We have a court date!

We received our court date of February 21. We are meeting at the court house at Noon. All documentation and all parties (kids included) will attend. We should be able to complete everything on this one court date. Yeah! I guess we will believe it once it's done, but this is very good news. We are working on changing our return flights, but don't know about the availability on the train yet. We have to make the 14 hour train ride back to Kiev then we can catch our flight home. Tim says we turn in to bobble heads on the train. I think it's more like a huge rocking chair except when it stops.

We have been invited to dinner at the Orphanage Director's house tomorrow night. We are looking forward to it. We've heard it's quite the party.

Yesterday I was sick, but I'm feeling much better today. I got a stomach bug from FOOT! We could not visit with the children as I could not get off the couch. Tim took excellent care of me. He went down to the kitchen and in broken Russian explained that I was sick and needed soup. They delivered a tray with all kinds of hot food for me. Unfortunately, I could not stomach any food. Today when we went to breakfast they all asked how I was and were very sweet. I feel like I'm getting the royal treatment here. Now Tim isn't feeling well. He has more of a cold with a sore throat. I hope it doesn't turn in to the stomach virus I had. All Tim wants it a hot bath, but it's not going to happen. No tub and usually no hot water.

We had an interesting conversation with a lady at the flower shop in the market today. She spoke alittle English and noticed we did so she was asking us why we were here. We told her that we are adopting a brother and sister from an orphanage. Her comment was, "there is something wrong with children in orphanage". She also said, "they are dangerous". This seems to be a common perception here no matter how wrong it is. She also told us that they work all day and make $15 per day.

We told the kids that the court date is next week. They seemed happy about it. We bought each child a nice gift and gave it to them on different days. Today was M's. We gave him walkie talkies. All the kids had a blast playing with them. They talked more today on those walkie talkies than they have since we've been here. We gave V a watch. He wears it proudly. We gave O an eye shadow kit. She came down today looking like a model with her new eye shadow.

It has been snowing heavily the past two days. There has to be at least 6 inches on the ground and it's still snowing. When it was time to leave today and we were waiting for the taxi the kids started a snowball fight. They got Tim good. I got hit a couple of times too, but I got them back. After we got too cold and too tired we went back in the school house and warmed our hands on the radiator. M looked like a snowman. His brother pushed him in to a small snow bank and pelted him with snow. M loved every minute of it.

Thanks for all of your prayers! They are working!

Freddie - So good to hear from you!! Say CIAO to your Mom.

Choco - Tell Freddie that he can pass that test. Make sure he signs up and has a definite date to take it again. Glad to hear he's joining the Navy!

June - The guards reminds us to wear our hats too! They really do look out for us Texans who have no idea about all of this cold weather. They also came in today and changed out all of the lightbulbs in the apt. WE CAN SEE! Seriously, we had one light bulb in the den and one in the bathroom.

Brenda - I will be in touch once we get the return flights confirmed.