Aprl 15th

It's tax day back home. Happy Tax day! The Wed after Easter, too...what timing! The past couple of days have flown by. Have you noticed that when Igor is around, we fly around town a lot?

We haven't had much of a chance to celebrate yet. Monday after court we ran around to get something notorized, but were too late. So we ate at the McD's again, and headed home. But not before we got a picture outside the court house. Once home, we started packing Dave up for his trip to Kiev and then Detroit.

Monday night I was so excited to see my mom I couldn't sleep. Boy, the alarm clock at 5:40am sure did come fast! Igor and I went to get my mom from the train, and even helped her with her bags off the train. We had a quick few minutes to settle her in before Igor and I jumped back in the taxi and headed for Maxim's birth city to get his birth certificate updated with my name as moma, and Dave's as papa. It's about 120km from here and it was an interesting drive. It was mostly countryside and reminded me a lot of Nebraska, Kansas...you know, the flat agricultural states. We've been warned that the roads aren't all that great, but it wasn't that bad...kind of reminded me of certain roads in the Detroit area. We got there at about 8:15am, and the office was SUPPOSED to open at 8:30am. But this is an adoption story, and what fun would it be to read about everything being easy?

We found out that Kiev called and there was a meeting from 8:30am to 10am. So we waited. I wandered a little in to the city, but didn't see too much. I didn't want to wander too far and get lost. I started taking pictures, but only got three before my camera told me the internal memory was full...Oops! Somebody (cough*Dave*cough) didn't put the memory card back in the camera...Oh well. At 9:45am Igor had the paperwork to the appropriate person and was told to come in an hour. We came together in an hour to check on the paperwork. There was a couple registering their baby, and a wedding couple with parents in tow. We waited. Come back after lunch. Igor explained that Dave had a flight and we needed the paperwork today as soon as possible. 10 mins til noon. We're still waiting and someone was shooing people out because it was near lunch time. Nope, we're waiting on paperwork. So, we finally got the paperwork at about 12:30pm. Phew! Long morning. I was starving, but I didn't care. The ride back seemed much faster, and we even got to pass a few cop cars on the way trying to catch speeders.

Think that's the end of the day? You thought wrong! We got back, and my mom and Dave brought us food (mmmmm....) and flowers (thanks honey!). We went to a notary, back to the orphanage, back to some other place, then back to the orphanage to pick up Eli. Mom and Dave got out of the car, we got Eli and rushed to get his passport photo. It was so sweet to get to hold my baby on the ride there and back. I sat kind of in the middle so he could look straight out, and the care giver that went with us helped me distract him with things from her purse. She was really good with him. She even knew some English! Eli did good on the ride, although you could tell he was overwhelmed. He's going to need to be sheltered a little when he gets home because everything is new to him. This might have been his first trip out of the orphanage.

Days not over yet! We got to the orphanage, dropped Eli off, went back to the house, said our goodbyes and Dave and Igor left at 6:30pm for their overnight trip back to Kiev. My mom and I had a quick bite, watched a movie and crashed at 10pm. We slept soundly until 9am this morning!

Today has been much slower. We visited Maxim, who LOVES my mom, and bought shoes for all the children in his groupa. Then we went to lunch, took showers, and my mom met and chatted with Alla, who is as sweet as I thought she would be. It's nice to be able to have a conversation with her (through my mom). And...She's taking us to church with her on Sat!! My mom was really hoping to experience an orthodox Easter, but we weren't even sure where to look for a church. But Alla is going to take us on Sat, and maybe even Sun! We get to see the blessing of the Easter baskets by the priest. It's a major tradition for the orthodox people.

Now we're winding down for the night. It's been a fun day, and it's nice to have my mom here. Dave is on his way home, so please pray for his safety. He has a 12 hour lay over in Amsterdam and will stay in a hotel for a while (already booked it). Pray also that he signed everything that needed to be signed, and left the correct paperwork with Anna in Kiev. I'm not sure what I'll need that Igor doesn't have, but I printed off a bunch of stuff before we left (more financials, home study, etc) and gave it to Dave, but he took one folder with him on accident and I'm not sure which one yet. Does anyone know if I'll need that extra stuff?