Day 2 with Jakob

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to disappoint, but no photos today to upload. Little Jakob is sleeping and I'm in the business center typing this, so can't get the photos on today.

We had another wonderful day today! It started with a full night of sleep! Granted, it took 2 hours for him to sleep, but hey...we are such an exciting family, I can't blame him for wanting to stay up with us :) I woke up about every hour looking to make sure he was still on the bed, breathing, covered up (as he won't sleep in anything but a shirt and a diaper), etc. I finally got out of bed around 6 AM and got ready for the day. Wayne followed once I was done and at 7:30 AM, we had all of the lights on and we were talking in our normal voices. Jakob was still asleep! I was like...come on kid, I'm hungry...need coffee! Finally Wayne turned on the TV and up came Jakob. He had the biggest smile on his face when he woke up and saw us as if to say, "Wow...I'm still with those cool people." Ok, maybe I'm giving us too much credit, he was probably just thinking, "Hey, this is a nice hotel."

We got him dressed and took him to the lounge area for breakfast. He loved it all and we got tons of fruit in him...which produced (finally) the first poop! This may not sound like a big deal, but we are the only family of the 4 whose child has finally pooped!

We hung out with Lisa, David and Patrick for awhile and even showed Jakob the video we shot of the house and dogs...he gets a concerned look on his face when he sees the dogs howling, but when he sees the dogs, it is the only part of the video where he starts to talk to the TV. I think he will love them (mostly).

At around 9:40, we all headed off to apply for the Russian passport. The women were instructed to stay with the child in the car while the men went inside to do the paperwork. This could turn out to be a mistake (I'll explain why in a bit). Jakob and I had fun hanging out in the cold car (since our driver was out with the other driver and left us no heat). We played games, looked around and he was even repeating my words when I would count to 5. I ended up putting him to sleep in the end as he was getting so tired (or I was not as entertaining as I thought).

We then headed to a medical building to get all of the medicals done for the kids. Olga had all of the guys filling out the paperwork. This was definitely an obvious mistake. None of them could keep up with her instructions and they were all having to "cheat" off of each other. I was telling Boris, one of the drivers fluent in English..."Man, this is a mistake, she should be having the women do this...we'd already be done and the info would be right!" We both continued to laugh as we saw them struggle (no telling what info the passports will have on them since the guys filled them out)!

Jakob did fine during the physical although he cried most of the way through it. I would too if I was stripped naked with a guy checking it all out. We finally finished up after being there well over an hour (and during lunch). All the kids were wiped, hungry and tired. We got back in the car, headed back to the hotel, and fed Jakob. We then put him down for a nap (and I took one too). Wayne did a little exploring of the area during that time. Afterwards, we just went back to the lounge area where we fed Jakob, he played with others (mostly people at the various tables...he likes to make his rounds...see everyone, etc), and hung out with the other families.

We then did the usual bath (which he seemed to like more) and bedtime (which is still taking about 2 hours...ugh). I then managed to wake up and type the blog! So, here I am.

Tomorrow is a "free day" so we are going to take the kids down to St. Basil's Cathedral for photos and try to eat something outside of this money sucking hotel. We are going to be adventurous and try the metro with Lisa, David and Patrick. We think we are only 2 stops away, so we'll see. The metro stations are actually supposed to be incredible in terms of decorations because when many of the old churches, etc. were torn down way back when, they used the materials to decorate the metro stations (to move people to work).

I'm going to try to update the blog each night, but may have to see how I go as it is becoming slightly more difficult (gosh, I am a Mom now).

Thanks, everyone, for the comments. We love getting those and can feel the love through them.

We will talk to everyone soon!
Love,
Courtney, Wayne and Jakob