A great day

Tonight Dave is doing the all of the blogging. It has been purely a collaborative effort until now.
We are getting used to Russia. We are now fully in the rhythm of the day to day routine at Sanatorium Rodnik. We are no longer surprised by Russian food and we just love the welcoming and accepting atmosphere here. I am starting to figure out the Cyrillic alphabet and can make out signs and written words.

We got to go to see our kids today. Never have we been more relaxed about being at the Golden Key Orphanage.

Today was try on all of the clothes day with Ruslan and Anna. (attentive readers of this blog may notice the new spelling of Anna.) Turns out Anya is a diminutive of Anna. Ahh-na is her real Russian name Ahh-nya is the diminutive. I know, I know, it is no shoter but thats just the way it works. So our daughter's name will be Anna, rather than Anya from here on. 

We have been lugging around a suitcase filled with clothes for our two extremely skinny Russian kids. Today, it was try on all the clothes day. Very fun. We only had about 15%-20% of the things we bought be revealed as much too large. These things have been left behind for the other kids at the orphanage. Nothing we brought was too small. Lynne should do a victory lap as to guessing sizes for the kids. So should my mother, Joyce. She kept sending smaller things and advising us to go a little smaller than we were estimating. Kudos mom; you were right. The director of the orphanage said it would be alright to let the kids keep one outfit each today. Boy were they pumped up to wear an outfit we had brought them. Anna tried on many things 2-3 times because she was really getting into the spirit of the thing. I predict a new clothes horse has been born. (Hey cousin Kristin, recognize the shorts on Anna? - Big Hit!)



Anna and Ruslan in new American clothes of their choice.

 We only had about 2 hours in Rosovka today. Our adoption coordinator sent Yuri, who drove us in his white Circa-1978 Moskvitch taxicab from Pyatogorsk round trip today. On the way back, Yuri, who spoke only Russian the whole trip, maneuvers to straddle an enormous pothole with his tiny car, looks at me and says: "Russian Highway!"  We all broke up. Very Funny guy.

Yuri's Lada Taxicab waiting for us at the gate at the end of our visit.

We go back on Saturday an then pick up our kids on Monday. It is very fun to type "the kids" and then edit it to "our kids". Feels good.

We had a fanastic end to the day shopping in Pyatigorsk with the help of our expert interpreter, Marina Almaeva. She is a senior at Pyatigorsk State Linguistics University, with her last final and oral exams in a few days. She has done a fantastic job for us as interpreter, tour guide and helper. 

We took her to dinner tonight as a thank you and had a blast.

Dave, Interpreter-extraordinaire Marina, Lynne