Updates (From Saturday and today)

Saturday's:

Yesterday was a fun day. Our spirits were not very good in the morning but by the time we went to bed we were in much better moods.

We went up to the orphanage at 10:00. Sergei wanted David to play basketball with him. He figured since David was taller than the other boys they would do better. David tried to convince him that he isn’t a very good basketball player but Sergei still wanted him to come. Sasha said he didn’t like basketball and would not be there. But we went anyway. David immediately tripped over a bench that was painted the same color as the walls and really hit a door frame hard. If we can we will try to post a picture of the bruise. Otherwise, the basket ball game really should have been called Jungle ball. The younger kids hardly dribbled the ball.

In the afternoon we went to a concert. Lena and Posha sang a song while Tania and 5 other girls danced around them. They did a wonderful job. We felt bad for them though. The microphone cord was not long enough so they ended up stopping the performance and moving the microphone stand and starting the performance over. The girls did a good job adapting to a different part of the stage.

Dale is here visiting Lena and Posha. He and his wife are hoping to adopt them. Both of us were filming the song. There were many pictures take during the song. The caretaker, music teacher and dance teacher were also very proud of the kids.

After the concert, Dale, Lena, Posha, Oleg, Helen, Marina, the music teacher, Tania, Sasha, David and I went to dinner at a French restaurant. We were there for over three hours. We learned a lot about Lena and Posha. By the end of the dinner we were playing charades. We had some really hard words. Helen started us with the word distributor. We had other words such as fog, lunar rover, rain, director, constitution, cheese, deputy, and spiderman. So you will see that they were not easy words. We were all laughing so hard by the time we were done. I’m sure the other patrons of the restaurant were not thrilled with us but oh well.

We are hoping to have our court date on Friday. We are anxiously awaiting that next step of the process.

We appreciate all of your comments on the blog. It really helps us feel like we are apart of this world when we get comments. Thank you to everyone who has kept watching our blog.

Today's:

The other day we were looking at the Roger's and Milne's blog and we realized that we are in the same apartment. The couch, the table cloth and the dishes as well as the view out the window are all the same. Our landlord is Sergei.

It snowed here yesterday so it is getting colder. The missionaries told us that when it freezes they spread dirt over the ice patches in the sidewalk. When it melts it get really dirty. He didn't remember ever seeing a snow plow.

Our jeans are getting looser these days. Between walking everyday, climbing the stairs at least twice a day to our apartment on the 7th floor (the elevator has been broken for several days), and jumping around all of the puddles on the sidewalk we are getting plenty of excercise. Plus we haven't been eating much fried food. We go to McDonalds when we need an American fix.

We hope to get a court date today. We should find out later today.

Sasha is doing better. Tania is a gem. We can't wait to get a court date so that we can take them out of the orphanage.

We would like to say that we are very impressed with the people who work at the orphanage. They truly care about these kids. They have been very willing to work with us and help us as much as they can.