A Gorgeous Day in Moscow

We went to see Katie again this morning at about 9:00. We thought Andrei was going to drive us as always, but when we got outside, we saw that Sergei was driving us instead. Sergei is the coordinator for the Moscow City Region, whereas Andrei is the Russian coordinator for the agency. Sergei is a very nice guy, but he doesn't speak any English. It was a very quiet drive to the orphanage.

We went walking with Katie again outside, and the weather was absolutely beautiful! We walked around for awhile, and everytime we would pass another person, Katie would tell them that I'm her Mama. It was so sweet! After we walked around, we went inside and played in the play room. Boy does she love goldfish crackers!! She is signing more, all done, eat, swing, and another one we can't remember. She is feeling more and more comfortable with us as evidenced by her testing boundaries. This is good to see, but it's hard to handle while we're in the orphanage.

After about 2 hours with her, Sergei picked us up and took us back to our apartment. Thankfully, Andrei called him and spoke to us so we know that Andrei will be picking us up tomorrow morning at 8:00 to go to court. Our hearing is at 10:00. Our apartment is on the 6th floor and they are working on the elevator. We have 113 steps we have to climb every day -- multiple times. We're getting a nice workout while we're here. We took another nap this afternoon because neither one of us slept well last night. Afterwards, we took it easy. All the walking yesterday around Moscow made my left knee and right hip hurt. I guess I'm getting older! Steve took the Metro to pick up our visa registrations, which we had dropped off yesterday. If you are in Russia more than 3 business days, you have to register your visa. Since we are leaving the morning of the 4th business day, we wondered if we would need to register, but since we are going to court tomorrow, we wanted to make sure everything is in order.

We're eating better this trip since we brought more food with us this time. With our court in the morning, we're hoping for a good night's sleep. Thank you for all your prayers and support. Hopefully the court will go well without any surprises or difficulties.