Seven days and counting

Sunday
We slept untill 7:30 this morning, wow. As our bodies continue to adjust our minds still are having trouble contemplating the amount of time we will be here. Several families are leaving next week for Moscow and then home. They look haggered and ready to get out of town.

Today we did not get to see Lilia. Our driver and translator are off for the day. We spent our time going to the store, watching movies, and looking out the window. At the store we purchased a quart of butter mik for our cereal. Hey we like butter milk on our cereal! Yes, it was what we meant to buy, you should try it. After we poured the butter milk in the sink we had sandwiches with mystery cheese spread and mystery meat. It was actually good. OK I have a story from yesterday. We went out to eat and when the waitress handed me a fork I said "Zdras-tvwee-tya" (Hello) instead of "Spai-see-ba" (Thank you). I didn't think this was a funny story but my wife thinks otherwise.

The sunset over the Volga is beautiful, and there are a lot of small cruise ships anchored along the pier. The local Astrakhan mechants are on the pier selling their wares. Dried, smoked fish seems to be the big attraction, although the watermelon are supposed to be wonderful. We just don't have any way of cutting one if we bought it.

Saturday #1

Today is Saturday. We went for a walk by the Kremlin this morning. I bought a Mountain Dew and Andi drank a Pepsi. We then ate an ice cream bar we purchased from a street vender. We looked at each other and decided that we are completely bored. There are three American couples here adopting. They all have their children and are leaving in the next week or so. The whole bunch of us went to a restaurant called “The Academy of Beer” for lunch. It was very clean and the food was fairly good. We walked in as this bunch of loud Americans with strollers and language barriers and low blood sugar confirming several stereotypes for the Russians trying to eat lunch. It was great. We went to see Lilia at 4pm (7am in the States). We were walking into the orphanage and a caregiver was walking out with children under each arm, while pushing a stroller, and carrying a walker. We helped her get out the door and then realized Lilia was one of the kids in the stroller. She lit up when she saw Andi and reached out for her, it was a tear jerker moment. It was pretty symbolic watching Andi lift Lilia out from among this group of orphaned children. Well we had planned to eat in the room tonight, but Andi just plugged our hot pot into the wall without the converter, poof no more hot pot. So we will walk somewhere and eat a most unsatisfying meal.
Till we write again.

TGIF in Astrakhan

Friday, August 10, 2007, 4:15am. I am awake, and lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. At home every one is enjoying their Thursday evening. Here I am still fighting the time change. Today is cool, I mean almost cold, in fact I just turned off the air conditioning. Outside it is bright and sunny. The Volga river ambles by with a steady current, carrying tons of heavily polluted water to the Caspian sea. Birds eat trash off the river banks and, sandal clad construction workers are plugging in extension cords to begin their day of jack hammering. There is major construction going on all around us. In fact, today it appears workers on scaffolding will be outside our window, fun. We were supposed to see Lilia this morning but plans have changed and we will see here around 4:00. She was really talkative yesterday and said ca ca once and dada, that’s what I heard, maybe daddy I love you, yah that’s what I heard. We went for a walk in the cool of the morning and then went to some huge kids type department store with another American from the hotel. The department store was pretty big and full of stuff for kids and many discussions on what size Lilia is and how big is a 19mm and could she choke on this, and “no you can’t buy that sword.” It was …fun. We ate a meat and cabbage pie last night for supper and it was pretty good. Apparently, these pies are a Russian dish and so we, being the adventurous type, tried it. We will post the excitement, as the adventures are sure to continue.

Court Day

Today is quite a bit cooler than previous days. We are really enjoying the reprieve. Up at 4:30am, we wasted time until we could go down for breakfast at 7:00am. We found that the juices at breakfast are still cool if we go early. This morning we had our court appearance.

Oh, are you waiting for something? Oh yeah! You haven’t heard the news, yet. Our application has been APPROVED!!!! Yep, we will have custody of our daughter, Lilia Marie Cope, in 10 days. After the 10 days we will get Lilia and all the papers to prove that she’s part of the Cope family now!

We can’t think of a single negative thing to say about the court hearing. Everything went smoothly. The judge, prosecutor, guardianship rep, and ministry of education rep were all respectful, polite, and professional. Due to my nervousness, I was a tad spastic. My husband is more than willing to share a few humorous stories about my performance in front of the judge. Just ask! We’re beaming with excitement and feeling very light-hearted. Another huge weight has been lifted. We are so thankful for your prayers and extremely grateful to the Lord for his hand in this entire process. It’s not over, yet, but much closer. Caleb, you’re a big brother!

Leaving for Astrakhan

We leave at 2:00pm to head to Astrakhan. We spent our morning doing nothing but wait to hear what the plans were for transportation to the airport. Got some good laughs at Cabe's descriptions. You know, he can sit and read a book or just BE. He would never agree to that, but I've witnessed it before! Gotta go check out.

Moscow, Again

While your Monday is just beginning, we are trying to figure out where our’s went. We’ve survived another flight to Moscow. I wouldn’t describe the 10 hour flight as enjoyable, but definitely more bearable than our last. We’re staying in the Marriott Hotel Tverskaya tonight. Upon arrival we commenced “Operation Sleep”. Now we are trying to build the courage to go out and make fools of ourselves as we attempt to order dinner. We fly to Astrakhan tomorrow afternoon, but hope to see the Kremlin and Red Square before departure.
It’s midnight here and we finally bought an hour online. We did manage to find food. During the search for a hotel, we thought we would be closer to the Red Square, but we are actually about two city blocks from our hotel that we stayed in last time. So we are somewhat familiar with our surroundings. We couldn’t bring ourselves to return to the restaurant where the famous “pointing episode” began. Upon much searching and exploring we found a restaurant called Sbarro’s Pizza. It was great authentic Russian pizza and drinks. Veggie pizza (like it should be), beer, and water.
The weather here is wonderful ! It’s about 70 deg and partly cloudy, very comfortable for me and somewhat chilly for you know who. It is good to be back in Moscow with it’s smells and sounds and general crowdedness. We actually cannot wait to get to Astrakhan tomorrow. Astrakhan is more accessible by foot. Time to move to our new home (blah).
Sounds like “the grandson” has started off with a big bang. Love to you all!

THE JET LAG STRKES BACK (return to Russia)

We sit in Lambert International Airport and sip 10$ waters, and try to prepare for this trip, again. We leave St.Louis at 10am (today is Sunday) and fly to Atlanta, then the long torture to Moscow. Leaving Little Moo was no easy task. He, of course, is all smiles, anxious to get on with the party. We, on the other hand, are crying like babies , calling for our mommies, and sucking our thumbs. Yesterday we stayed home and tried to have a normal day. Caleb and daddy played army, wrestle and napping soldiers, a game I’m trying to get Caleb into, it goes like this:

Daddy: Alright Soldiers lets take a nap
Caleb: A nap? No lets keep fighting
Daddy: No it’s nap time and that’s an order!
Caleb: Let’s play something else.
Daddy: That’s it private! You’re court marshalled.

We learned Friday that we may be expected to stay in Astrakhan three extra days. Astrakhan has changed their passport processing, which could cause a delay. We are praying for the 10-day waiting period to be wiaved or shortened, for Lilia’s passport to get processed on time to return on the 31st, and for God to soften hearts in the court, etc before we arrive.
Pray for us
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