Catch Up!

Sorry, it’s been so long since we’ve posted a ‘real’ blog. The Internet service at the hotel has been down since Tuesday evening. Errrr! Every time I ask, they tell me the guy will be here today to fix it and I have asked everyday! Luckily, we were able to get our Tuesday post in before it went down. Here’s a brief synopsis of what we did each day!

On Wednesday, we went for our visit in the morning. Each one gets better! We went for a walk trying to find the toy store that Jamie commented on. We weren’t able to find it. We’ll try again another day. We did find (by accident) a pedestrian bridge over the waterway. It is a tradition here for a couple to bring a lock to the bridge on their wedding day and attach the lock to the bridge. The bridge is amazing. There must be thousands of locks. What a neat tradition! In the evening, we met up with Russ and Monica and went to San Pizza for dinner. While we were there, we noticed that a person at another table had a laptop. We decided we would bring our laptops the next time we came to see if they had Wi-Fi. We spent most of the dinner talking and worrying over our court appointment. When we got back to the hotel, Greg and I spent the evening quizzing each other for possible questions the judge might ask.

You already know the finale of Thursday, but here is a brief synopsis of how the day went. First, we met Russ and Monica for breakfast. Then they headed off to court. Their court was at 10:00 a.m. They got back to our room at about noon with huge smiles on their faces. The news was great! Everything went well at court for them! We tried to eat a bit of lunch, but didn’t have much of an appetite. We practiced some more, then it was time to change our clothes. We met Galina and off we went to our court appointment. Vala met us there. Of course, we were so nervous. We started a little bit late at about 2:10 p.m. The judge started by asking Greg a bunch of questions. Then it was my turn. He asked me a bunch of questions and the prosecutor had a few questions for me also. If you received the list of questions that CHI put out a few months ago, practice them. Almost all of the questions that we were asked were on that list. We had expected questions about our ages (I know I’m only 29, but I do realize that I have been saying that for a few too many years!). We expected more questions about our finances. Apparently, the new financial information that we had to submit sufficed, because we had few questions about finances. The Ministry of Education representative gave a positive conclusion for us to adopt. Then the prosecutor also gave a positive conclusion. The judge left the court room to finalize his decision. He returned about 15 minutes later. He announced that the adoption was approved. I, of course, broke into tears unable to contain my emotions any longer. What an unbelievable moment! We now have the 10 day wait period. It’s actually going to be 11 days because the 10th day falls on a Sunday. It was two successful court appointments for us today. Galina suggested that we all go out to dinner to celebrate. We went to San Pizza. We took our laptop with us so we could see if they had Wi-Fi. As you found out last night, they do! It was a wonderful evening of many toasts with champagne.

Today is Friday. Russ headed to the airport bright and early this morning to Moscow. We wish him a safe flight home tomorrow. Monica met us for breakfast. In the middle of breakfast, the power went out. After breakfast, we decided to go for a walk. We headed toward downtown. The power was out the whole way. The traffic was awful! There were jams at every intersection and tons of horns honking. The wind was extremely strong. Dirt and who knows what else was blowing around and getting in our eyes and mouths. It was not a very pleasant walk. Greg and I wanted to stop at the grocery store for some more lunch supplies, but it was closed because of the power outage. We decided to just head back to the hotel. It was about 1:00 p.m. and we had to leave at 2:00 p.m. for our visit. We ate a quick lunch and the power finally turned back on at about 1:30 p.m. At 2:00 p.m., Vica met us to head to the baby home. When we got there, we told our little one the news and she was so excited! (Okay, I’m sure she didn’t understand anything that we said, but we’re going with her being so excited anyway!) When we got back at the hotel, we switched. We stayed at the hotel and Monica went with Vica for her visit. Greg and I decided to try to get to the grocery store, because we were pretty much out of all lunch supplies. It started raining on the way back from the store. We walked pretty fast, so we didn’t get too wet.

I’ve got to tell you the mosquitoes are vicious here. Mosquitoes bother me at home, but it’s nothing compared to here. It started with three bites and those turned into huge welts that itched like mad for about five days, then finally started to heal. I was finally feeling better when I was attacked by more mosquitoes. I have 15 bites on my left ankle and leg. It is unbelievable how painful this is. They have swollen up to huge welts. Greg was nice enough to take a picture of them. I luckily brought hydrocortisone with me, but I’ve been using it way too many times a day and night, just to survive. I asked Vica, our translator, if she had any suggestions. Vica has a sister who is a doctor and she recommended something for me to try. When Vica brought Monica back to the hotel today, she went with me to a pharmacy to get this cream. I can’t wait to try it tonight. I hope it helps. If you’re prone to mosquito bites and are on your way to Astrakhan, make sure you bring something to prevent you from getting bitten or something to put on the bites if you get them.

Boy, this has been really long post. We are done for now. Hopefully we can post again soon!