A Great Date!

We had a GREAT day today.  First, we left at 7am and chased papers for a few hours.  We got home about 10am and grabbed a couple of French pasteries for a snack.  We rested at the apartment until about 1pm and then went to visit at the orphanage.  Our facilitator gave us the option of visiting while he did some work that we didn't have to be there for (4 hours!) or waiting until after those meetings and visiting late in the evening.  We chose option A and were dropped at the orphanage to fend for ourselves from about 1:30 until 6pm!  YIKES! 



I was stumped about the middle section, but finally figured out this sweet note from Lera... "My family about hundred SUPER."  Could she possibly be any sweeter!?  :o)

 Before leaving the apartment, I had butterflies in my stomach.  Knowing that we had four hours with no translator made me nervous.  It's amazing how much this feels like dating someone you REALLY like!  Eugene reminded me that I am turning 40 this summer, and should be old enough to know that the secret is to just relax and be yourself.  Deep breaths!

In short, we had an awesome day of visiting.  We made great progress in learning how to communicate, and it is not scary anymore.  It's even pretty fun.  Classes had ended so, at Vitalik's prompting, we all went to his classroom - the four of us, plus several droogs (friends).   Over the course of a few hours, we had lots of fun with many many kids coming and going.  Any time that one of Eugene's gadgets is being used for a game or photos, literally, as many kids as can crowd around the screen do so.  At one point, we had maybe 8 kids watching Lera play "Angry Birds" on the IPad, and on the other side of the room, Vitalik and 3 others watching a movie clip on the iTouch - this was so funny.  Eugene managed to find in his little bag of tricks, 2 sets of earphones (each kid got one ear piece) AND a splitter... so 4 ears = 4 kids watching and listening... on a screen the size of a cel phone!

Both Lera and Vitalik and various friends tried hard to teach me a crazy card game called "fool" that makes no sense at all as far as I can tell (Ya ne ponemayou! - I don't understand!)  All of the kids were impressed with my shuffling abilities, so at least I had that going for me. ;-)  At the end of our visit, we asked our facilitator about the game, and he quickly said, "Oh, you will not understand it... American people can not understand that game.  I can try to explain it to you but I have never had an American family that could learn it."  Eugene is online now trying to figure it out!  Just in case, Vitalik said that tomorrow he will bring his Uno cards... we KNOW how that game is played! ;-)

I think the highlight of the day for me may have been Vitalik saying, "You speak Russian good!"  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but I was thrilled! :o)  I told him, "Thank you.  You speak English good." (which, while gramatically lacking, is very true!) ;-)  While we waited in the lobby for our facilitator to return, Lera spent a bit of time lost in the H.S. Musical video via the iTouch and Vitalik and I compared flexibility tricks.  Turns out we can both do the splits.  


This is a poster that Vitalik and his classmate did about saying no to drugs and alcohol and cigarettes.  He did the boy half and she did the girl half.  He pointed to the picture and said, in English, "I do, in my classroom...You like?"  I said, "It's Awesome!" and he said, "Thank you."

I should mention that reports from home are glowing as well.  Words cannot express our thankfulness at how our family and friends are pulling together and not just getting by, but having a really special time together while we are here getting to know our newest kids and letting them get to know us. 

By the way, we had a major setback with our adoption today - not a show-stopper (thank you, God!), but it will add at least a week to the process.  It turns out when the parental rights were terminated years ago, there were mistakes in the document and so our facilitator spent all day working on having it redone.  It is in the works but may add TWO WEEKS to the process.  We will know more in a couple of days and decide then what to do.  If it delays our court date by a ton of time, we will go home and return for court.  However, after some discussions, we realized that going home takes about 40 hours one way (train and plane).  When you add in a day or so of buffer on the return trip to ensure that we wouldn't miss our court date due to a delayed flight, it is looking likely that we will stay and visit and play.  We will figure it out around the end of this week.

It's so amazing though because we don't even care!  I mean of course we care, but we are on cloud nine after a great day of visiting... we know it will all be okay - God will handle it!

Coming home tonight felt so much like coming home after a super date in the early stages of the romance that will change your life forever.  Eugene and I were exhausted and happy and just reliving the whole thing.  I even got to call my sister and give her the glowy debrief, telling her every detail of the day that I could remember, while Eugene listened and chimed in.  We are having the exhillerating privilege of falling in love with our newest kids.  What a great blessing to be living through this miracle!