A Day With John Mark

Today we spent the day visiting John Mark. This morning we picked up Lori and her friend at the airport. We drove 35 miles an hour to the airport today,(not the normal warp speed) evidently we were very early because we still waited almost an hour at the airport for Lori to arrive. We made it to the orphanage about 10:45. The care givers brought Sofia to Lori first. She is a doll. She is 3years old and is going home to Ohio not Texas as I said in the post before.
A short time later the orphanage director brought John Mark in to us. He was a little shy at first but came to me pretty easily. He gives the best love. He just snuggled in on my shoulder. It is so sweet and such a precious feeling. He was a little intimidated by Greg at first too but warmed up fairly quickly.
We played with him until lunch. John Mark sat in my lap to eat his lunch of chicken broth soup with rice and a meatball and creamed corn of some kind. He also ate shredded up cucumbers with the corn and the meatball.  He ate all of his lunch with ease. He feeds himself very well considering he is not 2. All the children learn at a much younger age how to feed themselves out of necessity at the orphanage.
After lunch he played with Greg and played with the toys we brought. He really enjoyed watching the video we brought on the ipad of Tucker. Tucker says in the video "Hello brother and sister, I can wait to get you." Short and sweet message.
We brought shoes and clothes for John Mark to try on today. We guessed right on all the things we brought for him. Size 7 shoe, 3T shirt and 2T pants. He has short little legs right now.
Right before lunch, another couple, Eric and Elizabeth, arrived for their second visit to the orphanage. They are from Nebraska. They are adopting a second child from this same orphanage. They adopted their first son when he was 18 months old, now he is 5 years old. They are adopting a 3 1/2 year old little boy now. Their court date is Tuesday and will return to pick their son up at the same time we return to get John Mark and Olivia Ann.
Around 1:30 or 2 John Mark began be very sleepy. He just sat in my lap for a while and started to take a nap. I took him down to his room so he would sleep better. He did not want me to hand him to the caregiver. He whimpered and then was about to really cry and they gave him a treat so he would not cry. Bribery works well with children of all nationalities. Of course my heart melted when he did not want to let me go.
John Mark came back after nap and we played more. This afternoon we took him outside for a little while. He had a nice time swinging. We stayed outside and played with Sofia and John Mark. Sofia wanted to be doing everything John Mark was doing. When it was time to go we were all sad as usual. It is especially hard when John Mark did not want to leave my arms to go back to his caregivers. I hope somehow in some little way that he and Olivia Ann will know that we will be back soon to get them.
Today we talked to Svetlana about the schedule for tomorrow. We will go for our medical exams tomorrow at 11:30. In theory this is not supposed to be a big deal. Lori said it was easy and nothing to it, last trip the lady from Israel indicated it was not fun at all. I am hoping to report to you a "Lori story" about the doctors tomorrow.

This photo has all the children and families that we met this trip.