monday. I hope the doctor can prescribe something for the rash on the creases inside her elbows. She's scratched the one side so much that is has bled and is now scabbed over. She has a little of the same rash on a crease in her neck too. Maybe the doctor can tell us if she has bronchitis or something that makes her sound like Darth Vader. Her nose is a tiny bit stuffy, but the sounds she makes with her mouth open is awful! I kind of really hope that she is sick with something; that way it can be cured instead of finding out that that's just the way she's always going to sound!

Yesterday she finally paid attention to the other doll we brought. This one's not a baby, it's a girl with red hair and an all stuffed material, about the same size as the baby doll "Lala". She would yell, "Nyet!" and wanted nothing to do with it this entire week, but all of a sudden yesterday she pulled it out. She started singing with it, the only word I could catch was 'lala', she took it's jacket off and put it back on and made it dance. She used some of the big Legos and made a sort of car for it. Then she took all her blocks out of the dump truck and put the girl in it! She rolled it back and forth like a stroller, and pushed her around the room talking to her! Until then she had never moved the truck, she just used it to put things in and out, so it was so cute to see her using it as a stroller. Today I took "Baby Lala" out of her bed where it usually stays and she used both dolls in the imaginary stroller. She also wrapped "Baby Lala" up in a blanket and rocked her. Very cute. Oh-speaking of very cute, I can't believe I didn't take my camera to the grocery store yesterday! I mean, really, why would you need a camera at the grocery store? Well, if the grocery store has cute little child sized carts you do! Jill pushed the cute little child sized cart around and we filled it up with bananas, a bottle of Pepsi, a bag of Lays Crab flavored chips, a bag of Lays Bacon flavored chips, (the tiny vending machine sized ones) and some animal cracker type cookies. She was SO cute pushing the cart around. She kept rearranging the food in it whenever Wade and I would stop and stand there discussing what else we needed to get. But, she almost cried when we put the food up on the shelf to be checked out. We showed her the food in the bag that Dada was carrying, but once she wasn't pushing the food in the cart, she was in a bad mood. It was a little difficult getting her to walk back (we didn't take the stroller). Then once back here she didn't want to eat lunch! Of course when it came down to lunch or nap, she ate.

I guess that's it for now. Everything is going so well now! I kind of feel bad about posting all the "bad" stuff a few days ago now that it's going so well, but then again, I think it needed to be said for anyone out there who is reading this and soon to adopt a three or four year old. I searched and searched the blogs through this whole process looking for information on what it would be like adopting a three and a half year old and I couldn't find much of anything! CHI only had one family on their reference list that adopted a three year old girl; I e-mailed them, but didn't hear back. I really wanted to know what to expect as to if they're really potty trained, what I may need to know about eating issues, sleeping issues, etc. but I just had to jump in and do it find out. Hopefully someone out there is contemplating or even in the process of adopting a child of this age and they will know exactly what kinds of things to expect because I didn't hold back information, I didn't just put the good stuff, (of which there is a lot of 'good stuff'!) I put it all and I hope that it helps someone! If anyone out there needs to know more they are very welcome to e-mail us! Just leave a comment on the blog with your e-mail, we won't publish your comment (we have it set up that we can choose which comments to publish) and then we can e-mail back and forth about anything you want to know!

We hope to be able to update the blog at the McDonald's across the street for our hotel in Moscow. Then, once we're home I'll try to update here and there as most people who have completed their adoptions tend to do! Pray for a safe flight to Moscow for the three of us and for a peaceful one on Jill's part, that she is not scared and that the time passes quickly!

Next post.....Moscow!!!

The Rest of Day 6

2008-07-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING....

#1 no thumb sucking attempts for over 24 hours
#2 no regurgitating food for over 24 hours
#3 goes to bed without complaint (naps and nighttime)
#4 loves to brush her teeth
#5 TELLS us when she has to go potty and goes on a regular basis!

I really can't believe the bedtime thing, I mean she gives us hugs and kisses, she holds her arms up for Wade to put her in the bed, then she lays down and after a little while-she's out! No crying, whining, we don't even need to pat her back anymore! We do stay close by and I think she knows we're there, but that's it!

I think we finally have a routine, and that really helps. She gets up about 8, calls out "Mama" so we know she's up, goes potty, washes her hands (which she loves!), plays for awhile while we get ready, we get her ready, we go down the hall to eat, she eats a lot (1 and a half hot dogs, a yogurt, a piece of bread and a piece of cheese for breakfast today) and is well behaved for meals (still working on the NOISE of eating with her mouth open), we come back to the room to play more,potty a few times, have lunch (ham and cheese sandwich, banana, milk, 1/2 granola bar with dried fruits and nuts in it today), go down for a nap with no complaints, sleep for two hours!, go potty, play while we get ready to walk to dinner, get her ready to walk to dinner, walk about 30 to 40 minutes to a restaurant, eat, she's very well behaved at the restaurant looking at her photo album or playing with the toy animals we bring (had a chicken salad off the children's menu tonight-basically shredded chicken and cucumbers), walk 30 minutes to an hour back depending on how much of it we let her walk and how much of it we push her in the stroller, play, potty, bath, brush teeth, watch a short show (Little Einsteins tonight), then bed with no complaints!

I almost hate to go to Moscow now because it will mess up the schedule and things will be new again and I'm not sure how it will go. Then, I'm sure once we're home, we'll go through some problems again until she gets used to that!

New things for today...
...using the Crayola Color Magic Finger Paints that only show on their special paper. I painted on a piece and she painted on another piece, and then she carried them around all day. She rolled them up and used them as drumsticks, she unrolled them and pretended to read them, they entertained her for a large part of the day.
....PlayDoh! She liked this! We rolled it out with one of the cylinder building blocks and then stamped it with one of the stacking cups (they have an animal on the bottom of each cup) to see what animal it would make. Then she broke it up and put pieces into the cups, then she took a long rectangular building block and pretended to stir the playdoh in the cup and dump it into a new cup like she was cooking or something! I was rolling out strips and weaving them while she played 'baking'. When I finished, I held it up for Wade to see and she went wild! Yay!! Yay, Mama!!! she yelled and clapped! She seemed to have a name for what I had made and pointed and called it something (can't remember what)over and over. I was very surprised at her reaction, but it was very nice Playdoh weaving if I say so myself!
....holds the yogurt cup and spoon herself; I had been feeding her the yogurt, it seems so messy, but today we let her try it herself. We only had to remind her once to hold the cup with her right hand while using the spoon in her left (yes, we're about positive that she is left handed). We also thought she might take too big of bites, but for the most part she didn't
....Kind of 'played along' with Little Einstiens, patting and clapping and raising her arms when they said too.
....says, "Mama, kiki" and motions with her hand for me to follow her when she needs to go to the bathroom. We've now gone from holding it 20 hours to going every 10 minutes though. We think she's smart enough to have figured out that since we've given her a cookie every time she's gone, that if she goes a lot, she'll get a lot of cookies! So, now we're not giving her a cookie every time-it has to be about an hour after the last time to get the cookie.

Hmmm...I'm sure there's more, but nothing else is popping into my mind.

I do wish she'd learn my name though! Sometimes I'm Mama, but about half the time I'm Papa, or a word I don't recognize. But, Dada is always Dada. In the pictures I'll point to Wade and she'll say 'Dada', I'll point to her and she says some word that means 'boys'and I'll point to me and she usually says, 'papa'. So we just keep correcting her and saying 'Mama'. She follows Wade around everywhere calling Dada. She follows him around holding his shoes if she wants to go out, stacks books on top of him while he's watching TV, jumps in front of him and shouts 'boo!', etc. He's really been out-of-this-world-great with her. I knew he'd be good with her, but he's been 10 times as great with her as I even thought he'd be!!!

AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!!!

Day 5/Half of Day 6

2008-07-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Wade's has said several times on this trip that his worst nightmare would be if we were walking to or from somewhere and it started to pour down rain. Well, yesterday we walked to the horseshoe, over by the Azimut, for lunch. About halfway back it began to pour!!! Wade ran pushing the stroller and I ran just behind them for about 1/2 a mile in the rain. She cried about the last 1/4 mile. We were soaked! Like, we could wring out our clothes soaked! She was shivering, wet, and cold when we got back. We immediately got her out of her soaking wet dress and into comfy pajamas, Wade wrapped her in two blankets and held her on the couch until she fell asleep.
Also yesterday, we spent our entire morning waiting for her to use the bathroom. She woke up dry! This was amazing to us because she hadn't gone since 3pm the day before and she had had a big bowl of chicken and potato soup for dinner, along with a good amount of water and some other food. We wanted to wait until she went before going to breakfast because we didn't want her to have an accident in the resaurant. Well, breakfast time came and went (8am-10am)and she still refused to go, so we ate some stuff we had in the room. Finally, at 11am, she motioned for us to come with her to the bathroom, held her arms up wanting us to lift her onto the toilet, and went! So 3pm-11am=20 hours. Wade says she has a bladder of steel! So we headed to lunch after this, and this is where the rain story comes in. The strange thing is that after that morning incident, she now loves to go on the potty! She went on her own three times after her nap! And, she was dry again this morning and walked right in there and went right away. And, she went just a minute ago about an hour after breakfast! So, now that that seems pretty well taken care of we're working on zakreetya rot (close your mouth) a little more. If she concentrates she can do it and smiles and points to her mouth to show us, "See, my mouth is closed!" She can do it for about 6 seconds now. Then back to the mouth hanging open with the 'Darth Vader' sound, and the drooling. So, at least she listens when we tell her to close it and she tries, so I'm sure it will get less and less as the weeks go on.
So, now we're just playing, reading books, doing puzzle cards, etc. all while reminding her to keep her mouth closed.
We plan to go to the French Restaurant for the second to last time for dinner tonight. You know we're close when we have the rest of our meals planned out; French Restaurant tonight, Chocolate Restaurant tomorrow night, then the French Restaurant Friday, then we leave early Saturday. We're so excited to know that there will be other Americans in Moscow when we will be there. One couple is going home for their ten day wait and will be in the hotel with us on Saturday. Another mom with her daughter will be in Moscow, but in a different hotel, the same days we will be! We've e-mailed each other and hope to be able to get together while there.

Day 4

2008-06-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-29T10:29:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-27T02:59:00.000-07:00

Bye Bye Baby House!

2008-06-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2008-06-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-12T02:43:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-06-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

(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.

Travel Dates

2008-05-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I said I'd let everyone know when we had travel dates, and we do! We are leaving on Monday June 9th. That's the only day that's really, really set. We do have tickets to return on July 12th, but they said they were being 'generous' in the dates and that it could be earlier. They'd rather set the date later and have us be pleasantly surprised to return earlier than have us plan on returning earlier and have to stay a few days longer. I had calculated out that we would return on July 9th, so maybe that will happen. I'll be updating daily while in Astrakhan, so stay tuned!

COURT DATE!

2008-05-13T19:23:00.001-07:00

Hello!
We have a court date,
and time!
Monday, June 16, 2008 at 2:30pm Astrakhan time!

We do not yet know our exact dates of travel. If we had to estimate the question on everyone's mind, "When will you get back with her?" we would say; well, there's a 10 day mandatory waiting period after all court proceedings, so we should pick her up on Thursday, June 26, then it takes 7 days to process her passport, that takes us to July 3rd. You always get the passports in the evening, so we couldn't fly to Moscow until the morning of July 4th. Now, that's a Friday and we have to have a medical appointment for her in Moscow, so that probably couldn't be until Monday the 7th, I believe we also turn in some paperwork to the American Embassy that day as well. Then, we have an American Embassy interview the next day, so that would be July 8th, then I suppose we could fly home July 9th. This is just how our representative and interpreter Galina and Vica told us to calculate it, but we'll know for sure soon, and when we do I'll be sure to post it right here!

Last Day in Russia

2008-05-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

OK, I know I've been home two and a half weeks and so this isn't very timely, but I did still want to share our experiences on Arbat Street our last day in Russia. It was such a fun evening! Even though we didn't have a lot of time (we had flown from Astrakhan that morning and didn't get to the hotel until about 3pm) we ate at the McDonald's next to the hotel, then headed across the street to the Metro Station. We had to ride farther than when we went to Red Square earlier in the week, but we figured it out! We bought paintings of Russia from a lady vendor on the street, beautiful paintings! We also bought some Matroishka dolls from a man who looks like Santa. My dad got ones that looked like Father Frost, the Snow Maiden, etc. and I got a large traditional and a smaller traditional set. The man lets you take his picture if you buy something, so we each had our picture taken with him. In the picture he is holding one he painted that looks just like himself! We shopped in a bunch of stores along the street and looked at all the merchandise the vendors were selling on the street. I found the coolest things for my boys! There was a booth selling soccer uniforms from Russian professional soccer teams! I bought them each a red uniform. We were told that team was currently in second place and that the two different players shirts he gave me were both 'very good players'. I had no way of knowing if he was just telling us that or if it was true, but I didn't really care because they looked cool and I knew the boys would love them. Anyway, when we got home the boys and I looked up the players on the internet and found they are very good players! We printed off all sorts of information on them, a team picture, and an individual picture of each, and we found YouTube clips on them to watch! They LOVED it! They took the jerseys and information along with sister's picture and some rubles to show their class. Also on Arbot Street were several street performers. Most of them were really good. There were some guys singing apparently some comedy type skit/song because everyone gathered around was laughing and laughing; I filmed them for awhile. There was another group not on that street, but on our way back to the subway that was SO good! They had keyboard, drums, guitar, singing. I play that video clip over and over, it's such a catchy tune. I hope when we go back they are there as I'd like to find out if they have CDs for sale; I would so buy one from them. We ate at Hard Rock Cafe there. They were the first, well-only, place that had ICE for our drinks!!! The server asked when I ordered a Coke if I wanted ice, so I enthusiastically answered YES! (If you didn't already know, they don't use ice in Russia. Sometimes the soda is cold, but never on ice. Sometimes it's not even cold.)My dad and I decided that if you were in Moscow and only had time to go to one place; either the Red Square or Arbot Street, it would be a tough call. Red Square is full of history and going in St. Basil's was great, but Arbot Street was just FUN! So, if you go, try your hardest to get to both places!

Groundhog Day

2008-04-25T10:57:00.001-07:00

My dad has been referring to each day as Groundhog Day, from the movie, because every day is so much like the day before. We get up at 7, get ready, go eat at 8, always the same food: scrambled eggs and potatoes with a strawberry danish thing, orange juice and coffee for me. Then we go back to the room to make sure we have everything for the morning visit. Next we leave for the orphanage at 10:00, then visit until her lunch at noon, come back, walk to lunch, walk around town, go back to the room and make sure we have everything ready for our afternoon visit, meet the driver at 4pm, go to our afternoon visit, visit until her dinner at 6, come back to the hotel and meet Mandy and Catherine in the lobby, walk to dinner, dinner here takes forever; about 2 hours, walk back, double check that we'll all meet up again at 8am tomorrow for breakfast, say goodbye, then I get online, update the blog, check e-mails and see if anyone is on IM. Then I go to bed about midnight and get up at 7 and do it all over again! But.....tomorrow we're getting up early to get to breakfast early to leave at 8:30 for the airport! Tomorrow mid-morning we'll be in Moscow again. We plan to go to Arbat Street which is famous for souvenir shopping.
We were inside for both visits today because it rained this morning. I think we could have gone out for the second visit because it had stopped raining and it was beautiful, but I suppose they thought it was too muddy, too damp, too chilly, too windy, or too something else. Anyone who has visited these orphanages will know what I mean by that.
Anyway, I can tell she enjoys being outside more than inside. She's so much more calm outside, and happier, but we did OK in the playroom. Before they brought her in I noticed the piano was open and there was a book of music opened up. I asked if I could play it and Vica and Galina said yes. I played the song the page was open to. They thought she would like it if I played it for her when she came in, so I did. She did like it, then she sat on my lap and played a little herself. She motioned for me to give her one of the maracas on top of the piano then when I gave it to her she played along with the piano. After a while she started to hit the piano with the maraca, and we had to tell her Nyet. I tried to get her interested in something else, but she kept going back to the piano. Eventually she got into the crayons instead. Mandy loaned us a pair of her son's size 3T jeans and a shirt to try on her to estimate her size. When she saw those jeans she got SO excited and immediately began to take her shoes off and pull those jeans on. They fit great (over a pair of tights and a pair of crocheted leggings)! The length was only a teensy bit long, and the waist was adjustable, so it worked. So I was right when I had guessed earlier in the week that she's a solid 3T who may wear 4T by the fall. She also let us measure her height which was 39inches. When it was time to go I had to take the jeans back to return them to Mandy, but she did NOT want to take those jeans off. It took both Vica and me to get them off of her through a pretty big tantrum. But afterwards I held her and she held onto me and quieted down and was fine.
So, on the second visit I wanted to measure her foot by tracing it onto a large piece of paper I had brought. She definitely didn't want us to take her shoes off. She also wouldn't let us trace her foot with her shoe on! So my dad traced my foot with my shoe on, then he traced my foot with my shoe off; she still wanted no part of this! Then he traced my hand. We tried to coax her into letting us trace her hand, but nyet. Then we traced the stuffed monkey's hand. That she thought was OK, she then picked up the monkey's other hand and wanted us to trace that. Then we traced one of the monkey's feet, and she picked up the monkey's other foot and wanted us to trace that. Then...she let us trace her hand! (as a fist, around her knuckles) then, she let us trace her foot with the shoe on. Then........she let us trace her foot with her shoe off!!! She whimpered and whined about it like she was kind of scared, but we did it, put the shoe quickly back on and then she sat in my lap and held on tight. We rocked and sat quietly for awhile until she got over the 'trauma' of having her shoe off and went back to playing. So, now we can shop for shoes!!!
She was still trying to get away with playing the piano the second visit today. The caretaker said, "She does not act in this way in the group!" "She must be getting spoiled already!" Vica said she did notice that if Vica or Galena tell her to do, or to not do something she does not listen, but when one of the caretakers tells her to do or not do something, it only takes one time. So, it sounds like she does listen well when she knows who the authority figure is. Now we just have to get it through to her that Wade and I are the authority figures and we'll be set!

Yet Another Good Day!

2008-04-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

I could probably title each blog, Another Good Day! Today we spent a lot of time reading books! She didn't bring the coloring book out with her today, (Both visits were outside again, yay!) but dug through to find the rainbow book, the lift the flap book, the doggie (sabaka) book and the photo book I made for her. Toward the end of the second visit she was really into the photo book. Vica pointed to the pictures and explained them to her. Then Vica would tell her 'find Mama', 'find Papa', 'find Dedushkya', find 'Babushka', 'find brat(something)' for Mommy, Daddy, Pah, Grandma, and her brothers. And....she did! She'd flip through and find us and point and say the words! (Russian words). Vica said she was impressed because she's never said those words before; at least not Grandma, Grandpa, or brothers and she said them pretty well! At the very end she started saying it in a sentence and patting her chest as she said it, like 'my Mama' 'my Papa'. Today she didn't want to leave. She yelled, "Nyet, Nyet," a lot and pulled back away from them. She did that a little on the second visit until she was told it was time to eat, then she happily said, "Paka" and walked away to dinner. She always wants me to hold her. If I'm not, she puts her arms up to ask me to. If I don't want to (she gets heavy) I squat down to her level, talk to her, give a hug, etc. This morning when I did that, she tapped on my knee to make me stand up. When I stood up she put her arms out to be picked up, tricky. But I fell for it again in the afternoon when she tapped on my knee and I didn't get up, she motioned with her fingers to me kind of like a "come here" motion with her hand, so...I got up, and then she put her arms up to be picked up again. When I don't pick her up she throws a little Nyet Nyet tantrum. No tears, just she'd mad at me.
Before the morning visit we went to a material store. We bought some material and lace in hopes that my mom can find a pattern for a traditional dress, she can make it out of material that came from Russia!
Inbetween visits we walked to the Kremlin and went in the church there. We saw the military practicing for something, they were marching around. We then walked to a mall. This Sunday is Easter here, so we bought some Easter cakes; one for Galina, one for Vica and one for ourselves! We haven't had it yet, so we'll let you know later if it is good.
That's about it for today. After the afternoon visit we walked to the French restaurant with Mandy and Catherine, now we're back! So, until tomorrow....

Another Good Day!

2008-04-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

We had another good day! First off, great weather again, so we got to go outside for our first visit. That made 3 in a row outside! We went for a walk around the building. I had to learn the word 'walk' in Russian because she wants me to carry her and she's SO heavy! But when I tell her to walk, she takes my hand and stops asking to be picked up. She colored some; yes she came to me carrying the coloring book again. She played with her doll, the ring toss, pretty much played a little with each thing I had brought. I showed her the little photo album I had made for her. She really liked it; flipped through it over and over, then, as usual, put it back in the backpack when she was finished.
The visit started earlier than usual today, so it ended earlier than usual today, so we had more time to do things inbetween visits. The two other moms and one little boy went with us to Banana Mama, a store similar to Babies R Us. I bought a Russian Nursery Rhyme/Fairy tale book (made for younger kids) and a fairy tale book (for a little older kids) by Pushkin, a famous Russian writer (think Hans Christian Anderson). I also picked up a Disney princess book all in Russian that says "I am a Princess" in Russian on the cover. Inside it has places to put age, height, weight, handprints, pictures, etc. It's SO cool! It's like a baby book for an older child AND written in her native language! I LOVE it! I also got these alphabet cards, big, sturdy cards with one letter of the Cryllic alphabet on each card, decorated with something that starts with that letter. I'm going to get a little ledge like shelf to put the letters of her Russian name on to display in her room. My dad got Cryllic alphabet blocks, a cute crocheted pink hat, and a book about Yellow Lab puppies. I would have liked to look longer, but little boy needed to go back to the hotel for a nap. Maybe we'll go again sometime.
We went to the grocery store for lunch. We bought American cheese slices (packaged, just like we'd get at home), a box of crackers, a tangerine, a Coke, a Pepsi, and a bag of sunflower seeds, all for 5 American dollars! Then we walked to this outdoor market where vendors were selling produce, fish, meat, cheese, eggs, candy, clothing, books, etc. It was like a flea market with each booth selling its own thing. We took pictures of all the raw meat hanging around, and fish, we bought some candy. The lady was so nice and helpful and picked out some she thought we'd like.
At 4:00 we went for the afternoon visit. We opted to stay inside this time. I think she spent an hour of the hour and a half visit playing with these puzzle cards I had brought along. She like to take each one out and look at it, then put each one back in. The first time she had trouble putting them back in, so I held the bag for her. Every once in a while I'd shake the bag so the pieces would fit right in the bag. When we finished she dumped them all out, looked at them a little, then started to pick them up and put them in the bag one by one, shaking the bag each time, just like I had!! She wouldn't share with me or my dad, so we got out some other puzzle cards. They are very similar, but a tiny bit bigger and of animals instead of everyday objects; they're also more cartoon like and the ones she was playing with were photographs. She grabbed these from us, and we let her, they got all mixed up and then....I suppose she noticed they were different because she took a few out and put them in a different pile. She continued to look at each one and when she found one that didn't belong tossed it into the other pile! I was really amazed by that. My dad tried to sneak one of the animal cards back into her pile, but she saw him and yelled, "Nyet!" and threw it back into the animal pile.
Oh, another funny thing she did during the first visit... Galina said something to her, then she ran and put the coloring book back in the backpack! I was amazed, I asked the translator, Vica, what Galina said to get her to finally, after two days, put the book back. She said, "Galina asked if she could see the book, so she ran and put it in there probably so Galina wouldn't be able to take it." When Galina went to talk to some other people, she ran and got it back out again and never let it go. She still has it! Oh, she's so T. They will get along super well, I can tell!
We also let her listen to my dad's ipod today to the Russian children's songs he downloaded. She liked them. She didn't sing along, but she did say an animal name or two during Old McDonald, and she looked at her hands during Simon Says when they said to clap your hands. She probably would have clapped if she hadn't been holding onto the coloring book.
The first day we met, she cried both times she left me; yesterday she didn't cry, but today, she whined and sorta cried/complained, tried to run back to me. I'll feel so bad leaving her after Friday. I think by then she'll be expecting me to come back Saturday and I won't, for like a month or even two!
For dinner we went back to the French restaurant we went to our first night here. It was really good again, and inexpensive too. We got dessert this time too! And now it's Update the Blog time! Then it's bedtime. Tomorrow we visit early again so we're going to try to go to the big mall between visits with our friend Catherine who is here waiting out the 10 days before picking up her new son Monday!
Bye for now!

I Guess It's Official!

2008-04-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

First of today was a beautiful day in Astrakhan! And, lucky for us, the caretakers in the orphanage let us take advantage of it by letting us play with her outside! She was much calmer today, which was nice. She played on some of the play equipment, walked on a concrete 'balance beam' jumping off each time she came to the end of it, went for several walks around the building holding hands with me, sat on the ground and colored in her coloring book, played with the blocks I had brought, rocked the baby doll, etc.
We noticed how very concerned she was that her hat stay over her ears at all times, so on the second visit of the day when she got the baby doll out of my backpack she kept pulling down on the doll's hat to get it to cover its ears. She eventually pulled enough that the seam to hold the cuff of the hat up unattached and she could fold it down over the doll's ears. That made her very happy.
I had planned on giving her that doll today, but she kept putting it back in the backpack. In fact everything she gets out, gets immediately put away when she's finished, that is all but the coloring book. She loves the coloring book! Yesterday she colored in it a little, then just looked through it flipping the pages over and over start to finish, then back to start again. Today she did the same thing. She carried it with her on our walks, she held it while holding the baby doll, and only put it down if she was going to flip through it again. When it was time to go I tried to get her to put it in the backpack, she just wouldn't. At one point she even said, "Nyet!" to me and turned herself around holding the book to her chest. So....I let her keep it. Am I spoiling her already? I had the translator ask if she could bring it with her when we play again tomorrow in case she wants to color and they told me that yes, that would be OK.
When we first got to the orphanage this morning the director was chatting with our translator while we waited for her to be brought out. I found out from the translator that Sister was telling everyone in her group last night, "I have a Mama!" in a tone of voice that sounds like 'I have a Mama and you don't!" She reminds me of someone in our family. If you know us, you'll likely know who.
Galina and Vica from CHI took us to The Horseshoe for lunch. Oh my goodness, every meal I have here is better than the last! For lunch I had salad, borscht, (SO good and Vica is going to send me her recipe!) goulash (beef stroganoff in America, but a thinner sauce and oh, the best, best, best ever!) and blinis topped with (most likely homemade) ice cream and fresh berries. Oh, and freshly squeezed lemonade!!! WOW! Then we went back to either Camelot or Kreme Cafe (can't remember) for dinner with two other moms and one son. My dad had the turkey kabob and I had shrimp kabob. And for the second day in a row, the best banana cheesecake ever!
Tomorrow we are being picked up at 9:45 to go to the orphanage; that's a little earlier than usual, so maybe with more time inbetween visits we can do some more souvenir shopping. We hit one store today and each bought a few things, but really want to explore a little more and not buy everything from just one shop.
One last thing, I signed the 'Intent to Adopt' form today, so I guess it's official!

It's a Girl!

2008-04-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

It's now Tuesday morning here, so I'll take some time to try to recap yesterday for everyone...
We didn't know what time our Ministry of Education appointment was until Vica (our translator) called at about 9:15 and asked if we could be ready by 10:10 for an 11:00 appt. At the MOE, my dad had to stay in the hall, I went in with Galina and Vica. I was asked why Wade wasn't here, what age child we were requesting and why we were requesting that age. I was a little nervous when she seemed to want a paper explaining Wade's absence, all I thought I needed was the Power of Attorney from him which I had. But, she eventually let it go and pulled out the information for our referral. She is in the age range we requested, her information given to me there was great and then I cried when I saw her picture on the screen! I composed myself, well until I saw my dad again who must've thought something was wrong, I had to get out "happy cry" so he'd understand. It was just like how I cried when I saw Ty's ultrasound picture! We rode to a couple places to get the permission to visit the child paper notarized, then went to the orphanage. There I met with three doctors; medical, teacher type, and social worker. I got A LOT of information and it was hard to get it all down and decide what I wanted to ask because halfway through they brought her out! She ran to Galina who told her to go see Mama and pointed to me (time to cry again) and she ran right to me and sat on my lap while I took notes! She loved the fish tank and kept pointing to it and saying the Russian for fish and big (It was a BIG fish, a catfish I think!) They told me some things that worried me at first, but from what I hear, it's typical to have stuff on the reports that scare American parents. But after meeting with her the two times yesterday I don't think we have anything to worry about. She is SO smart!!! I did get to send a picture to Wade and discuss everything with him so we could make a final decision to fill out the petition to adopt. I told him that Dad and I could probably list 20 things she did yesterday to make us say, "she's so smart!" so I tried; I got to 18, it was really late though, I bet if I tried again today I could get to 20! We're leaving in about a 1/2 hour to see her again, and will likely go again late afternoon-after her nap and snack. She is full of energy, loves to play, can throw and catch a ball!, has TONS of personality, hugs, kisses, is not shy; she'll fit right in with those boys of ours! Until next time.....

P.S. Hey 5th grade! I had SO MUCH FUN! Instant Messaging with you guys during computer class yesterday! I wanted to do it again during computers on Wed, but it just hit me that you're all off school Wed-Fri! So, enjoy your break, check the blog often, and e-mail me any questions you have to my school e-mail. Love, Mrs. W

Photos of Moscow

2008-04-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Hi! Mrs. K's first grade! Love, Flat J.

GUM mall, very, very, nice; very, very expensive.

Inside GUM mall

There was some kind of car race beginning, see the start sign in the background.
Our food! Dad's blinis and caviar in the background, my seafood in puff pastryshell in front. I loved mine, it had salmon, various shell fish, musrooms and onions in a cream sauce and the pastry shell was melt in your mouth good!

St. Basils' Cathedral

Notice the bride and groom in the picture; we saw at least 5 different wedding parties with their photographers taking wedding pictures in front of various buildings in the Red Square.

We're Here! part 2

2008-04-20T04:19:00.000-07:00

We made it Astrakhan! Once again, everything went smoothly. The only trouble we ran into was when we went up to our room in the hotel, there was only one bed; but when I went and told them, they moved us to another room with two single beds and credited back 5, 600 rubles to my credit card! We met Catherine, a mom waiting out the 10 day waiting period right now, and Mandy and Jennifer, two moms who have each adopted a little boy from here and are now waiting for their boys' passports to take them home! They just went to get the boys' passport or visa photos taken. When they get back we may all go for a walk. We do not yet know what time our Ministry of Education appointment is, Galina was told to call MOE tomorrow first thing (9am) to find out what time our appointment is, then she will call us. It could be anytime from 10am to later in the afternoon. If it is later in the afternoon we may not get to go meet sister until Tuesday, so, of course I hope it is earlier, I was expecting to meet her tomorrow! The internet isn't working in the room, but there's a sitting area down the hall that's quite comfortable, so I suppose I'll sit out here a lot to update the blog and try to catch anyone on instant messenger.

We're Here!

2008-04-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

We made it safely to Moscow. Out trip couldn't have gone more smoothly! Our flight from St. Louis to Atlanta left early and arrived early! And, our flight from Atlanta to Moscow was right on time. We found the translator, took care of tomorrow's tickets, exchanged dollars to rubles, bought bottled water, and went to Holiday Inn! Then we went to McDonald's for lunch! Yes boys, we went to McDonald's for lunch!!! It was crazy busy! But luckily Big Mac, fries and coke are all Big Mac, fries and coke in Russian too! Then we figured out the subway (metro) system and went to the Red Square! We toured St. Basil's Cathedral, saw many interesting buildings that we hope to find out more about later (we didn't have a tour guide or anything) went to two malls, HUGE malls with very expensive stuff, then to dinner at a restaurant we don't know the name of, but....We both tried caviar and blinis! The caviar tasted like tuna to me, I liked the flavor OK, but not the texture. The other meal we ordered was a seafood mix (salmon, clams, etc.) and mushrooms and onions in a puff pastry shell, it was SO good! Now we're at McDonald's again because they have free internet connections for 30min. and our hotel (across the street from McDs) makes us pay. So, all for now. Tomorrow at 8am (our time here) we head to Astrakhan. We'll try to update more then! PS to AstrakhanGrandma, we were given the phone numbers we needed when our translator picked us up at the airport so nevermind on the earlier phone call today. And, CHI gave us a cell phone to use! We only have 25 min, but we will try to call you and Wade sometime.

I FELT THE EARTHQUAKE!

2008-04-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

I decided to stay up all night, sleep on the plane and then possibly be on Russia time when I get there. Well, around 4:30 I was typing lesson plans and the whole computer desk shook and shook, the monitor wouldn't stop until I held it still for a second, I swore it was an earthquake! I looked outside, but didn't see anything unusual, then looked up Missouri earthquakes on the internet to see if anything had been reported, but nothing was there, so I thought perhaps I had imagined it because I was tired. Anyway, just now on the news they announced that there was an earthquake in Indiana at 4:35, it WAS an earthquake, not my imagination! Hey kids, the book Earthquake Terror said that when Jonathan wanted to know how he would know if it was an earthquake or not his teacher said, "you'll know". And I knew! Pretty cool, huh!

Ready, Set, Go...

2008-04-17T23:16:00.001-07:00

I think I'm all ready to go! Yesterday my fifth grade class (Hi guys, I miss you already and I'm still at home!) went on a field trip to Jefferson City. One of our stops was the museum at the Missouri State Highway Patrol. So while I was there I had planned to get our state background checks done, and notarized, since the ones we did last year had expired. When I asked the lady in the museum where I could get that done, she told me that it was in another building-go around that building and down a big hill, when down to street level again walk around the building to the public entrance. So I did, and they were very nice and did everything I needed. By the time I walked back up the hill I was pretty worn out and hot as it was over 70 for a change! Then I was ready to get 20 papers apostilled and our next stop just happened to be the capitol building! I looked up the Secretary of State's office number, room 209 and headed that way while the class went to sit in on the House of Representatives in action (for those who were wondering, there was another 5th grade teacher there and 22 parents, two of whom teach at our school as well, so we were all OK for me to take care of all the adoption business). When I arrived at the Secretary of States office a nice lady asked if she could help me. When I told her I had some things to apostille she told me that they did not do that in this building that that was (again) in another building. She pointed it out out of her window. It looked kind of far away, but not too far to walk to. I asked for directions and headed out. It was a much longer walk than I had anticipated, but I walked quickly and was sure I'd have enough time to get the things apostilled and make it back before the House viewing and capitol tour were over. Well, they told me it would take about 20 minutes, but at 30 minutes I went up to the front desk to see if they could check on the progress of the paperwork. I was told it would be five more minutes. It was five more minutes, but that meant it was 3:10, the time our group was expected to finish their tour and head back to the bus! So, I ran for about two blocks until it was so uphill that I just couldn't anymore and huffed and puffed walking as briskly as I could until I reached the capitol building again. I saw the bus to the left and picked up running again. Luckily, the class was not there yet; their tour had run over. But, everything is apostilled and ready to go for tomorrow's takeoff!!!
For those of you who are not in our church/school community, I'll share the remainder of the Jeff City trip story.... On our return trip, approximately 45 minutes away from our school, the smell of the bus' bathroom began to spread throughout the bus. My first thought was that a student had opened the door to be funny or something, but no, the radiator on the bus was overheating. The overheating radiator happens to be located just under the bus' bathroom. Its overheating began to "cook" the toilet chemicals. I heard that it was worse in the back, but I'm telling you, I was in the front and had to pull the turtleneck part of my sweater up over my nose. We rode like that for approximately 4 minutes before pulling off in a good spot that had a Walmart. We called spouses of chaperones and others who were expecting to meet us at school to come pick us all up and return us to school to our cars. One mom went to the Applebee's across the street and got us all chips and salsa (Thank you mom of 8W!), and one dad went to Walmart and bought a few cases of water(Thank you dad of 17W!). Then we all sat in the lawn furniture displays outside of Walmart eating our chips and salsa, drinking water, etc. until all were picked up. Hey mom of 10W, make sure I get a copy of that picture for the yearbook please! We were with a great group of kids with really nice parents, so it wasn't too bad. But it was a long day 7:30am to 7:30 pm for me!
I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M REALLY LEAVING FOR RUSSIA IN 10 HOURS!!!!

Photos

2008-04-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd better try out adding photos to the blog before I leave home, so here goes......

Hey, that was pretty easy!

A lot of people have asked what her room looks like, so-here it is! It's impossible to get the whole thing, but the little bit of the dresser you see on the left has a matching chest of drawers on the wall beside the door. (This pic was taken standing in the doorway.) You can see a little bit of the matching nightstand by the rocking chair and the headboard that matches too. My grandma passed away a little over a year ago, right when we were first planning the adoption. I thought her bedroom furniture (and one of her favorite handmade quilts) would be perfect for our new daughter's room. I was right!

Misc.

2008-04-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

After re-packing last night, I began re-packing again today as it was 75 in Astrakhan today! I took out sweats, a long sleeved shirt and sweat jacket and put in 3 short sleeved shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, and 2 pairs of capriis. But this messes up my "everything I've packed can be worn with either my tennis shoes I'm wearing on the flight or my brown shoes" thing, I usually wear sandals with shorts/capriis, maybe I'll buy some brown Crocs, they're very light.
I read somewhere to be prepared to answer questions during court about the recent Utah case where a boy recently adopted from Russia died. Today, while reading other blogs, I came across a YouTube link to this story, so I've included it here for anyone else headed to court soon that may need to know about it. Apparently, the father is a Russian citizen. Also, it was an independent adoption, they did not work with an agency. I guess the judge just wants to make sure that we're aware and keeping up on what's been happening in Russian International Adoption news. Anyway, it's pretty interesting; sad, but interesting.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxlbYK59EPc&feature=user

40 lbs.

2008-04-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have decided that it is IMPOSSIBLE to pack less than 40 pounds for a 10 day trip. I didn't even weigh the suitcase after packing last weekend. Then tonight I decided that the weather in Astrakhan is warmer than I thought it would be, so I took out some bulky sweaters and such. Then, I cut down on things like the full bottle of shampoo, putting some in a smaller travel bottle, took out one pair (of the original 3) of PJs, took out a pair of sweats, and I believe 2 shirts. I also took out one (of the the 5) of the board books I packed to take to our visits with sister. I probably took out more that I can't remember just now, and then I weighed the suitcase.....33 pounds! The travel guide says that in-country you can only have 40 pounds of luggage, total-suitcases and carry-on. I then put the stuff I am intending to put in my carry-on in a bag and weighed that...5 pounds! And that's not including my laptop or the actual carry on backpack I'm taking. So, assuming that the laptop is at least 2 pounds, that's all I can take, which leaves no room for souveniers I buy while I'm there! Now, there's a TON of room left to put souveneirs in the suitcase, it's just that I'll be charged extra for being overweight. But, after venting about this to my husband, he simply said, oh well, then we'll just pay a few extra dollars for the weight of the souveniers, no big deal. Whewwwww! Because I AM planning on buying souveniers! :) Hello Mrs. K- yes, it's after 11pm and I am still up! (Oh C'mon, it's Friday!)

2008-04-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who have left comments! Yes, Patti, I am SO counting down the days!!! The other 5th grade teacher, Mrs. K, wrote 14 days 'till Russia in the corner of my whiteboard awhile back. Since then a boy in my class, 5W, has been changing it every morning-without being asked. Today it read 9 days 'till Russia!!! Hey kids who may be reading this while I'm gone...if I want to say something to you in the blog I'll refer to you as what you put in the top right hand corner of all your papers, for example 5W who changes the Russia countdown everyday as opposed to 5K who hates the word ginormous as much as I do! And remember you can comment (and vote) too!

Sister's First Scrapbook!

2008-04-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! A friend of the family, whose wife is from Russia (not far from Astrakhan in fact) just left. She was here translating the scrapbook I made to leave with sister in between our two trips. It turned out great!!! She took so much time to do it just right, even looked up words to be sure they would be in the right context, etc. I've decided I can't risk it getting lost when we leave it with sister, so I'm going to scan all of the pages and put them in another small scrapbook to take. It'll look just the same, but we'll have the original to save for her forever.

All My Checklists

2008-04-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

What did I do this weekend? Made lots of checklists! A checklist of things to pack, a checklist of documents that still need to be attended to in some way, a list of meals for the next two weeks, a grocery list for those meals, a list of 'things to remember to take to school on Monday', a list of what my mom needs to do each day she's with the boys, and the beginning of a list for my substitute for my fifth grade class while I'm gone!!! Luckily, the grocery list has been all checked off, the packing list is quite close, the documents list is just where is should be to be finished in time, my mom's list changes daily as soccer rain out make up games keep coming in e-mails and baseball practices are 'maybe going to be on Mondays, but we're not sure yet', I remembered all but one thing I was supposed to take to school today (an empty milk jug!) and the sub list is about as far as it can be right now too. Seeing everything get checked off little by little helps me see that yes, this is really going to happen! I will meet my little girl two weeks from today!!! Yay!

CHI Widget

2008-04-06T19:58:00.001-07:00

Get this widget!

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry

2008-04-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Whewww, we've done a lot in a short amount of time. There has been a lot of last minute paperwork to do. We got fingerprinted at the police station yesterday and mailed that off to the FBI today. We have doctor appointments scheduled and paperwork being filled out at the boys' doctor's office. Today we got the 'official' travel dates of April 18th through April 27th so it's time to fill out Visa applications. All of this needs to be ready by my class' field trip to Jeff City on April 16 so I can get it all apostilled while we're there.
I know it's crzay, but I was a little disappointed to find out that I had to leave on the 18th; we thought I'd be leaving the 19th. The 18th the boys are in the talent show at school. They, and I, have worked pretty hard on putting the act together and I hate to miss it. It's also my fifth grade class' DARE graduation that day, another thing I wanted to be around for. Hopefully I can get someone to video both of these things for me.
So, be sure to log on every day from April 18-April 27 to hear about our trip to meet 'sister'! Thanks to all who have voted so far! Wade has picked out his favorite name and says that it doesn't matter how the vote turns out; Daddy's vote overrides all others. But keep voting anyway; it's fun for me to watch!

TRAVEL DATES!

2008-03-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

We have travel dates! Our caseworker is out of the office today, tomorrow and Wednesday, but assured us that another member of the Russia team would call us if travel dates came through, and about noon today-they did! Unfortunately they have asked us to travel the exact week that we told them we would be unavailable to travel, April 21st! The Russian offices will be closed the first two weeks of May, so if we didn't accept these dates we would have to wait until sometime after May 14th to go!!! So, I was a little stressed out after talking to Wade who made it sound like he really couldn't get out of this work trip he's to go on that week. After school my principal, who had heard the whole dilema at lunch, told me he was sure that we would come to a decision that would work out that we would both be comfortable with. I really didn't agree at that moment, but.... by the end of the day, he was right! Here's what we've decided on:
All along my dad had been hoping to get to go on one of the trips. We all know that sometimes these adoption journeys end up taking three trips, so way back when he went ahead and got a passport, bought a Russian language book (that I borrowed and still have-guess I'd better return it!) and even told the doctor he works for that he may be taking a trip to Russia in about a year or so. Since only one parent has to travel for the first trip and Wade can't get out of his work thing, I asked him what he thought about my dad going instead. At first he didn't like the idea because he does want to be there, but we both want her home as soon as possible and waiting until the middle to end of May for the first trip will put the second trip way into the summer. So, he called my dad who was still willing and able to go, and we decided this would be the best decission for our family.
So, look up this blog the week of April 21st-26th to read all about our first trip to Astrakhan to meet sister!

Paperwork

2008-03-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

After accepting the referral in Astrakhan on Tuesday, our social worker e-mailed us the list of paperwork we needed to prepare, have notarized and apostilled to send to Russia before they would "invite" us to travel. I quickly prepared everything we needed and had it ready on Wednesday (yesterday) to have notarized. Since someone at Wade's work is a notary, T, J and I all drove to his work yesterday afternoon to have it all notarized. But, while she was stamping everything I noticed her notary commission expires the 28th of May. I thought I remembered a stipulation with all the adoption paperwork that the notary seal cannot be close to expiring, so when we got home I called our social worker to check on this. I was right, the document expires when the notary stamp expires, so since we probably won't have 'sister' before May 28th, we would have to re-do all these documents! So, I printed them all out again and made arrangements to be at the adoption agency by 8:15 this morning to have someone there notarize them.

Another thing we needed were photos; 2 of the two of us, 1 of the family, 1 of the boys, 1 front of the house, 1 back of the house, and four different rooms in the house. I found them all on the computer and put them in a folder hoping that Wade would arrange them nicely in Photoshop and print them out when he got home from bowling. He did, then when he went to print them at 11:00pm we found our color ink cartridge was out! So, I ran to Walgreens at 11pm last night to get a new one so we could print the pictures.

Anyway, it all worked out as planned today. We left the house about 7:45am, went to the agency, got everything notarized, went downtown to the Secretary of State office and turned the papers over to them to be apostilled, went to have breakfast, read a lot of books in the library while we waited for them to call and tell us they were ready, then...about 11am everything was good to go! We went back to the agency to turn it all in so they can mail everything to Russia tomorrow (they only mail to Russia on Fridays), then Wade went on to work and the boys and I went home. Whewww, it was a long morning. Tonight or tomorrow I'll take a look at all the documents we have to have ready to take with us on our first trip.

It's Official

2008-03-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

We officially accepted a referral in the region of Astrakhan yesterday! For those of you who don't know us here's a little background info...
We are Wade and Amy Williams. We have two biological boys ages 6 and 8 who we'll call T and J while we're here, and we're adopting a three and a half year old daughter from Astrakhan, Russia.
We decided in January 2007 to adopt, we had our home study in May, 2007 and submitted our dossier to Tver, Russia in July 2007. The dossier was never registered in Tver though, and this turned out to be a good thing as Tver has been quite picky about paperwork lately and things have not been moving quickly or smoothly there for quite some time now. We were considering a special needs girl in another region, then were called last week about this girl in Astrakhan. We decided that another couple may be better equipped to deal with the first girl's needs and called our social worker yesterday to tell her, yes, we're ready to go to Astrakhan!
We are now working on getting a few more documents put together, notarized and apostilled. We hope to have this all finished by tomorrow to be mailed to Russia on Friday. Once they're received and translated we should learn our travel dates! We'll let you all know the travel dates as soon as we are called with them!