7 visits

Yesterday we weren’t able to visit either of the boys – since they don’t allow visitors on the weekends. I wish they did – because that would help us meet the quota for visiting them. There’s a new law that adoptive parents must visit their soon-to-be-adopted-child(ren) 7 times during the first trip and 7 times during the second trip (prior to court). This wouldn’t have been a problem in Ukraine because we visited both Iryna and Keith 2x per day for 2 hours at a time and they allowed us to visit them on the weekends.

Here in this region of Russia, they only allow us to visit either orphanage between noon and 1pm Monday through Friday, so we can only visit one child per day. That means we need 14 business days to get all 7 visits in per child, BOTH trips. And that’s not including all the other adoption-related things we need to do on both trips (notary, court, passport, visas, etc). See the problem here? That’s a LOT of days for Tyler to take leave in addition to the AF giving him 3 weeks for adoption leave, especially with our hoping to drive to OK this December for Christmas (we only go home to OK every other Christmas and my whole family will be there this year).

So, it’s overwhelming. Tyler is leaving this Wednesday to go home with Keith to FL. He can’t afford any more leave and we’ve done everything we need to do this trip, except for the 7 visits for the boys. By the time Tyler leaves, he & I will have visited Calvin and Silas 3 times. After Tyler leaves, I will go see the boys by myself every business day until we leave (2 weeks from now). Another issue is that the first week of May – actually the whole month of May – is pretty much full of Russian holidays and vacation days, so I’ve been told that I may not be able to visit the boys the first week of May, making it more difficult to meet the 7 day quota for the new law for our first trip.

I don’t know how it will all work out. Sveta said that perhaps the judge will be flexible with us, since we cannot visit both boys in one day. We asked each orphanage if they would let us come earlier or later to accommodate visiting both boys in one day. They both said no. We asked to have permission to visit on the weekends. Both orphanages said no. We are doing our best, but it’s hard to meet that quota and I don’t know of anyone who is working fulltime who can take off so much time to bond with two children who don’t live in the same orphanage – Calvin & Silas are 3 hours apart, just like it was with Keith and Iryna except there wasn’t a magical number of times that we had to visit Keith and Iryna in Ukraine prior to adoption. Please pray for us to visit them enough times so we aren’t denied at the court date.

Buildings, including the Kremlin.

Note how small the tv is! And yet, the wii is on all the time. I guess size doesn't matter after all?

Some food items. Milk jug with bags of milk. Delicious mixed fruit juice. CocaCola Light (instead of Diet) with American (?) Orange soda. Mayonnaise and ketchup. Bagged whipped cream ice cream.

Our trip to McDonalds! We bought 40 chicken nuggets, 2 bigmacs, 2 medium french fries and 3 bottles of fizzy water. We didn't mean to buy the fizzy water and we were happy that they exchanged the ones that hadn't been opened. We met a nice guy in there, Alex, and invited him to the game night on Friday. He was really nice and we hope to get together with him again while we're here, at least, with the missionaries present as his English is limited and our Russian is pretty much nonexistant. :)

Today is Easter Sunday! The Easter Bunny brought Easter treats for the kids and they loved them! Here is a picture of the Easter treats, a neat statue, and the souvenir market.

We got all gussied up and went to church. The branch president asked me to sing and I accompanied myself singing I AM A CHILD OF GOD (in English). I really felt the Holy Spirit as I sang and I hope that the other members did, too. I really enjoyed our Sunday School class. Elder Lovett taught about Christ and His resurrection and I felt the Holy Spirit during the lesson. It was a great meeting. I love how I can go to church here in Russia and feel uplifted just like I feel in FL or OH or OK or Panama or Ukraine or Taiwan! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the same across the world and I feel so blessed to be a part of this church. I know that it is true. I hope you all have a blessed Easter and find some time to think about our Savior and all that He has done for us. God bless you all. Here’s a video that I’d like to share with you: