GETTING CLOSER EVERY DAY

Boy, this gets old after awhile. We dearly love Alexis and enjoy spending time with her but both of us feel like we’re wasting time by being here. We’re ready take little Peanut and get on a plane!!

If all goes well, she is officially ours next Saturday. We hope to move through the rest of the process and be on a plane a week from coming Wednesday.

We have had a few nice breaks to keep us mildly entertained. One night we went to an Armenian restaurant with several friends and had shashlik. (Pronounce that using the “a” in ball and “lik” as leak.) It’s Armenian-style barbeque. It was a nice departure from what Stephen cooks but you don’t need to “depart” for very long. With the meal, we were served sour milk that had gas or some sort of carbonation. According to our friends, we were to drink a large glass of this throughout the evening to help with digestion and thus not feel so full eating so much meat. Pam passed; Stephen lived on the wild side and was none the worse for wear.

Then yesterday, we joined several people in celebrating a couple of birthdays by going to a campground area with a beach on the river. It was a beautiful area but there were about 10 people who only spoke Russian, a couple of people who spoke fairly good English (and fluent Russian), and then the 2 of us. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but always felt a little awkward. And guess what… we had homemade shashlik!! It was again quite good but it can’t hold a candle to good ol’ Texas barbeque.

We’ve also been doing whatever we can to make our apartment more like a home. Each evening, Pam lights a couple of scented candles. This is a very nice “comfortable” touch and we recommend – for any of those of you preparing to make a trip similar to ours – that you bring some good candles. We also bought a microwave oven, a fan, several floor mats, and an iron and ironing board. We’ll leave those things and many others with the orphanage.

The bed needed a lot of work. The mattress measures 74 inches long and 56 inches wide. That’s short and narrow, but the other measure is even worse. It’s about 3 inches thick and sits on a solid board. In other words, in the morning every pain point – shoulders, ankles, knees, hips, and elbows – hurts. So, we went on the hunt for foam padding, and of course we found none. You also can’t find fitted sheets or mattress pads here. So, thus began our search for the cheapest and thickest comforter that we could put on the mattress and then sleep on top of that.

Stephen found one at a flea market. It was blast white with great big red hearts on it and sayings like “Groovy kind of love.” We tried it one night and then Stephen went back the next day to buy another one. The ladies who had the booth at the flea market laughed at him and – although we couldn’t’ fully understand them – joked about whether or not he would return the next day to buy a third “Groovy kind of love” comforter. We never did go back to buy a third, but we now have a soft (small) bed with 2 “Groovy kind of love” comforters on which we sleep.

Speaking of which, here are some recommendations of things to bring for people who are preparing to make a trip similar to ours.
· Baggies – bring lots (we mean literally boxes) of different sizes of baggies (quarter and gallon) that have the Ziploc-style mechanism. These are impossible to find.
· Cheap ice trays – we can’t find these anywhere. They do have bags that you fill with water and then freeze (Hmm?).
· Toilet paper – we only brought 6 Quilted Northern double rolls. It wasn’t enough.
· Soaps – bring your favorite.
· Candles – see above.
· Cooler – small soft side, collapseable cooler
· Wet wipes – all types and kinds (singles, baby wet wipes, etc)
· Water supplement packages – those little individual packages of Propel, teas, etc
· Towels and washcloths (that you’re prepared to leave when you return home)
· Your own pillow

We’ll think of a lot more stuff and post it to the blog.

We had a couple of brutally hot days in the middle of last week. The heat beat down on us from above and rose up equally hot from the ground. It was a tough couple of days but Alexis handled them surprisingly well. If you look closely at many of the photos of Alexis, you’ll notice that we spend a lot of time in a dry swimming pool. It’s only about 2 feet deep but provides a smooth surface and an area out of which Alexis cannot run. During the hot days (and the other days we spend in the pool), we throw down a large blanket and just let her play, run around, and crawl all over us.

Alexis sends her love.