Two days worth of visits

First of off, Friday was the day that the adoption was official. Since it is official, I'll go ahead and start calling the children by their new names, Daniel Yuri (5) and Maria Grace (4).

The weekend didn't require any paperwork visits and it was all fun Saturday and Sunday! Saturday we got to take them to this play area with bumper cars, a merry go round, train, and one of those maze/ball things. They love it all. Daniel was so funny getting the worker to come help us get started with whatever needed someone to push the button to let us start (not a high use venue!) . My knee moves a little more than it did yesterday from my driver, Daniel, slamming into a column. Grandma and Maria did great on the bumper cars, too. I'm not sure which they like best - maybe we should try it again to find out!

After that, we went to the room for a while - that was an eye opening experience for Momma - realized I'm not nearly childproofed enough at home. Daniel and Maria LOVED playing with the water - a little too much I'm sure, but hopefully that means they'll be ready to really enjoy the pool next summer.

After that we headed to the circus. It was really a fun one - small with only children and parents. It was funny that they had all American music for the acts. The children love it. At intermission Daniel was sharing his chips with every stranger. Somehow only the children were interested in eating the chip he offered! Daniel HAS to be the most giving boy ever....and I have a few more tales on that front from Sunday!!

Momma and I left the orphanage exhausted, but only slept a few hours last night - ended up playing "Hand and Foot" mostof the night - or maybe it was only a dream because I sort of remember that Momma whipped me every game (must've been only a nightmare).

On Sunday, we went out to the tank park nearby from the largest tank battle in world history even to this day from World War II. That was very interesting. We discovered that Daniel is going to be up where the action is - he went right where the tour guide was - even when the class was standing a good ways back. We got to go into a general's quarters - underground. There was a high school group that was at the park and I was the first American they'd ever met. They wanted to visit about things, what I liked to do, if these were my children, etc. They wanted my address and all said they wanted to come live in the US - want to practice English with me. I'll be happy to oblige. They asked if I had pictures of America, so I showed them pictures of Callan and Kenna at the Hannah Montana concert last year. They all knew who Hannah Montana was and I let them borrow my IPOD to enjoy some photos. They gave it back and we said goodbyes. Then, they came running wanting to take a picture of all of us. I'm thinking we might have a match for penpals between this 14 year old very hip Russian girl and Callan (7) - who loves girls that age! She wants to practice her English and I definitely expect to get a letter!

Later, I had my first carsick experience. God was good. It wasn't so bad -only grape juice, and I didn't gag at all and we were almost home. Those are all good things.

Ok - the second share story....we were at a Picadilly style cafeteria where you get to pick out your food. They have fresh fruit and I'd gotten the children nectarines for dessert. Daniel was eating away on his and then came up and wanted me to cut his partly eaten nectarine in half. I'm thinking it was to get the seed out and it was not cooperating - it was a juicy one. Alas, I did get the nectarine in half (again, partly eaten on both halves!). Daniel then quickly went across the room to share his nectarine with two pretty young ladies (about 18) at a nearby table. We all rolled - including the girls - and somehow they weren't interested in eating the nectarine. They couldn't take their eyes off their new admirer the rest of the time that we were there.

After lunch we went to our room for naps. Daniel wasn't successful in going to sleep, but we ended up having a GREAT time playing and learning some English words. Our translator was there to try to help us get both to sleep. Maria had a great nap (as did Babushka). I wasn't left wanting though - we had a terrific time with the translator and Daniel and I learning English words, coloring, and even getting to practice our total physical response in ESL learning the colors and picking them out. Daniel did great! Can't wait until we can all communicate better. I'm thinking I'll see less of the more fearful side of Maria. Neigher of the children is shy at all, but Maria does get fairly obviously scared around unusual situations. She's a prancer and has repeated that she is beautiful when we put on an outfit she's pleased with. She has a cute personality and we're seeing her bubbly side more and more each day.

We have no internet access at our hotel, so it may be another couple of days before I get to post again - have to walk a long way and we're whipped from playing hard!

One other bad thing was that I managed to lose my camera yesterday - it is no more, so I won't have pictures from this trip - at least until I replace it. Can't seem to find a disposable camera here in this city of 1,000,000 which surprises me. I'm not sure I want to buy a Russian digital one, but I might. I'd taken such great pictures the first trip, and more the second, so I'm glad to have those for their memories from the orphanage. Hopefully I can take some more with whatever camera I can find before we leave on Tuesday.

Until next time......