When do we get the children?

Posting from: Khabarvosk
Local Time: 3:05 pm on Friday September 1, 2006
Weather: warm and sunny, swarming mosquitos

Today we will visit the children from 4 to 6 and then come back to the flat for a potluck with the other families; I made borsht. C&N&K and C&A&A are all leaving in the morning and we shall certainly miss them, but not so much that we won’t have fun at their garage sale this evening.

Tomorrow, we get to pick up the children and take them with us for the day. Yippeee! We are still discussing what we want to do with our time, but I’m sure we will want to show them their city. It is beautiful right now. Not too hot, clear and lovely. Perhaps we’ll go walk alongside the river and visit a museum.

On Monday we will pick them up and keep them. For how long? Until they go off to college. Monday will be our first “real” day.

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I forgot to tell you yesterday, that we were so worked up the morning of court, that we misread the clocks and arrived at our rendezvous an hour early. We were getting quite anxious that our ride was late before we figured it out.

The court process was very serious and proper. The judge determined who would respond to his questions and started with me. When he was finished with me, he turned me over to the prosecutor. When she was done with me, the judge had questions for Jamie and then the prosecutor had a few for him too. I had one more go to clarify one point. Then the child protection lady described the children’s situation and her recommendation. The orphanage deputy director did the same. Then our facilitator gave her recommendation. It all went by so quickly I was a bit dazzled, so I don’t remember so much, but I do remember the deputy director saying that children intuitively know who cares about them, and that after our visit last spring, Andy and Juliana have been asking for us daily. Some of you have seen a pic of a lady with the two children on her lap; this was the deputy director.

After court we came back to the flat, changed our clothes and headed out again. We walked over to the DetskyMat (Children’s Market) which carries a lot a clothes and some toys, but no puzzles, of course it is puzzles that we wanted. We did by a few toys to keep the children busy when they move in. I got some Audubon birdies, just like what we get at the toy store in Lynden, Mom. We also found a cute little doctor’s kit, so the Jamie can continue his training in correct bear-care under Andy’s close supervision. Bear, by the way, has a name: Meshotka.

After the children’s store caught this trolley car uptown, back to the area we lived in last time we were here. We finished our gift shopping and then went back to our old hotel, the Amethyst and had cabbage rolls, as theirs are the best ever.

Yes! Yes!

YES YES


Here we are in our court finery. It was really really hot and I about fainted, but it all went okay and the judge said yes and then he said yes again. We start counting the ten day wait tomorrow and will get our final decree on September 11th.

We still don't know when we will get to bring the children to live with us in the apartment, we expect to learn more this evening.

We are praising and thanking the Lord and are so grateful for your prayers.

another great visit

Posting from: MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 3:28 pm Wednesday August 30, 2006
Weather: Clear and pleasant

We had two lovely hours with the children this morning. Andy greeted us with a very carefully enunciated "Good Afternoon". They think that having Papa toss them in the air is the best thing ever; Papa is sacked out on the couch now.

Court is at 11:30 tomorrow, an hour and a half later than my guesstimate for the countdown clock. We expect it to last until 12:30. We learned that this is the first international adoption from this orphanage ever. The assistant director will be testifying at court for us. Having court right before lunch is good, as everyone will want to work efficiently. Though the judge will make his decision tomorrow, it does not become binding until the 11th day.

Irena spent some time with us after the visit, going over what court typically entails. We got many of our questions answered and feel much better about it all.

We are happy to be here, and enjoying the rest, but I am already homesick. I am a home-body and it is hard to be away from our furbabies. We just want to pick up the children and come home. I suppose this is one more lesson in patience.

Hippo Birdie Two Ewes

osting from MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 7:00 am, Wednesday, August 30
Weather: clear skies, breezy, quite pleasant

Happy birthday dear Tim!

When I was a little girl, I wished for a brother. Three days after my fourth birthday, I got one. The best birthday present I ever got; though I think he may get upstaged this year.

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Margaret - Andy is 6 and Juliana just turned 5. We expect to have the children with us for most of the ten days. We hope to get them on Friday, otherwise we have to wait until Monday.


Hey J - welcome to blogland! :)


SoFlaMom - per your request.












Andy's bed on the left, Juliana's on the right; this is how I found the kitty-lovie after the maid's visit.

hugs and kisses and giggles

Posting from: MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia.
Local time: 6:30 pm, Tuesday August 29
Weather: Clear, warm, light wind, very pleasant

We had a wonderful marvelous visit. When we arrived they were just getting up from their naps. Andy was up and Juliana was still asleep. He spied us and ran back into the sleeping room to wake her up. We got to watch their waking-up routine (toilet, wash hands and face, get dressed, have crackers and juice) and then we got to play play play. Even though we had our eight-doctor medical exams yesterday, the children gave us each a thorough going over with their little hospital kit.

We learned that they did receive the letters we had sent, and the pictures. They greeted us by name (mama and papa of course) and hugged and cuddled and showed us all their special treasures. At one point, Andy gave me something and I said thank you. Thank you Spaseeba he said. For the rest of the day it was thank you for him. By the time we left, Juliana had a nice version of FlankYou going too. She is up to 33 pounds now. Yippee. Her hair has grown and is curly on the ends and she was dressed ina fluffy pink dress that left glitter all over us. She spent most of the afternoon in my lap. We both got kisses from her when we left. We are leaving the glitter on.

We get to go back tomorrow from 10 to 12. We will spend the afternoon with our facilitator preparing for court and the evening with our friends welcoming the two families that arrive on the Wed flight.

Apartment

Posting from MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 11;01 am, Tuesday August 28
Weather: overcast, hot, muggy, mosquitoes


We get to see the children from 4 to 6 today. Very exciting. Here are a few pics to tide you over.


The MarKuel entrance.

The cute and well-lit kitchen. It is easily six times bigger than what Kirstin and I had in Germany.

The loo in a closet unto itself. It really does make sense to separate this from the cleaning and bathing room. Many countries do.




We were super happy to find in a box on the deck this perky red potty seat, which I am posting a pic of just for you Papa, as you so appreciated the last potty seat post.

Monday Monday

Posting from MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time 5:08 pm on Monday August 28th
Weather: Hard flooding rain and clouds of mosquitos.


We had a lovely birthday dinner at Scalini’s, including a candle in my cream caramel.

Today we were picked up at noon by Lena and Andrei and were very very happy to find A and Y in the van – they had arrived from Seoul last night and were back on schedule for court. Huge relief. We all trooped off for our eight-doctor medical exams, which were quite manageable.

I know I haven’t posted apartment pics yet; I’ll get there. One of my concerns about the apartment has been that there is only one bed in the children’s room. On the various occasions that I have talked with the staff about the necessity of another bed, we have not been able to resolve this. Our idea was that Jamie and I would carry a bed from an other room, as the hotel is minimally occupied. This was not allowed. Their idea was that one child sleep on the pull-out in the living room. This was not acceptable, as the children are used to sleeping in a room with 8-12 others. Alone in a room would be rather scary, don’t you think? I kept explaining this, trying to enlist some sympathy for the children. They seemed empathetic, but still, “no”.

Today I had Lena with us, and she pled our case. No chance; director’s orders. Lena departs.

Then, the manager on duty approaches me to tell me, with a great many apologies, that the maid had broken my bottle of perfume. I am not a luxury good kind of gal, but this was a nice and rather expensive bottle of perfume, certainly not something I would run right out and replace. But it is just a thing -- and there is no point bitching over spilled perfume -- so I listened to their apologies and said it was okay and let it go. They wanted to know the cost, so the maid could pay for it. I told them I didn’t know, but could look it up, but that she could only pay for half, as it was only half full.

So, we get up the room and I start thinking about the cost of a half a bottle and what that equates to in terms of her labor hours versus our labor hours and I decide to conveniently forget to look up the price. It would mean taking her grocery money for a vanity item and that is clearly not right.

"Knock knock" at the door. “You were so nice,” she says. “We’ve decided to do something nice for you. Our director is on vacation; you can have a bed.” Yipee! We are so happy. They do this before they realize I’ve decided to not accept the maid’s money. I tell them, “no money. I’m happy you spilled it as it got me a bed” The maid is so happy. We all end up quite happy and grateful and friendly because the perfume got spilled. Who would have guessed such a good ending?

And now for the really good news: we get to see the children tomorrow. Today they came home from summer camp – we are so curious to know more about the camp. Tonight we will make dinner and then get all organized for the orphanage visit.

Also, for those of you coming to the MarKuel in the future. We just bought 20 hours of internet DialUp access from Andrei at PeaceTravel for the same price as 6 hours of DSL access provided by the MarKuel. And dont be afraid to venture out into the community. We've found that most people are friendly and nice if we will make the first move.

a little bit of everything

MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 4:41 pm Sunday, August 27th

Just got in from our first adventure. We set out from the hotel without a map or a clue, but we did take our handy picture chart for tourists. It is a pocket chart of icons for things commonly needed. We accosted a nice lady (she had a nice dog, so we knew she was nice) and pointed at the food section of our chart. She must have thought we were idiots as she pointed to the food kiosk across the street. Things don’t look like what we expect them to look like. Even when we know this, we still are surprised.

With our handy chart we bought our eggs and cheese and bread and butter and milk for the morning coffee. We paid and left without mishap: mission accomplished. We then made our way to the playground nearby where we ran into C and A and C.’s new little person. They showed us the bigger local store, right to next to this tall apartment building (utterly typical in upkeep and appearance, by the way).
They also pointed out the way to the more commercial area. We were happy to see a cute little garden along the way.








We find the pipes fascinating. Jamie says we need a UT crew to take a look at this elbow on this expansion loop setup. I think you have to be an NDE guy to fully appreciate the elbow. As Jamie works with pipes each day, he has a special appreciation for the miles and miles of piping and the time and care that goes into maintaining them.









Pretty kitty probably likes the pipes in the winter, as they are warm. She was so nappy she kept dozing off during her photo-shoot.


We then found this lovely little pub that was empty, smoke-free, air-conditioned, and had dark beer. Budweiser, actually, the orginal Chekoslovakian sort.



Here we are, cool and relaxed.



We took some menu shots for your amusement and edification. The salad page is presented merely because we think it is amazing how many names they come up with for dishes that vary by only one ingredient. The “Hot Fish Dishes” page is presented because I think the fourth item, as punctuated, looks very labor-intensive. The German wine page is a riddle. Can you tell us the name that the first wine is sold under in the US? Let me know if you need a hint. (Click the pictures to make them bigger.)















On the walk home, we found this laundry out to dry, and a couple of kitties,









as well as some cheerfully painted buildings.

Good Morning!!

MarKuel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 8:45 am Sunday August 27th Happy Birthday to me! Thanks Mom!

We had a wonderful dinner with our friends C&N, and K and her cousin A,and their new little people who are just as cute as can be. They have had their children with them for about nine days now. Tomorrow they should be able to get going on their travel documents and move on to Moscow next weekend. It was so lovely to arrive and be welcomed and fed. We are in a different part of town than last time, and would have had a hard time finding our way to a restaurant or grocery store. Last time we were very near the main drag. This time we are a bit more remote, but the hotel people are very adoption friendly and have English speakers at the desk 24/7 and the apartments are obviously necessary for starting out family life.

We heard from our friends stranded at LAX; they did get on to the Sunday Seoul flight and are now stranded sans luggage there – of the two airports, Seoul is definitely the better place to be stranded. They are trying to get on a flight with another airline into Khab today. I had forgotten that Dalavia flies in from Seoul. So, we are hopeful that they will make it in time for court.

Internet works fine. Water pressure is nearly dangerous, it is so strong. If you must have milk or creamer for your morning coffee, bring it with.

I wish I had brought (hint hint Lisa) a 1-to-3 outlet adaptor so that I could get more things plugged into my US-to-Russia adaptor (puter and camera bat charger).

Next up: apartment shots - probably tomorrow.

Arriving in Khabarovsk

Posting from: MarKuel Hotel in Khabarovsk
Local time: 8:10 am on Saturday the 27th

I've been up for 4 hours with nowhere to go and no cream for my coffee! Jamie is finally up and showered and off on a cream mission.



Here are some shots from the airplane. I really wanted to take a picture of the man seated next to Jamie who drank eight beers and two big glasses of whiskey on a 3 hour flight. Blech.

You can see the little garden huts in this picture. It is so lovely and green here now; last time it was grey and dead looking.

When we landed and I caught sight of the airport sign, I burst into tears (surprise, surprise). We are so happy to be back and near the children.

Here you can see the hot water pipes that supply the city with hot water and heat. Private citizens are not responsible for supplying their own hot water or heat. This is seen as a proper function of government. Of course, every neighborhood gets the hot water turned off for about a month in the summer for maintainence.


Lenin Square, upon which the courthouse sits. We will burst out of the courthouse (the building on the left in the pic) and into this square next Thursday.

Airport blog-a-thon: INC-KHV

Posting from: MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 6:21 am on Sunday August 27th

The last installment of the airport segment of our show. For your viewing pleasure and amusement, I weathered the stares of the curious and boldly snapped a picture in the loo, a picture of the courtesy bell. What is a courtesy bell? It is the little device that you utilize if you think that you may soon be making an embarrassing noise. It sounds just like a flushing toilet, so no one will know what you are really doing in there. Korea: appearance is everything.



It is a beautiful, clean, well-staffed, and friendly airport. For those of you who enjoy luxury good shopping, you will find nearly everything you want at the airport duty-free shops. Alas, nearly everything: no LUSH.


Here is the gracious coffee shop young lady who serves the best coffee in the airport. She is conveniently located in a Wireless HotSpot right next to showers and couchs.


Last, here we are:



Edinburough is my new favorite European city; Incheon/Seoul is my favorite airport. What are your favs?

We are here

We are happily moved into our apartment. We have a kitchen, sitting room, two bedrooms, WC, tub room, and glassed-in deck. It is not luxurious, but clean and adequate and we are pleased.

It is, however, really really hot, which is not pleasing. I packed for cooler weather.

We have an open day tomorrow, so I'll post more then. We are off for dinner with our new friends.