90 Remarkable Years

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Today we took a day trip to Bel Air, MD., to celebrate my Auntie Pauline’s 90th Birthday with family & friends. (Auntie Pauline is my Grandmother’s sister.)

Seeing so many cousins, aunts and uncles again reminds me how fortunate we are to have such wonderful and supportive family members. The last time that many of us gathered together at the same time was in 2002, which was a very tough year for my family as 3 key members passed away in quick succession of each other - - my Grandmother in October, her sister (Auntie Nedra) exactly 1 week later, and their younger brother (Uncle Buddy) passed away earlier that year in March. Thankfully today was a much happier celebration!

The day was meant to celebrate Auntie Pauline and the remarkable woman she is, but I admit that I did steal some of her thunder and brought Ilya pictures with me to show off! Our son has so many people looking forward to meeting him, and we are truly blessed with the love everyone is already showering upon him! My dad’s side of the family is very large and my cousin Carolyn is already working on adding Ilya to the family tree she is creating. Yay!!

The party was held at Mt. Carmel Primitive Baptist Church, which is a very (very!) small church that my Great-Grandparents helped to establish back in the 1930’s. In fact, up until a few years ago there was a beautiful tree on the grounds which was planted in honor of Great Grandaddy. I found out today that unfortunately that tree had to be cut down for some reason. I was pretty sad about that. My spirits lifted, however, when I saw my Great Grandmother's painting of the church still hanging in the Pastor's office.

As a small child, I attended many services with my Grandmother at Mt. Carmel. I loved Pastor Thompson and had so much fun when we went there. We also made many visits to him in his home and as a kid, I thought it was pretty darn cool to go to a real Pastor’s home and spend time with him! He would pretend to pull quarters from behind my ear and I was just in awe…I mean after all, that alone proved he was a man of God as far as a 4 year old was concerned!! :-)

I was amazed today to find out how many of Mt. Carmel’s members remember seeing me there with my Grandmother so many years ago. They haven’t seen me, my sister of my dad for years and yet they had their own special memories of each of us. One woman in particular, who was introduced to me as Sister Dixon, nearly brought me to tears with her memories, kind words and genuine concern and love for our family. I’m guessing she’s in her late 80’s and she uses a walker but when she saw me she clasped my hand so, so tightly. The strength of this otherwise frail looking woman surprised me and her words surprised me even more. She recalled memories I had long forgotten and I could feel her love exuding from between those clasped hands. Having the chance to meet and speak with Sister Dixon brought so much comfort and peace. She assured me that she was praying for Ilya’s homecoming and as she said that, I could literally feel the power of her prayers. It was truly an experience I will not soon forget.

Right next door to Mt. Carmel is another church with significant meaning/history for our family - - Mt. Zion United Methodist. As we were leaving the party, I asked Norm if we could stop by Mt. Zion to snap a few photos and pay respect to my Auntie Nedra and Uncle Creed. Their tombstone is beautiful - - with an aerial view of their farm engraved upon it. I tried to get a picture but you can see my reflection so unfortunately it’s not very good. As a teenager, I attended many services at Mt. Zion with my cousins, and a few summers I helped with the Bible school program. I can still remember the emotions I felt each time I stepped foot into this church. God was calling out to me even then, but unfortunately I didn’t feel like listening to His calls until 5 years ago. Thank goodness I finally stopped ignoring Him! (Pssst...if you're ignoring Him like I was, why don't you consider listening from time to time. Your life will only change for the better!)

I asked Norm to make one more pit stop as we headed home. My Grandmother worked at a Christian school for years, John Carroll High School, and surprisingly I had never seen it in person (only in pictures). So, Norm obliged and I was able to see where she spent the better part of 30 years of her life! It was the perfect end to a joyous day. The only thing I can think that would have made it any better was if Ilya had been there with us! Sleep tight little guy, we'll be back soon!

Trip 1 "stuff"

You may remember that I was suffering from back-to-back episodes of the worst case of the flu EVER when we received our travel dates, and that Norm was on a couple of business trips while I was making our travel arrangements. That made preparing a packing list a bit stressful for me! I really enjoyed (and appreciated!) getting help from other families or reading their blogs to find out what items we needed to take with us.

So, in an effort to “Pay It Forward”, here’s a list of what I can remember taking with us on trip 1. I may have left a few things off, but this is pretty much it! Oh, and we used Space Saver bags for our clothes to make everything fit, and yes we were way under our luggage weight limit!

Baby Essentials (carried in Kar’s carryon)
2 Who Loves Baby Albums (we didn’t know if there would be 1 or 2 Baby C’s! We left one behind & brought one home)
Stacking Cups (left w/ Ilya)
Stuffed Donkey (left w/ Ilya)
Plastic Keys
2 touch & feel books
Blinky Catepillar thing that made a bunch of noises
8 Shout wipes (didn’t need any - yay!)
2 packs of tissue
2 washcloths to use as burp/drool cloths (used both & washed when we did laundry)
Baby snacks (we didn’t even open these & brought them home w/ us)

Karyn’s Clothes
Worn on plane – jeans, sweater, t-shirt, undergarments, fuzzy socks (my fellow ladies know what I mean!!)
MOE – dress slacks, silk sweater combo, trouser socks, undergarments
1 pair black pants (worn on Tuesday & Wedneday)
1 pair black jeans (worn on Thurs & Friday)
2 sweaters (1 worn Tues & Wed, the other worn Thurs & Friday)
1 camisole
1 black t-shirt
3 sets of undergarments (so 4 total if you count what was worn on the plane)**
1 pair lounge pants
1 tank top (which I slept in)
3 pairs of socks**
Coat
1 pair shoes
**could have gotten away w/ 1 less pair of socks/undergarments since we could do laundry
Personal care items

Norm’s Clothes
Worn on plane – jeans, sweater, t-shirt, undies, socks
MOE – dress slacks, turtleneck, dress shirt, dress socks
2 pairs black jeans**
2 sweaters**
2 dress t-shirts
3 pair underwear
3 pair socks
Leather coat
1 pair shoes
**Norm could have gotten away with bring only 1 pair of black jeans and 1 sweater (not including the pair he wore on the plane)
Personal care items

Orphanage Donations purchased in US & carried over (NOT the donations we bought while in Russia to celebrate Ilya’s b-day)
5 pairs of little pants
5 t-shirts
1 dress w/ matching hat

Food
3 pouches tuna
6 pouches Easy Mac
7 Folgers individual coffee packs (only I drink coffee - Norm claims he doesn't need a caffeine fix)
7 packs sugar
7 packs creamer
6 packs instant oatmeal
3 packs instant soup
6 packs Ramen noodles (3 beef, 3 chicken)
9 granola bars
Peanut butter
**Bought water, yogurt, bread, soda, mayonnaise, chips, jelly, sandwich bags, small bag of macaroni type noodles, pizza that we couldn’t cook (yeah, still bitter about this!), and a cake for the caregivers while we were in Moscow. We didn’t go out to eat at all. We ate lunch in the car each day, and our first day we made tuna sandwiches. I don’t think Katia or Anton appreciated the smell much (they rolled down the windows when we got out of the car!! lol!) so each day after that, we made peanut butter & jelly sandwiches instead. We saved our other 2 packs of tuna for dinners. Lovely diet for a week, huh?

Things we took but didn’t need
Sink stopper
Karyn’s books/magazines (surprisingly, I didn’t read at all on this trip. Very weird)
Sunglasses (we did have some sunny days, but the car windows were so tinted we didn’t need them)
5 packs of Clorox wipes
2 extra sets of converters/adapters – they kept falling out of the wall!! See note about Karyn’s international hairdryer to see how we solved this issue
Money belt (probably should have used them but we didn’t)
Antibiotics and other meds (VERY happy we didn't need this stuff!)

Things we are very grateful we took
Camcorder
Camera
Laptop
50’ network cable
Umbrella
Karyn’s International Hairdryer - - it came w/ a converter/adapter that actually worked in the outlets. The other 2 converters/adapters we took kept falling out of the walls.
Very small bottle of All laundry detergent. We did laundry twice.

Things we wish we had
Better Moscow street map
Norm’s broadband card to pass time in the airport (no WiFi access for us)

Things the Verdict is still out on
DVD player & “Finding Nemo.” Love the movie & it was great to watch on the way home. However, even though it was a mini-DVD player, it takes up a lot of extra space in the carryon. I’m not sure it was worth bringing for just one movie.

Karyn’s noise cancelling headphones. I’ve had a great experience with these in the past, but this time they gave me a MAJOR headache plus they really hurt my ears, which means I couldn’t listen to our IPod on the plane. Bummer…

I think that covers it! Hopefully at least part of this will be helpful to families getting ready to travel. If I realize later that I left anything off the list, I’ll let you know! We’re off to update our Target registry!

Paka! (see ya)

We’re Home!

But honestly, the house seems like it’s missing something…like the pitter patter of little feet doing their best to walk around our entertainment room, or the giggling of a super sweet, super happy little boy who so enjoys getting tickled, or the cooing of that same little boy being rocked to sleep by his Papa. The house is definitely missing that little boy’s non-stop, ear to ear grin that is so endearing and so very precious.

So how do we remedy this? We pray. We pray for quick receipt of our 171H (immigration approval) and a speedy court date. We pray for our son, the orphanage director, the caregivers, the children who will remain at the orphanage waiting for someone to love them, and for ourselves we pray for patience and peace as we endure what is by far the toughest wait of our adoption journey. We invite all of you to join us in prayer as well. Without the 171, we have no court date. Without the court date, our son can’t come home. Without our son in our home, the house seems like it’s missing something…

Thank goodness we bought the camcorder before we left!! I can get my “fix” any time of day or night. I can listen to his laughter and cooing, and watch his face light up at the sight of his Papa. It’s also hilarious to watch our pups, Bailey & Bandit, twist their heads and perk up their ears when one of our son’s giggling session starts. It’s a beautiful sound and we treasure it so!

Our flight home went as well as a 10.5 hour flight can go! I still say this Aeroflot experience was far better than our travels to Italy on American Airlines last summer. The SVO airport was pretty rudimentary and sparse but we made the best of it by becoming friends with a fellow American. Customs at Dulles was no issue at all, and we're still trying to recover from major jetlag!

So anyway, we’re home! Hopefully our son will be also be home very, very soon as well. Thanks to everyone for your supportive and encouraging emails and comments while we were in Moscow last week. PLEASE keep them coming! We need and appreciate your words of kindness, and especially your prayers!

Trip 1 - Day 7: Heading Home

Slept horribly again last night. I couldn't stop thinking about Ilya. We love you baby boy and will be back as soon as we possibly can!

Katia & Anton will be here in about an hour to take us to the airport. It seems like it's gorgeous outside. The sun is shining brightly and it's probably in the high 30's or so. We're hoping the flight isn't delayed for any reason and that we'll find another friendly Aeroflot employee to give us better seats than the ones we have now.

We'll be landing at 4:30 EDT, which to us will be 11:30pm so our internal clocks will be off for the next couple of days. Next post will be from the US!

I also need to wish the Craven's safe travels and a wonderful week. They leave today for their first trip, and I hope it is as amazing for them as it has been for us.

Please continue to pray that we receive our 171 soon. As of yesterday, we still hadn't received it and that is the only thing standing in the way of our receiving a court date...

Thanks everyone!
Karyn & Norm

Trip 1 – Day 6: Sdnyom Rajdyeneeya Ilya!

Translation – Happy Birthday Ilya!

Katia & Anton picked us up at 10:15 again, and on the way to the orphanage we stopped to buy a cake for Ilya’s caregivers to share. I completely forgot to take a picture of it, but it looked really yummy! It was some type of chocolate crème cake with elaborate (and edible) decorations on the top. We also brought a gift bag full of clothes and toys for the children in Ilya’s group. A part of me wanted to go all out and buy every toy we saw for our Ilya but then I realized that he is going to be spoiled rotten once he gets home. The friends he is leaving behind are still waiting for someone to pick them up from the orphanage and take them home forever. It may be a very long time for them to celebrate such a special day, or anything for that matter, with their families and we decided they needed some new toys as well.

We’ve been bonding with Ilya this week in a playroom that is being renovated. Before they brought him to us this morning, we decorated the room with various balloons and placed the new toys we bought him in the play pin/crib. He is teething right now and really seemed to enjoy a teether ring we bought him. It was a huge hit! He also loved the balloons but I was afraid he’d pop one and scare himself.

I’m thrilled we were able to spend Ilya’s 1st birthday with him! The orphanage fed him early since they knew we would be spending our last day (for now) with him, which gave us 1.5 hours more with him than other days this week. We had over 4 hours with him today and we feel so blessed. There are many families who don’t get that much time with their child the entire week!

As we said our goodbyes to Ilya, his caregiver, the Orphanage Director and the Psychiatrist, I got teary eyed. Natalia told me not to cry, that Ilya is our son and that he will be home soon. I told her I knew he was in very good hands, and that we appreciated everything they do for Ilya every day. I also thanked them all for entrusting Ilya to us. She said we are meant to be family and nothing will prevent that from happening. Her words brought tears to my eyes but also comforted me. As much as I absolutely hate leaving Ilya, I am confident that everyone at the orphanage has his best interest at heart and that they will continue to do all they can for him & the other children despite the limited resources they have.

After leaving Ilya, Katia & Anton took us to Moscow’s highpoint for a few photo shots, and then finally we arrived back at the apartment.

We’re on apartment arrest AGAIN waiting this time for the apartment manager to stop by with a refund for our key deposit and to give us instructions for checking out tomorrow. He was supposed to be here 1.5 hours ago but still hasn’t arrived. Hopefully he’ll get here soon…Our phone is giving us issues as well so I can't call Beth & Nick or Ron & Dinnia. My emails seem to be delayed for some reason so if I send them messages they may not receive it this evening. I am so sorry!!!

Our Aeroflot flight leaves Moscow tomorrow at 1pm (6am EDT), and is due to land at 4:30pm EDT (11:30pm Moscow). Katia & Anton are picking us up at 9:30am. It will be another long day but is also a step closer to Ilya being home with us forever. Please pray for safe travels for us and for Ilya to remain healthy and happy.

We’ve started packing up and getting things ready to head home tomorrow. As much as I’m ready to sleep in my own bed, play with my pets, see friends and family, and go to Easter Service on Sunday, a huge, significant part of me is staying here in Moscow. I knew it would be hard to temporarily leave Ilya, but you have no idea how hard it really is until you’re sitting in Russia on your last night, already missing your little one who has totally captured your heart and is not giving it back, wondering if your son is receiving any comfort for his aching little teefers, hoping his tummy is full, praying for a quick court date - - and also knowing that God is watching over you both, wanting to reunite your family just as much you want it to be reunited.

PLEASE, please, let our reunion be soon. If for some reason it is not, let Norm & me have the strength, courage and faith to wait however long we must to hold our little boy again.

We love you, Ilya. You ARE our son and we cannot wait to bring you home.

The proud new Mama & Papa

Fooled ya! I bet you thought I forgot about the sneak peek. Here is Ilya’s 1st birthday glamour shot!

Trip 1 – Day 5: Ilya Withdrawals = Retail Therapy

Today was difficult to get through since we didn’t get to visit Ilya at all. Plus, I slept horribly last night because I was worried Ilya would be confused about us not being there, and our 171 (immigration approval) should have been mailed to our house before we left for Moscow and we STILL haven’t received it. I’m seriously stressing over the 171 issue. I cried myself to sleep and woke up in a not so good mood….angry about the 171 and sad and missing my little guy terribly.

Katia & Anton picked us up at 10:30am and we headed to the notary’s office. Yesterday Anton pointed out the notary building to me and I thought it would be a breeze to get there. Ha! Lesson #?? – nothing in Moscow is easy to get to if you’re relying on a vehicle to get you there! I wasn’t thinking about the fact that you can’t turn left on many streets here, and instead have to make a series of right turns and u-turns in order to get where you want to go. At first I found all these nonsensical right/u turns amusing. Today I was just annoyed – probably due to my Ilya withdrawals and lack of sleep. What should have taken 5-10 minutes to get to took nearly an hour.

We waited around in the notary’s office for awhile when in walks a Russian woman who, in English, told the man with her to have a seat. Then she asked for his passport. Being a skilled adoptive parent now, I immediately recognized this as most likely being a fellow American in Russia pursuing adoption. Then it hit me…I knew (or at least recognized!) the man sitting across from me. It was Nick, Beth’s husband and Jaxon’s new papa! You may recall that Beth/Nick and Norm/I signed with CSS on the same day and she is a GREAT friend of mine. We’ve been trying all week to hook up for dinner or something but the location of our apartment is proving to be problematic. So anyway, I elbow Norm in the ribs and whisper “Pssst…I think that’s Nick!” I suddenly got a case of shyness so Norm took it upon himself to say “Are you Nick?” and thankfully he said yes! Beth & Jaxon were out waiting with their driver in the car. Nick walked me out so I could FINALLY meet Beth in person! Yay! Jaxon is an absolute doll and Beth did not exaggerate at all when she said he’s a chunk! There’s still a chance we can go out to dinner with them tomorrow night & I really hope that works out.

After the notary we headed out to the notorious 8 dr. physical exam. It turned out to be a 6 dr. exam because the oncologist and psychiatrist weren’t there. The physical was NOT a big deal at all, but I’ll leave my comments about this process to that sentence only. If you want details, feel free to email me. Otherwise, I was taught that if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So, I won’t!

Next - - RETAIL THERAPY cured my blues! We wanted to pick up a few presents for Ilya’s 1st birthday. Anton suggested a mall close to the clinic where we had the exams. There is a very large and cute children’s store named Bananarama and we bought some stuff for as gifts for Iliya’s birthday and the other items are for the children in his group:

After that we sat in horrible traffic again on our way back to the CSS office, and then more horrible traffic from there back to the apartment. I thought my feet were going to be permanently stuck to Anton’s floorboard due to a couple near misses today. Not Anton’s fault nor would we have been injured had anything happened, but people drive way too close to each other for my comfort! A few times along the way I started feeling claustrophobic with all the cars around us.

Oh, and we saw one really funny traffic oopsie. I don’t know if I can describe this very good, but it was hilarious to see. For argument’s sake, let’s say we were going north on whatever road we were on. I wouldn’t even qualify traffic as “crawling” along because that even sounds too fast! Anyway, we eventually get to see the cause of the problem… a car had suddenly decided that instead of going north, he needed to go west and was blocking 3 lanes of traffic on a 4 lane road. He’s just sitting there almost getting T-Boned by 3 lanes of cars. No one would let him cross over that 4th lane to get out of our way. The funniest thing about this to me & Norm was that he must have been in the far right lane when he decided he needed to switch directions for whatever reason. There were no side streets he could have come from, nowhere he could have turned from to end up sitting sideways in 3 lanes! Once we got passed that, we saw a woman just stop in the middle of the right lane so she could park & go shopping. Craziness I tell you!

We also picked up a few more groceries this afternoon to get us through lunch tomorrow and sandwiches for the plane. Katia suggested we get a pizza for dinner tonight and it sounded wonderful after living off of Ramen noodles, instant soup, and Easy Mac for the week. We had her read the cooking directions to us in the store, which said to place the pizza in the oven for 8-10 minutes at whatever Celsius temp. I was super excited about our dinner plans because we didn’t have a chance to eat lunch today and I was STARVING!! So, we got back to the apartment and I took it upon myself to “cook” (remember, I told everyone awhile back that I do not cook…ever!) and then I came to a very horrible, very sad realization…we have no stinking oven here!!! You’d think after being here since Monday we would have realized this, right?! Grrrr….

While we’re on the subject of food…Want entertaining snacks while you’re in Moscow? Not much on the English speaking channels in your apartment? We have a cure! Pick up a bag of Saltletts Cocktail Mix from a Russian grocery store. As I type, Norm is enjoying picking through the bag finding crackers shaped like dolphins, stars, and fishies, and getting very excited over each one that he finds. What am I doing? Really wishing I had a slice of pizza….

We're also waiting on the courier to drop off our registration paperwork. No idea when that's gonna happen...

I can’t post without another Ilya preview. This picture, in its entirety, is one of my favorites of Ilya & Norm. Some day soon you’ll be able to see the absolute love in Ilya’s face as he stares intently into his new papa’s eyes. It is so very precious!

Trip 1 – Day 4 (afternoon)

I thought the name game Norm & I have been playing for the last 5 months was resolved but alas…I was wrong yet again. Late last night I had the great idea of spelling Peter "Pyotr” which I thought was the Russian variant of Peter. Our friend Jeff was apparently on the same brain wave as me (scary) because he sent an email sometime yesterday/last night, which I received this morning, suggesting the same thing. So ,I started working on Norm to convince him our son’s full name should be Iliyah Pyotr. After all, why should our son have a name spelled normally when Norm & I do not (NormanD and KarYn). Besides, I think it all looks very cool together. Convince Norm I did, and we went about our day thinking we had just come up with the best-spelled name ever.

My bubble burst this afternoon when I was corrected by 3 people from our agency that Pyotr is NOT Peter in Russian. Petr is, however, but that just looks messed up to us. So, for now we have decided to stick with the traditional spelling of Peter. Also, we were corrected on the spelling of Iliyah. It is actually Ilya, so that was fixed on the official papers as well.

sigh…so much for Iliyah Pyotr…

None of that is as important as the wonderful day we had again with Ilya! We were able to spend almost 3 hours with him, which was fabulous. Katia made the mistake of telling me that the caregivers told her Ilya was “very sad” yesterday afternoon after we left. All I can think about now is how sad he will be come Friday when we don’t return to see him again for 4 or more weeks… Will he be mad that we left? Will he remember us when we return? Is this going to make him digress at all? These thoughts, and many more about leaving him behind, bring tears to my eyes and physically hurt me.

A caregiver left the orphanage with us this afternoon because we needed some papers signed by the head doctor, who was supposed to be at a clinic in the little town where the orphanage is. When we arrived at the clinic, a guard approached the car and an angry Russian conversation took place. I guess the caregiver told him we were all there from the orphanage and needed papers signed, but the guard insisted there was no orphanage in the town! She and the guard are going at it and finally the guard was convinced that there is an orphanage down the road, so he let us in. She ran into the clinic and was gone for about 10 minutes, only to come back to the car & tell us that the head doctor wasn’t at the clinic but the hospital instead. So, off all 5 of us went to the hospital. This time, Katia went inside with her and they were gone for about 15 minutes. They came back & said that the head doctor did sign the papers but that the doctor’s stamp was…guess where?! Back at the clinic! So, back to the clinic we go! The guard didn’t ask any questions this time and just let us through. We drove up to the same building as we did the first time we were there and the caregiver was only gone for 2-3 minutes this time, but came back & said she had to go to another building somewhere on the grounds because that's where the stamp was. She was gone for another 15 minutes and then finally that drama was over! We dropped her off on the side of the road, ½ way between the clinic and the orphanage, and then made our way back to Moscow in the grueling traffic.

We will not see Ilya tomorrow but the trade off is that we get to spend a lot of time with him on his 1st birthday. Yay! Tomorrow we will first go to the notary to have today’s official papers notarized, and then we’ll head off to the infamous 8 dr. exam at 1pm. Katia & Anton will also take us shopping at a children’s store so that we can pick up a birthday present for Ilya. Friday morning we’re going to stop by a bakery and get a cake to share with Ilya’s caregivers. Our exams will take approximately 2 hours and Katia said there is a small chance we’ll be able to make it to the orphanage tomorrow afternoon but it’s doubtful. We’re on apartment arrest again tomorrow evening as we wait for the courier to come back with our registrations from the police office. We don’t know what time he’s showing up, just some time after 5pm… Great…

Norm & I decided to do laundry tonight and even though we got instructions on the machine on Sunday, we of course forgot nearly everything we were told. I have to admit that I have no idea what the Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion is, so I had to Google the water temps first. We didn’t want to end up with jeans that would fit Ilya!! Then, we noticed there was no area on the top or sides of the machine for laundry detergent to go into, so we took a chance, dumped some right on top of the clothes, and hoped for the best. Then, I spent the better part of a half hour trying to figure out what the following labels on the machine meant:

Холодная
Бережная

First I tried using our Russian-English translation guide. That was useless. I resorted to doing a another Google search for the Cyrillic alphabet, which brought up Wikipedia. From there, I copied & pasted each letter into a Word document, and used Word’s translation guide to figure out what they meant. I know you’re all dying of curiosity but it would be too easy if I just told you the answers, now wouldn’t it? Okay, fine! Here are the translations…families traveling in the future may want to make note of this!

Холодная = cold
Бережная = cautious (not sure why though!)

I have another crucial tip for traveling families staying in apartments. Many of these buildings have two doors through which you enter. Sometimes both doors have codes you have to enter in order to get in, but it seems the 2nd door always has a code which your apartment manager needs to give you when you check in. Our 2nd apartment (the one we’re in now) has 2 doors that need codes but the apartment manager told us the first door always stays open so he didn’t give us that code. TIP #1: DON’T EVER LET THEM CONVINCE YOU THAT YOU DON’T NEED THAT FIRST CODE!!! Norm & I got locked out of the building tonight because someone had shut the first door and, as I mentioned above, we didn’t have the code! Apparently Katia has wings on her shoes because she was nowhere in sight when we realized our dilemma. (Anton drops her off with us & then she walks to the metro). We ran down a little street in the direction we thought she had walked in, but saw no sight of her whatsoever. Norm asked me a very reasonable, logical question next, but he’s talking to me and I am rarely reasonable & logical. He asked if I had Katia’s cell number with me. Ummm…that would have made too much sense! I, of course, had left it behind in the apartment. TIP #2: ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR TRANSLATOR’S CELL # WITH YOU! Right when I was about to have a nervous breakdown, I saw a little man coming out of our building & starting to shut that first door. We booked it over to him as fast as we could and started begging and pleading our case with him to let us back into the building. He had no idea what we were saying, so the bad charade game started yet again. He finally understood what we needed and kindly let us into the building. Norm watched what code he entered, so hopefully we won’t put ourselves through this again! The only thing I could envision throughout all of this was Norm & I taking turns either sleeping under newspaper or keeping vigil all night. TIP #3: Start fine tuning your charade skills!

I guess that’s it for today - other than leaving you with another Ilya sneak peek! This is the best I can do right now for the request of baby feet photos. Sorry! The words on the bottom of his shoes indicate that he is in Group 3. Each "group" of kids shares clothes, shoes, etc.