Pete and Repeat, sitting in a boat. Pete fell over, and who was left?????

Sorry for not updating the blog for the last 2 days. Nothing too exciting has been going on, (well, except loving on our boy every chance we get, and that is VERY exciting!) so I thought I'd wait until today.

Yesterday the kids went back to school, (Yes, it's an orphanage, but they go to school there and it's called a boarding school, so that's why we call it school) so when we arrived to pick up Vanya, he wasn't in his playroom like he's been the last few days. Yuri, our taxi driver, went in with us, and motioned that we were to wait in the teacher's lounge. He conversed with another teacher, and seemed to understand what was going on, but we were in the dark. After waiting for about 20 minutes, we called Viktor and had him talk to Yuri. We found out that the kids were all in school, the teachers were all in a meeting, and there wasn't anyone to fetch Vanya for us yet. Waited a little longer, and then in walked our boy. He looked so handsome!!! He's already a cute kid, but today he was in his school clothes-- the same pinstriped pants he's been wearing, a long sleeve french blue cotton dress shirt, buttoned all the way up, and a pinstripe suit jacket. Wow!!! I took a few pictures of him, as he proudly stood tall. He was sent to his playroom to get his coat. I thought maybe he'd change his clothes, but he did not. Oh well!

It was another dreary day; not good for playing "football" (soccer) so we played some games, worked on English words (we're learning the Russian names so it's more fun for Vanya to teach us as we teach him), and watched "Transformers." Some of my first graders are BIG fans of Optimus Prime, and now I know who he is! It was actually a really good movie, and I think it ranked as one of Vanya's favorites. It was rated PG-13, and normally I would say he couldn't watch it, but since he can't understand English well yet, the few curse words in the movie went right over his head. I know that won't last for long, so at home when there are many more choices for movies, we'll be more careful. I actually hadn't planned to watch the movie; I sat with my boys on the bed and started to write in my journal. Only a few sentences were written before I was completely sucked into the plot! Two cute things about the movie-watching experience: one is that Vanya really likes to cuddle! He cuddled with me during almost the entire movie (once I put down my pen to watch, that is!). The other cute thing is that whenever he sees a couple on TV or in a movie, he will point and say, "Mama" and "Papa." We grin and agree each time! I have to say my favorite part was when we watched "The Incredibles" the other day-- he said that we were the 2 superheroes! Rock on! LOL!

We had a little problem communicating our dinner desires on Sunday night, and ended up only eating cabbage salad, so when we went to the Internet cafe on Monday morning, I looked up a translation website and wrote down how to say potato dumplings in Russian. When I gave it to the waitress Monday for lunch, she gave a huge sigh of relief and took the paper back to the kitchen. Guess what? We got what we wanted!!! Dumplings, 3 slices of bread with butter, and cabbage salad seemed to fill up our son for awhile. He snacked later on dried apricots (which he loves!), cereal, and some cashews.

With Viktor gone, we take Vanya back to school each day around 4:00 PM. Yesterday, Viktor arranged to have Yuri get Vanya by himself today and bring him to us at 8:00 so we didn't interrupt school again. Wow! 8 hours to entertain him! When we heard this news, I thought: hope it's nice outside!!! :-) Of course, when we woke up today, it was raining!!! Of course!!! When Vanya arrived, we watched some TV, played some games, and practiced our Russian/English words. I am better understanding how tough it is to learn a new language. For instance, the English word, kite, is just so easy to say. In Russian??? It's like 400 letters with 18 syllables!!!! LOL! It definitely has made us much more patient with his learning!! He just laughs as we totally destroy the pronunciations in Russian! The sun is trying to peek out now, so hopefully we'll get to play outside after lunch today.

Tomorrow is the big day!!! Our court time is 4:00 PM. The judge is the guy who makes the final decision about the adoption. Your prayers are very much appreciated! I have such a picture in my mind of what he will look like. It's pretty much the same picture I had for the State Department of Adoption meeting, and that person turned out to be a young female! Providing that he approves everything, there is a mandatory 10-day waiting period. Many of you have asked is that necessary and can it be waived? The answer is yes, it is necessary, and no, it cannot be waived. It's a time when anyone can come forward to protest the adoption. It's similar to the waiting period you have for a divorce, a marriage, and most legal situations. (Side note here: Viktor showed us a building - not a church- where people get married, and in the same building is the funeral home! Coincidence????)

Tim will fly back at the end of the 10 days, and he and Viktor will again drive down to Kotovsk to pick up Vanya and his blood test results. (for HIV, Hepatitis B, and Syphillis) Then, they drive to the village in which Vanya was born to get his birth certificate (either picked up and/or changed, I can't remember) then it's back up to Kyiv for his visa and passport. This all should take about 7-10 days, and if all goes well, Vanya should be home in Fort Wayne very close to his 10th birthday!! Oh, then the celebrating will begin!!!!!!

For this trip, we fly home this Thursday, leaving Kyiv at 5:30 AM. Can't wait to drive the 4-5 hours back to Kyiv in the middle of the night with the fantastic roads they have here!! Our layover in Frankfurt, Germany is 6 hours!!! ugh!!! The flight to Detroit has us arriving at 4:10 PM. We should be home, in Fort Wayne, no later than 9:00 PM, barring any unforseen circumstances. WE CAN'T WAIT!!!!!! We've already been discussing what we want for breakfast, lunch, and dinner of Friday!!! ;-)

I am not sure I will have a chance to come back here after the court date, so in case I cannot, we will say good bye for now. Thank you so much for reading along during our adventure. We've appreciated your emails, phone calls, and most of all prayers. We are thrilled this part of our journey is ending, and we cannot wait for the rest of our lives together to begin. It's definitely been an adventure!!!