Half Way to Home!

Well, I have 13 days down and 13 to go until I return home. Half way there! Today Heather, Justin Sandy, Amy, Mom and I went to the children’s store and then the market. We shopped knowing that Victoria will be joining us in just a couple of days. Besides grocery items, I bought a couple of coloring books at the children’s store and mom bought a doll that speaks Russian and a stroller for the doll. We have a suitcase filled with just toys that we are calling her toy box! We learned this suitcase/toy box conversion from looking at the other parents’ suites. We all toured each other’s rooms a few days ago, no two are alike.

Me, Heather, Justin, Ryan, Sandy, Bodi, Mom

Sandy and Ryan True are here from Colorado. They have recently adopted Bodi. They are both involved in the Air Force, so are veterans at traveling and exploring new places, though they say they are not veterans of Russia. Anyway, they invited us to join in a game tonight that they play when they are in a new place. They call it “Menu Roulette”. This is how it works…..we go to a restaurant and randomly pick something on the menu. Sounds fun, and we had nothing else going on! We went with Sandy, Ryan, Bodi, Heather and Justin. Choosing randomly was easy, the entire menu was in Russian of course and no one in the place spoke a bit of English, but us. We each basically ordered something and passed it around the table to share. The meal (?) turned out to be pretty good! We ended up ordering a salmon dish, beef dish, some sort of sausage dish (now what I am calling dish, I guess I should clarify as a meat with onions). We had three different types of salad (?), stuffed tomatoes, and some dried type of beef with some very thin bread, like tortilla. For dessert we tried to order three different items, but ended up with three bowls of basically ice-cream. It really was fun and a different experience, for me anyway!

I was unsure of this dried meat...I did taste it, but that was about it!

The bill was 2,750 rubles, just under $90.

Tomorrow we are being picked up at noon to visit Victoria and Blake. Blake will be able to come back to the hotel with his parents tomorrow after our visit. Victoria will be able to come back on Tuesday. I am still a bit anxious about tomorrow and how Victoria will process everything. This was very evident last night with my lack of sleep, just lots going on in my head. There is a clock on the wall in our room that I guess I thought just ticks loudly. I got up in the middle of the night and just needed to get rid of the ticking. I took the clock off the wall and put it in the oven! I decided that was not good enough and I could still hear ticking. I picked up the portable alarm clock and put it in the oven too! Mom asked what in the heck was I doing. I told her that the ticking was just really loud. She said with exasperation, “Jennifer Marie!” Wow, she even threw in my middle name!! Yes, the oven worked on blocking out the stupid ticking!!! Of course I was finding things to worry about…and then came crazy dreams during the short times I was asleep. I shared one with dad earlier today through email…..and he reminded me, “Dreams can be very interesting regarding your concerns”. Yes, I suppose that is very true……

Red Hats!!!!

Today was unbelievably uneventful! We got up and were very lazy, I suppose knowing we had nothing to do today. Someone did knock on the door at about 9:30 and wanted to clean. We quickly got dressed and headed down to the dining area. I took the laptop, so I could pass the time and check mail for the morning. We had a good laugh this morning while checking e-mail…mom is in a Red Hats group…..you know the group of ladies you may sometimes see out and about wearing purple and red clothing and red hats? She has received a few e-mails while we have been here from some of the ladies and also receives updates about what the group is doing or may have planned. She received an e-mail yesterday from one of the ladies and this particular e-mail went out to all of the other ladies in the group too! The e-mail talked about events coming up and mentioned that mom was here in Russia with me. The e-mail also gave a link, suggesting that if any of the ladies were interested they could follow along on the blog. I thought this was very sweet and love that people are reading! Well, from reading the e-mail this morning, there had been a discrepancy on the link provided, an extra period at the end of it. So the link that was sent out to the Red Hat ladies happened to take them to a PORN site when they clicked on it!! Yes, we checked the link too and sure enough it was not my blog! Oh my, what a shock for them! We really did have a good laugh!

Now ladies, I promise you, that is not what we are doing in Russia!!!!!

Ok, so yeah, that was the highlight of the day. Thanks for that though! It rained most of the morning and early afternoon. We went on two different walks today. Of course we went to the store, down by the water, etc….Now, there is a wedding going on at the hotel. Watching the staff prepare for that has been a bit interesting I suppose, but seriously that is IT!!! Tomorrow, some of us are heading downtown to the market and a children’s store. That is the plan anyway. Next week will be busy. We will be bringing Victoria back to the hotel on Tuesday….HOORAY! And then get documents together for the courier to take to Moscow.

I miss Dylan, my dogs, and my bed, BUT am happy that when I do return home Dylan and I will be a family of three, plus two dogs of course!

One of the manholes that I referred to yesterday.....there are several like this..you just walk along and come up on a hole.

Private school near hotel. The school was built with no parking. At the beginning and end of the day the street is lined with cars.

Tea Party

This morning I had a 4 mile walk, which was very nice! The sun was out, the Russians were out and it seems the clean-up is on around here now. The area is so dirty, people just seem to throw trash wherever they feel like it. We have wondered why in the world this stuff does not get cleaned up. I suppose mostly because it has been winter here until just a few weeks ago. Today there seemed to be lots of people out cleaning up the trash and painting curbs. I walked next to the tracks for a while, tried to get on the property next to us, but that was a no go! We walked there yesterday, but today the guard was present and told me, ”Nyet!” I tried hand signals to let him know I just wanted to walk. He just showed me some Russian sign and I moved on. I wanted to walk in there, as I felt a bit safer, but I was determined to get in a decent walk today.

I passed this on my walk, lots of tights hanging, most kids wear these like long underwear.

I headed further down the tracks to some concrete stairs we found the other day. I went up the stairs and found myself on a dirt road. My thoughts as I walked along this road and through most of my walk (actually a lot of my stay here) is that if I was in the USA I could point out 1000 things that someone might find to sue the city for. The man holes were open, seeing at least 3 on my walk; one actually had a tree growing out of it. Any signs of steps or sidewalk usually also means pot holes, cracks and even a stump on the middle of the walk. There is just not a lot of upkeep, not like what we are used to anyway. I walked along the dirt road and to the highway. I figured if the dirt road did not take me to the highway, I would just back track. I brought a pedometer with me, so I mostly just made up my walk as I went, making sure I got to 4 miles. I stopped at the store, went down by the tracks again, walked down the road the hotel is near and back again and even walked around the hotel. It really was nice! Mom did laundry while I was out. I did buy her some dish soap at the store! Not so bad living with your mom at my age! =)

Not"Fast Food"as we know it, sells mostly packaged stuff and cigarettes.

We saw Victoria today at 3:00 pm. We were not able to play outside again today because we were told Blake had a runny nose. Blake really had one yesterday, but not so much today. Today it seemed to be Victoria’s turn. Today we visited in the gym. I brought some coffee cups we got off the plane, some cookies I bought on my walk, and bottled water. We set up the floor area and had a tea party! It was fun and Heather titled me the “activities director”. The kids love the water; they must have had 3 cups each. After about an hour with Victoria and Blake, along came the roommates, this time with just one caretaker. What a wild time! Heather and Justin had 8 or so small beach balls and blew them all up. Kids were throwing balls everywhere. Mostly though, they would bring a ball to one of us so that we could throw it and they would chase after it and bring it back.

This is the store we walk to daily. It is small, maybe 6 different aisle inside and NO JOKE, 4 of the aisle are Vodka! It has not been unusual for us to see someone walking down by the shore drinking, or on the train drinking, or just doing the best they can not to fall over walking....ugh! Much of the trash you see laying around is empty bottles!

The kids also had crayons and color books that we brought for Victoria and Blake. At one point I told Justin that the kids were coloring on everything. He said that was OK with him, thinking I was talking about them coloring on the books and toys they brought. Haha! I said, “No Justin, they are coloring on the orphanage furniture!” We quickly gathered up the crayons as soon as we could! Victoria helped. =) I showed her that we needed to get the crayons together and she started going around to her friends gathering them too! She was actually having a hard time sharing her things. In this setting, as a child you can be holding something and another child sort of watches and then comes in and swipes it away when they think there is a chance. One little guy would lose everything he got his little hands on. Every time this happened he would go over in the corner of the room, throw himself on his stomach and cry loudly…..poor baby! They really are all so sweet and so much in need of love.

Victoria again was happy on my lap. Any time she moved away from me for a second a cute little red head would rush towards me to occupy Victoria’s space on my lap. Victoria did not like this at all! She was not sharing her Mama and would wiggle her way between me and the other girl so that she could get back on my lap. I kind of felt bad…of course my allegiance is to Victoria and I realize the importance of bonding and the importance of favoring her, but also did not want the other child to feel rejected. That was tough, the children just really want attention and love! They are in heaven if someone is holding them and loving on them! The other kids were with us in the gym for an hour or so.

Nicer area of Vladivostok. This area is right by our hotel, but surrounded by the green fence. We are told that government officials live in this area. Also, there is a private school close by, big difference from other areas we have seen.

We won’t see Victoria this weekend but will go again on Monday. I am a little concerned about Monday because the Overstreet’s will be taking Blake back to the hotel with them after the visit and Victoria will not be able to leave with us until Tuesday. I don’t know that Victoria will understand this! I am concerned about her thoughts as she sees us leave and Blake is with us and she is not. We have just all been playing together for the past week or so. Maybe it is too soon for me to worry about it, maybe we won’t even have play time with Bake that day as he might be getting ready for his departure….but surely she will notice him gone. =( I will be sure to write how this all plays out, say a pray for her please!

The orphanage is an hour drive from the hotel in a city called Artem. We drive through the country most of the way. Along the road at various intervals there are wells, with a bucket and all! The people, in one of the villages we pass through, draw water from them. Irina asked our driver to pull over so that we could get some pictures.