Chili in the Pot

Nastya is not always super excited about practicing English. So she has learned to retaliate by making us learn all of the same words in Russian. We have pleaded our case that since she knows the word in English we do not *need* to know the word in Russian, but she likes to torture us as much as we have tortured her so she insists. She says that Momma's Russian is "so-so" (with the hand jesture) but Poppa's is "no good". If you're not familiar with the Russian language, suffice it to say they make sounds that are not needed to be able to speak English. It really is hard! I have a bit of an ear for it. But Nastya is right, Richard does not!! And she finds his efforts 11-year-old-girl-hysterical. She usually falls out laughing so hard she has to leave the room and find someone else to tell. Today we discovered that Spiderman in Russian sounds remarkably like "chili in the pot"?!

Anyway, it is spring here. The sun has been shining for a good four or five days and the daffodils have shone their cute little faces and the tulips & iris' are not far behind. Some of the trees are in bloom & there is an overall much happier feel to this place (or maybe it's just me - but I, for one, am glad to be out of the funk!). Even so, I still miss home...

Most importantly, today was HUGE! We got the final paper signed here in order to submit a request to the SDA for a court date for Nastya. We are hopefully for a court date early next week! Also, we got confirmation that our court date for our son is Friday. We will begin our journey back to him tomorrow but we are making an overnight stop in Dzankoy (where we will meet up with our American friends that we began our journey with in the US!) and we are not sure that we will make it in time for a visit with our son before we have court on Friday. Please pray for this situation as he is such a young little guy and we've not spent the customary time getting to know him (because of the two adoptions overlapping). He will be expected to go to court with us on Friday and I'm sure this will be very hard on him. Our timelines are dependent on everything going well on Friday as Monday is a holiday here.

Oh, and another thing about today, we had TWO solid meals! This is a first since we arrived!! I do believe we've turned a corner here! There are a few more to go, but I'm thinking Ima survive after all!

PS. Yes, Ericka, I got the pictures of Sydney!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! And we would LOVE pictures of ANYTHING from home!!