We were greeted by Sergey and Sasha at the airport. Sergey takes care of all the paperwork on the Russian side and he is our driver from place to place. (Sergey, as most Russian drivers, drives like he is participating in an Indy Car Road Race.) Sergey works for Beacon House and for the Ministry of Education in Samara. The Ministry is in charge of all the adoptions in the region. Sasha is our interpreter and was with us last trip each day. She is fantastic. She is so sweet and especially great with the children. I need to bring Sasha a gift next trip, I intended to do this trip but that was one of the many things I never got a chance to do before we left.
Sergey drove us to the orphanage in Syzran where we visited Olivia Ann Polina. They brought Olivia Ann in to see us a few minutes after we arrived. Olivia Ann's care givers woke her up from nap to see us so she was still sleepy. She was a little scared of us but not as frightened as the first time. She warmed up to us pretty quickly and was sitting in our laps in no time. This trip we brought two little people lift the flap books with us and she enjoyed seeing the animals and children behind each flap. We spent half of our time with her outside. She seemed to really enjoyed walking around outside. Her play area outside is very small and unevenly paved so she took a few tumbles while were out side. None of her spills were bad enough to cry over but with her right leg difficulty, walking on uneven surfaces is a little more challenging for her. We brought clothes and shoes to try on Olivia Ann so we would know better what size to buy for her. I think the 24M or 2T will be her size and her shoe size seems to be a 5 1/2 right now. The 6 shoe we brought was a little big so 5 1/2 should work perfectly.
We made lots of pictures and had a nice visit with Olivia Ann. However, the visit was very short. We were only with her about an hour and a half. That was certainly not long enough but leaving was a little easier since we expect to be back about the second weekend in October to pick her up to come home with us.
We left the orphanage and drove (in the same crazy scary way) back to Samara. We are staying in the Azimut Hotel again. This time our room is very nice compared to last trip. Supposedly last trip we upgraded the room, I think we paid to upgrade but obviously did not upgrade the room. This room is very comparable to American hotel rooms and will be fine for the week.
Tomorrow, we leave the hotel at 8 to go to the airport to pick up Lori a lady from Texas who is also adopting through Beacon House. She is arriving to pick up her little girl Sofia. Greg has emailed her a few times to ask her questions since she was a few weeks ahead of us in the process. It will be nice to meet her. Sofia and John Mark Baytimir are in the same class at the orphanage. We will get to spend about three hours with John Mark tomorrow. Also, tomorrow we will be meeting with Svetlana. She works with Sergey at the Ministry of Education and works with Beacon House as well. She will be our translator in court on Wednesday. She will be working with us this week to prepare for the court hearing. Tomorrow we should find out what time the court hearing will be and we will let you know.
Pictures below are from our visit today.
So glad the visit went well. I have been praying all day and wondering how it was all going. She has grown lots it seems like since the last visit. The pictures made me cry with tears of joy. She is so happy with ya'll. Praying that tomorrow goes great with John Mark at well.
ReplyDeleteLove ya,
Tara