An early day . . .

Today Victor picked us up at 12:30 as Lydia had said he would. We were told that we needed to go order pictures from our visits for the court appearance and that we would then go back to the orphanage on Monday. I thought it would be a quick trip out so we didn't pack any of Katy's necessities for a long day. We first went to Olga's to pick up a stroller she is letting us borrow. She lives in a really nice neighborhood. Very New Yorkish - lots of people everywhere, street vendors, great shops, etc. Really nice. We quickly drove through and then picked Angie up somewhere else in the City and went to a camera store. After choosing all of the pictures to print we got back in the car and sat in traffic for a long time. When we really started moving again, Angela and I both noticed at the same time that it looked as if we were heading out of the City! I asked Angie if we were going back to the flat and she said that we were going to the orphanage! I told her that we weren't planning on that again until Monday so we had to turn around and fight our way back through traffic.

After getting back to the flat, we put Katy in the stroller and walked around our own neighborhood. We've pretty much gone in every direction now as far as we can comfortably walk (with a 3 year old) and there's nothing for us here. We found no parks or play areas for Katy, no other grocery stores - pretty much nothing. We plan to take a day next week and spend it in Olga's neighborhood - there's even a zoo and pony rides for Katy over there. Where we are it's tons of construction. High rise buildings are going up everywhere and cranes all over the place - there's one building with a steel frame and tiny little bricks are being placed one by one all the way up. It's amazing to see high rises built out of tiny little bricks. We got a few pictures of the high rises right in front of the old wooden houses with the bright colored shutters. The "suburbs" are all the old log houses too - we'll have to get some pictures of those. They look to be hundreds of years old and to be falling down - I don't know for sure how old they are. I'd love to learn the history of the little houses and who built them. They're so tiny but seem to house entire families.

That's it for today. We're in for the night and planning an easy day tomorrow. We're not even in the dreaded 10 day waiting period yet and we're bored stiff. There is nothing to do hence the long posts! We're planning to go to Chelyabinsk on October 2nd if court goes well and then Sasha can take us to a few more places - hopefully, that will break up the long wait a little.

We're missing everyone and can't wait to finally pick the girls up and head home! It seems like it's so far away but I'm happy to be here and to be so close to finally completing this ordeal. I'm anxious to get the girls home and start living our lives again!