Day 6 - Mid-Day Posting (Dec 19, 2007)

Hi Everyone,

We decided to head back to our hotel this afternoon between our morning and afternoon visit, so thought I'd do a quick blog.

We went to the orphanage around 10 AM this morning to see Mian (Jakob). He seemed a bit shy again this morning, but we had a good play for about 30 or so minutes before the caregivers came in to start decorating the room for Christmas (with full on loud talking in Russian). This was a bit of a bummer because as we've seen, Mian is just like his big brother, Rosco....very nosey....has to know what is going on...what everyone around him is doing, so his attention was all over the place. He either wanted to be up and in the action or sitting in his Mama's lap (which I didn't mind one bit)! Of course, we were fine with it...he has probably not seen people hanging Christmas decorations before, so it was all new to him.

As I said before in an earlier blog...he is such a boy! One of the guy workers was drilling something into the wall, set the drill down, and Mian was all over it! Totally in awe with the drill and with any other gadgets (I've already mentally noted that he is not allowed to shop at Home Depot or Best Buy alone with his dad).

One other couple came in with their 18 month old daughter (who was HUGE compared to Mian...he is a little shrimp). They are on their 2nd visit with their court date this Friday. It was good to see that they are almost done with the process (end of Jan for them). Anyway - we are about to head back to the orphanage, so better start posting videos / photos from this morning.

Until then....Courtney, Wayne, and Mian (Jakob)!

P.S. While I'm waiting for the video to upload...I'll add a bit more about Moscow itself. The city center is SO CLEAN (the buildings and streets). They keep the streets spotless and there are essentially no homeless people wandering around. They do have homeless people, but not just sitting around anywhere and everywhere, so it is really nice. Also - we've never seen so many matching coats and hats in our lives....and women in high heel boots! They get very dressed up regardless of the occasion! I've not seen one person in tennis shoes, jeans and a shirt (except for us) :)

The traffic here is NUTS! Traffic laws have been thrown out the door and it is every driver for themselves. The drivers have not figured out what the re-circ button does in the car, so you are inhaling car fumes left and right. Smoking is also extremely popular here (only about $2 for a pack of cigarettes, so you can see why). If we were to stay much longer, we would probably each have to subtract 2 years from our life expectancy.