Waiting ......waiting.....wating....

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Did you all know that I asked Sharon to marry me 26 years ago on this date? I know that hit a soft spot with all the ladies. I'm the man! Wouldn't it be great if we get our court date taken care of on Valentine's Day? The best thing about it is that I won't forget it.

Marilyn, I'm going to eat everything on that list starting with whatever comes near me first.

Tim

Today it's my turn to have a bit of a cold. As long as it doesn't get worse, I'll be ok. We got up this morning and the sun was out. I always feel better when the sun is shining. Even with my cold, I wanted to get out and enjoy the sun. There were alot of people out and about today. The traffic was the heaviest I've seen it since we've been here. Which only means there were 10 cars on the road instead of 2 or 3. We walked to the market and got some things to take to the kids today. Chips, juice, bananas, cookies, and candy. We had a great time with the kids again today. V met us as we got out of the taxi and M and O followed. We brought puzzles and a tablet with markers. Tim had sketched a picture of Misha from a photo that we have. Thank you June for that photo. We have no photos with us of M and O because we didn't think we would be adopting them. But, back in November, June had given me a baggie with some supplies that I would need for the trip and she had printed out a photo of M that she recieved from another family that was adopting from M's orphanage. I was digging through our things looking for something and found this photo of M. Tim used that photo to sketch a portrait of M. Tim showed it to M and he loved the sketch and showed it to everyone. We also brought a small game board with chess, bagammon, and checkers. Tim and V played chess. Tim won. Y showed up and he and Tim played checkers, but neither one of us could remember exactly how to play checkers. Y won that one without a fight. O ate candy of course and then put together two small puzzles. M loves listening to the MP3 player and working puzzles. He asked me if he could take the tablet today because he wanted to draw something for us. K stopped by and she took some photos of me, Tim, O, V, and M. It was another great day with the kids.

As we were leaving today there was a group of about 10-15 kids waiting in line to ride one of the 3 bikes around the courtyard. It was very cold and there was snow on the ground, but those kids were having a great time. We asked our taxi driver if they had a place in town where we could buy bicycles and he said, "NYET". We would have to go to a bigger town about and hour away to buy bikes. We'll have to look in to it. We also noticed some kids who put a big log between the Y in a tree and made a see-saw. It was nice to see the courtyard filled with kids. Winters are tough here and it has to be hard on kids to stay inside so much.

Ann and Keith, we saw S out in the courtyard when we arrived. He was playing with his friends. He was bundled up good and all we could see was his eyes and nose.

We are anxiously waiting to hear from our facilitator tomorrow regarding our court date. The children are anxious as well. We are praying for a quick and single court date.

Thank you for all of your prayers and comments!

Becca, I'm glad to hear you are feeling better. M has the blanket you made for him. He loves it.

Ron, so glad to hear from you! Say hello to Rosemary.

Kathi, thank your for the email. Tim loved your comment - don't encourage him:-).

June, we are ordering the Mexican pizza. We tried to order a different one the other day and the only thing I can't have is pineapple. Guess what we ordered? Chicken and pineapple. We can't read the stinkin' menu. It takes 30 minutes using Lingo to put one word in a time and try to see what the ingredients are. They laugh at us because we "study" the menu when we are there using the Lingo. We will order a pizza and they come back to get the menu and we tell the we still want to read it.

GO NAVY! We are glad to hear that Stephen made it to boot camp. We are thinking about him. He told me that he will get issued those sexy black frame glasses while in boot camp. I can't wait for that photo.

Sharon