I Missed Friday!

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