Last night Val and Olga met with us in our hotel lounge for us to sign a declaration that yes, we officially want to adopt the child we have met with this week. We also had to write out a one page letter (Olga had the template and we just had to fill in our information) and sign it for Olga to take to a notary with the interpretor in order for it to be notarized. Once that was complete, we called Liz (the other woman from our agency) and met her and her friend (because Liz is single, her friend traveled with her to give her moral support during court - her friend has adopted 2 children with her husband so she understand the process very well) in our hotel lounge. We talked with them for over an hour and 1/2 before making plans to meet them for dinner tonight.
Val picked us up today at 10:00 and we went straight to the orphanage (Olga was busy today so she was not with us). One of the main caretakers greeted us today and we gave her the blanket we brought for the baby to keep there. She explained that we might not get it back because sometimes things get lost in the laundry. They told us that with Andrew's blanket too but it's on his bed at home, so we are hopeful that we will get hers back too. The caretaker also asked what name we have given the baby. We told her and she promised that from now on that is what they are going to call her so she can get used to it. The baby seemed really happy to see us today and we had yet another great visit. She showed off her crawling and pulling herself up skills some more and thoroughly enjoyed playing with our toys again. We noticed that every day she has taken great interest in Laurie's bracelet so John might be in trouble with now 2 jewelry loving ladies in his house :)
Val offerred to take some pictures today of the 3 of us because he pointed out that we will need many pictures of us with her for when we return to go to court. We thanked him and also assurred him that we have plenty of pictures to choose from :) After about an hour, it was time to say goodbye. We gave her hugs and kisses and promised we would be back to see her (hopefully) soon.
Once we left the orphanage, Val took us to "center market" to take a look around. It is a huge area in the center of Perm that has many outside vendors selling everything from hats, to clothes, to underwear, to shoes and then also has an inside area with many fresh foods to buy. We didn't spend much time in the outside area because it was raining. He did, however, give us a tour of the inside area. On the main (middle) level is the meat section. Val explained that everything is fresh daily - they kill the animals at night so that everything in the morning is fresh meat and everything that is there gets sold that day. The upstairs level had dairy products and the downstairs level had produce, again everything being very fresh. He said that these markets are quite popular and the food is much healthier/better quality than what you would find in a supermarket.
Val dropped us off at our hotel and let us know he would return at 4:50 am tomorrow to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves Perm at 6:25am, we fly to Moscow, have a 4 hour lay-over there, fly 10+ hours to JFK, have a 2 1/2 hour lay-over there and return to Pittsburgh at 4:30pm - - whew! that's one long day! We are sad to leave our baby girl here but we are excited to get home to see Andrew.
Val picked us up today at 10:00 and we went straight to the orphanage (Olga was busy today so she was not with us). One of the main caretakers greeted us today and we gave her the blanket we brought for the baby to keep there. She explained that we might not get it back because sometimes things get lost in the laundry. They told us that with Andrew's blanket too but it's on his bed at home, so we are hopeful that we will get hers back too. The caretaker also asked what name we have given the baby. We told her and she promised that from now on that is what they are going to call her so she can get used to it. The baby seemed really happy to see us today and we had yet another great visit. She showed off her crawling and pulling herself up skills some more and thoroughly enjoyed playing with our toys again. We noticed that every day she has taken great interest in Laurie's bracelet so John might be in trouble with now 2 jewelry loving ladies in his house :)
We made another observation this week that could possibly be the timing of our visits, but we are hoping it's really her personality - - she's very calm! She very much loves to be held and is content to sit on your lap and play. This is something that we observed (from when we first met Andrew) was not the case with her big brother and still describes his personality today - "busy"! We would be overjoyed if her personality offsets his some because the thought of 2 "Andrews" running around is definitely overwhelming - haha :)
Val offerred to take some pictures today of the 3 of us because he pointed out that we will need many pictures of us with her for when we return to go to court. We thanked him and also assurred him that we have plenty of pictures to choose from :) After about an hour, it was time to say goodbye. We gave her hugs and kisses and promised we would be back to see her (hopefully) soon.
Once we left the orphanage, Val took us to "center market" to take a look around. It is a huge area in the center of Perm that has many outside vendors selling everything from hats, to clothes, to underwear, to shoes and then also has an inside area with many fresh foods to buy. We didn't spend much time in the outside area because it was raining. He did, however, give us a tour of the inside area. On the main (middle) level is the meat section. Val explained that everything is fresh daily - they kill the animals at night so that everything in the morning is fresh meat and everything that is there gets sold that day. The upstairs level had dairy products and the downstairs level had produce, again everything being very fresh. He said that these markets are quite popular and the food is much healthier/better quality than what you would find in a supermarket.
Val dropped us off at our hotel and let us know he would return at 4:50 am tomorrow to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves Perm at 6:25am, we fly to Moscow, have a 4 hour lay-over there, fly 10+ hours to JFK, have a 2 1/2 hour lay-over there and return to Pittsburgh at 4:30pm - - whew! that's one long day! We are sad to leave our baby girl here but we are excited to get home to see Andrew.
We just got finished Skyping with Andrew and Laurie's parents before he had to go to school and it was a 25 minute conversation about the train they took him on yesterday. He told us it was just like the Polar Express and they said he was in heaven! He now has an engineer hat and a wooden train whistle (he is beyond obsessed with trains, so we can just imagine how thrilled he was by the experience). Tonight Laurie's aunt and uncle are taking him to Fun Fore All and Laurie's parents are taking him to the airport tomorrow to welcome us home. He is going to be quite disappointed to return to reality next week but we are so happy he had such a great week!
No comments:
Post a Comment