Update...at long, long last.

Well, I finally decided that I would update our blog and let everyone know that we aren't actually still in Moscow. This may end up being our longest post, just because so much has happened. I just decided to check our blog and saw other people adopting were reading our blog, how awesome! I thought they, and everyone else would like to hear how it all turned out :) so here we go.
For all of you who forgot where we were last time, I could see my exit and my turn signal was on (read the whole blog again if you need to catch up :)). In other words I had tickets for a flight out of Russia for myself, my wife and OUR SON!
On December 21st at 345am we got into a tiny little Kia, with 3 weeks of luggage, and 4 adults and 1 little boy, and headed for the Moscow airport which is about an hour away from the hotel, without traffic. I don't know how cold it was when we got to the airport but, it was WAY too cold to be pushing the luggage cart without gloves, but I did it anyway. You would think they would use something besides metal for the handles on those things but no, they don't. Leaving the Moscow airport was pretty uneventful. We spent about two hours there before our flight, entertaining Malachi by taking him up and down the escalators.
Our flight from Moscow to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful. Malachi slept for about an hour of the 3 or so hour flight and spent the rest of the time climbing all over us and playing with the things that flight attendants gave him. He did amazingly well and again exceeded our expectations. We got off the plane in Frankfurt and had almost zero time for our next flight and had to take a bus to the terminal and then walk to the tram and then take the tram to the next terminal and then go through security again. For some reason the gate where we were leaving from was completely chaotic. I think most of the gates are designed for smaller planes because we were getting on a 747 and there were way too many people in that gate area. They asked us to step aside for a minute near the check in people and my thought was "hey maybe they're upgrading us to business class." Not the case, they just needed to give us a ticket for Malachi, and we were still stuck with only two seats and him on our lap, gonna be a fun 11 hour flight. We got on the plane and about 20 minutes in to a cramped flight, the flight attendants came by and told us that they had a "mother seat" for us. Lufthansa has this option on their long haul flights in the bulkhead seats where you can get a bassinet for your baby. I thought you had to request this before you got on the flight but they just did all the work for us. Anyway, we moved seats to where they had a bassinet set up for us, and before we even got settled the guy behind us asked if we wouldn't mind switching seats with his wife, who was in another mothers seat in another location. So we switched again so that their family could be close together. We got to the third seats on that flight and they were great. It was a window and a middle seat with a bassinet, it couldn't have been better. We got Malachi to sleep for maybe 2 hours out of the 11 hour flight, the rest of the time was spent entertaining Malachai with the window shades and the plastic cups, reading the magazines and playing with toys. Looking back now, the flight went quick but while we were on the flight it was the longest 11 hours ever, and the most exciting. Knowing that when we got off that flight in Los Angeles he was ours forever! I couldn't wait for all of our friends and family that were waiting at the airport to meet our little boy.
Well, here we go, we got off the flight and headed for customs. We knew that we were going to have to go to secondary screening, but I was still nervous. We went to the first screening area, answered some questions and then onto the secondary. As with most things, this was a lot more easy and uneventful than I thought. We waited around for about 10-15 minutes and then he was officially a US Citizen, got his passport stamped and we were on our way. One more jaunt through customs and then we got to see all our waiting friends and family. As we walked around the corner the first person I saw was Jon, he waived hi and was just standing there and then realized he needed to go tell everyone else we were coming. There was a group of about 20 people ready to greet us and meet Malachi, that was a lot of fun.
We have loved being parents and getting to know little Malachi. We think he's the smartest 2 year old (but, we might be a little biased!) His smartness makes us laugh often and gets him into trouble just about as often. He knows many English words and amazes us each day with the new words he is saying. He LOVES Tucker and is his favorite playmate. He has been to the LA Zoo, Long Beach Aquarium, and Disneyland, but his favorite place is still the park. He is very active and loves anywhere that he can run, climb, or play.
Well I think that's enough for one blog post. Until next time, less then a month this time, maybe :).

Still in Moscow....

Well, last post we told you that we would be leaving Saturday morning, but ends up that all the flights from Frankfurt to LAX are sold out, so we will not be leaving until Sunday at 705am Moscow time. We should land at LAX at about 1230 on Sunday afternoon. After we land we have to go through normal passport control and then secondary for him and as soon as those people stamp Malachi's passport, he is a US citizen, and then our journey is officially OVER, I cannot wait. This process can take somewhere between 30 mins and 2 hours..
We learned all of this information at the embassy today. We had our "interview" today at the embassy, which was nothing more then paying money and then an oath in front of a embassy worker...not really an interview. It was all pretty scary but for nothing really. We ended up being 1 of 20-30 other families that were there for the same thing. It was really nice to talk to other English speakers without accents, besides maybe a southern drawl. Now we officially have 1 more full day in Russia, its been a long haul but I can see my exit and I have my turn signal on!
We will see most of you very soon!

In Moscow

What an amazing experience to walk out of the orphanage doors with our little boy in our arms:) We have been waiting for the day when he would come with us and it finally arrived. His caregivers prepared him at 6AM yesterday so that we could pick him up and get on our flight. Malachi waved goodbye and said "paca paca" to his caregivers and headed for the airport. He did amazing on the 4 hour flight from Tomsk to Moscow. The flight was packed so they told us they didn't have an extra seat for us, but I think somebody decided they did not want to be in our row with our little angel so, we had an extra seat! That was a lifesaver. Malachi slept with me and played with his daddy so it all worked out. He learned that every time a flight attendant passed he got some food or a drink so he was very excited to see them come by.
We arrived in Moscow and were met by our new representative and driver. Little did we know that Moscow would be a 2 1/2 hour drive from the airport! We were in the backseat of this little car with 2 backpacks, a large suitcase, three heavy jackets, and a little boy in traffic for 2 1/2 hours. I thought I would die, but Malachi slept almot the entire drive...perfect! Just in case you were thinking after 2 1/2 hours we would be at our hotel..not quite. We had to go to the hospital with Malachi and he would be getting a blood test and physical at the US Embassy. You would think that this would be a nightmare for a little guy that had only eaten some Goldfish crackers, a roll, and a few bites of rice AND had not gone to the bathroom all day AND had been on an airplane for 4 hours and a car for 2 1/2 AND got woken up 2 hours early, but he did not even shed a tear. The doctor took his blood and did the exam and not a tear. The doctor did tell us that he is teething and has a cold, which has been evident with his congestion and cough. He prescribed some medicine which he takes easily (even though it tastes like black licorice.. yuck!) Malachi was amazing at the hopspital. It was also such a breath of fresh air to be at the hospital with 3 other couples from the US that were finalizing their adoptions. There is an instant connection with people that have endured the same torture:) There was a couple there from Texas adopting a boy the exact same age as Malachi from a different part of Siberia. After leaving the hospital, we had to go get pictures of Malachi taken for his visa. Although we took some in Tomsk for this occasion.. they were not exactly right so, we went to a photo place and took some more. After waiting for the pictures we stopped at a little "store" for some food. It was at this moment that I began to wonder what we would feed him and how much we would feed him. I just hoped he would let me know when he was hungry or full.
Finally we arrived at our wonderful hotel!! It is a Marriott so, we have many comforts of home. We filled out all the paperwork for the Embassy and then our representative left and we finally got to go to our room and relax. Although we were ready for bed, we ordered some food and stayed awake as long as we could (7 PM). Moscow is 3 hours behind Tomsk and after our day we were exhausted. Malachi went to sleep quickly and slept about 10 hours before waking up.
It was like a dream to wake up to these 2 little eyes looking up at me smiling. Jason and I were both surprised that he didn't start crying.. wondering where he was and why he was with us. We got ready and took a COLD walk to the Kremlin and Red Square. We made quick work of these sites since we were so cold and carrying Malachi is not easy (we found out from the doctor he weighs 25 pounds). We have had a very relaxing day today, playing with Malachi and taking him to the potty (that's a full time job in itself.) The only times he has cried since taking him from the baby house is in the bathroom. The sink, bathtub, and especially the toilet are all very traumatic. He sits on the toilet and cries, but the job gets done so that's all that matters. Malachi took a 2 hour nap today which was normal in the Baby House. He woke up smiling so that was nice.
All in all, Malachi has done extremely better than I expected. Jason and I are happy to have him in our arms for good and our arrival home is in clear view. Tomorrow we will have an interview at the US Embassy to get Malachi's Visa and then we will fly out Saturday morning, arriving home Saturday at some point (depending on the flight we get.) We cannot wait to introduce all of you to our little boy and give you a big hug:) We miss our friends and family immensely. See you soon.

Farewell to Tomsk....

Well today turns out to be our last day in Tomsk, we got Malachi's passport!!! Today started out like any other day in Tomsk, 5am chatting with back home, checking email, facebook and blog comments and making sure the world hadn't fallen apart while we slept. Turns out it didnt. We treated today as if it would be our last day so today was the day when we brought gifts for the baby house staff and the kids in Malachi's room. We stopped at a flower shop before getting to the baby house for two plants for the director and one of Malachi's social workers. We started our visit with a conversation with the director about Malachi's schedule and a few questions we had about medicine, food, and sleeping habits. After this we went up and we got to see the room where he sleeps. Pretty cute, there were 12 little beds perfectly aligned in a grid (pictures below). Malachi's bed was in the back corner near the heaters, we know he wasn't ever cold at night :). Even our unheated house will probably still be warmer then that, though. I also got to take some pictures of the room he and his group spend most of their time during the day. We also brought a bear for each one of the kids in his group and our idea was to have him hand them out. Strange enough for a two year old he wasn't really happy that we were giving him a toy and then making him give it away. We handed them all out and then he was sitting there without a bear, he looked really sad. Strangely enough he has had one in the bag we bring every day since the first day we got here and never once showed it more then 2 seconds of attention. I guess thats a 2 year old for you. After our morning visit we just headed back to the hotel for our afternoon rest until 4pm, and then do it all over again. The next visit would turn out to be our last!!! We knew that Katia (our coordinator for anyone just joining us) was going to make a call to the passpport agency at 5pm and 5pm could not come fast enough. We were playing with Malachi and we saw her pick up her phone and Barbara mouthed "passport!" to me, I agreed. She was on the phone for a few minutes and the answer transcended language, Katia hung up the phone, smiled and jumped up and down and came over and hugged us. I think it was good news! We finished up playing with Malachi and said bye to some of the caregivers in his group (one of the ones we really like was there tonight so that was nice) and then headed to the passport office. Tonight Katia was driving us and whenever she drives us she takes a different way through the back alleys of tomsk or something, not unsafe just seems very roundabout. It is kinda fun to see the houses and everyhing along this route, just to think that some of the houses there are well over 100 or 150 years old, and a good majority of them look it. The whole way i was waving bye to things I knew I would never see again. Goodbye soccer field, goodbye russian casino "Kaznho", goodbye strange power line tower in the middle of the road that traffice parts around, goodbye Tom river, and I think im going to miss you most of all Lenin statue. We got to the passport office and it was nice to just calmly walk up the stairs this time knowing that at the top of the stairs was a passport for a little boy with the last name Tank, wow. We got the passport and, we were warned about this but, his name was mispelled. They use a computer program to convert the names from Cyrillic to "english" letters. So his name on his passport is actually Melekay, sounds Hawaiian :). Since this was the last thing we needed before we left, our next stop was S7 airlines to change our flight from friday to tomorrow. We went last night to check on space on the flight and they said there are a lot of seats so it shouldnt be a problem to change them today. After our driver and Katia finish arguing with the lady behind the counter it ends up that most of the cheaper seats had since then sold out so they told us we had to pay 11400 Rubles (more then 400 dollars) to change our flight. At this point that didnt sound so bad, two days less here means two less days of hotel and two less days of driver so it turns out about the same. They asked us to sit down while they checked on some things. About 15 mins later they called us up and they had found two cheaper tickets! That saved us more then 10000 Rubles, outstanding! Next stop, the hotel to check out and pay and then pay for the driver and translator, and then we're done with Tomsk. Tomorrow starts at 540am for pick up, head to the baby house to pick up our SON and then head to the airport to finally leave Siberia. Until Moscow. :)

Resurgence of hope

Today was a milestone day, and a big one at that. We started the day with a trip to the Russian citizenship office to sign some papers and receive Malachi's new birth certificate with us listed as the parents and the adoption certificate, this was the point when it all sunk in and for the first time felt somewhat real. The only thing that is keeping it from feeling really real is the fact that all the documents are in Cyrillic characters and could say "Jason Tank has a big nose and smells like a monkey" for all we know. We somewhat blindly signed whatever documents were put in front of us while they were translated on the fly by our translator. What a crazy feeling to see the name we chose for our son on a Russian citizenship document. After the citizenship office our coordinator (known as Katia from here on out) took us to the baby house and we saw our boy for about an hour. We left the baby house knowing that we will be here for a couple more days but not knowing how many for sure, but we knew we needed food. So we went to the store and while we were there our driver got a call and said we needed to be at the passport office at 12:30pm, too bad it was 12:19 when he got the call and we weren't done shopping and the passport office is all the way on the other side of town. We finished speed shopping and then got into what turned out to be Mr. Toad's wild (safe, for all you parents reading) ride. We darted through the Siberian streets through the sometimes blinding exhaust of the Tomsk buses, and made it to yet another Russian building, the passport office. We chased our driver up the stairs to the third floor only to find Katia standing in the hall and she told us to sit down it will be a few minutes. We're used to the hurry up and wait syndrome that seems to have struck most of the people we have met in this process along the way. Well it wasn't long before we were standing nervously in an office trying to smile at the nice Russian lady that seemed to be speaking in some sort of code as she looked over our documents and continually questioned Katia about different portions therein. Several minutes passed and there was, from all we could tell, a heated debate between Katia and the passport agent. All I could tell, from all the Russian I understand and my ability to interpret body language, is that Katia wanted something and the passport lady couldn't or didn't want to give it to her, she looked very distraught so we were too. At one point I turned to our driver, who speaks a fairly good amount of English and he tells me that "Katia was hoping to get the passport tomorrow but we must wait until 30 days", to which I responded, somewhat dejected, "thirty days!?", he said "yes". To say the least my heart dropped into my shoe, and I really had to try hard to hold it all together. They finished their discussion and I thought it was strange when Katia told the Lady "paseeba" (thanks) and then we walked out of the room. We stopped in the hall and talked about what just happened and in turns out that our driver's English has at least one flaw and this one almost made me cry, he was calling Wednesday Thursday which his pronunciation came out as "thirty day". What a stinking relief!!! I don't know what I would do if we had to wait 30 days to bring him home, but luckily we don't have to answer that question :). So after that was solved we were happy to know that we will have his passport no later then Wednesday which means we will definitely leave at least a day early. The passport lady gave katia her cell phone number to call her tomorrow night at 5pm to check on the status of the passport and it may or may not be ready. If it is ready before 7 we can go to the airline office to change our tickets for Wednesday morning. If this happens we could be home Friday or Saturday, maybe even earlier if our coordinator in Moscow has as much pull there as Katia does here.
Continue to pray for everything to go smoothly and for favor with the officials at the embassy in Moscow.

Here are two completely unrelated video first one is him and his group in music class, second one is him imitating his Daddy blowing up balloons.

We ARE alive, and still in Tomsk

It has come to my attention that a lot of people have been worried about us from the lack of blog posts. Well I would just like to take a second and update you all on our status. Have you ever be on a long drive and got to the point where you just are so sick of driving and you just say "I'm done"? Maybe it has something to do with white line fever or something I don't know. Well, I think we both hit that point on Friday, we are done with Siberia. We still enjoy our visits with Malachi but everything else is so daunting. From the traffic to the constant snow, freezing, craziness, the bed is horrible, the food, the lack of communication (I long to hear English spoken by more then 2 people at once), Russian television (besides the 1 channel thats in English that just repeats world news ever 15 mins) and most of all being 6000+ miles away from all the people in our lives that care about us.
Today (Monday) is a big day, it could be the start to all this craziness being behind us. At some point this morning we will get picked up by our driver and taken to the foreign passport office to hopefully get Malachi's passport. If that happens we will be able to leave this place tomorrow morning! That is the last thing we are waiting for, his passport. As soon as we have that we can leave for Moscow, barring the fact that there is only one flight per day from here to Moscow which is in the morning. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
I end this post hoping to send another one in a few hours with excitment littered throughout :). I wish I could say that Tomsk is a wonderful place to visit, probably could have if the 10 days were waived.
Well -26 today (Celsius which -14.8f) and its all white outside, and I am dreaming of a non white Christmas....anyone else?

25 visits....and counting

Jason and I just completed our 25th visit with Malachi. Today was one of those days when we loved every minute we were with him...yesterday, LOVE might be too strong of a word:) He seems to be doing well with us and definitely more comfortable. He has added "ball", "cookie", and "eyes" to his English words. Jason and I continue to call him Artyom. So much is changing for him, that we have held off on calling him by his new name. His caregivers always call us "mama" and "papa", but I have been trying to get him to call me "mommy". The kids call the caregivers "mama" so, "mommy" would be a little more special for me. Malachi continues to stack and unstack chairs. Today he arranged them all in a row. He loves for Jason and I to blow up balloons and then he wants them (before they're tied off) so, he can let them go and see them race around the room. Today was the first day he really showed an interest in cars. He was pushing them all over the floor and loved watching them go. It is challenging to communicate with Malachi. I think most of the time, we understand what he wants and needs, but it is hard on him not to understand us. His eyes really light up when someone talks to him in Russian... so, if any of you out there know some Russian, we could use your help! Today he actually kissed us with some prompting. What a sweet day it will be when he gives us an unsolicited kiss:)

As for Jason and I, we are trying to enjoy this time. Yesterday, we took a tour of one of the universities in Tomsk (there are 6). As much as we want to be home, we know that we will not have another time like this for quite awhile. We have hours on end to watch movies, read (me), play computer games (Jason), and do word games. We got excited to hear that our representative got the court decree signed early, translated, and notarized (don't you know EVERYTHING has to be notarized!) This was supposed to happen Monday so, early is always good. She is also working on Malachi's passport. Come to find out, we could have possibly needed a passport that takes 30 days to get!! Luckily, she was able to get them to accept an older type passport, taking 3-5 days. So, although we were excited to hear of the early paper signing... it may not change our schedule too much. On Monday, we will find out if our flight to Moscow will need to be adjusted. We are hoping that it does! Meanwhile, we prepare for our next visit to the baby house, deciding what we will teach Malachi next:)

Malachi's first car ride with us.

Yesterday (Our Tuesday Dec 9th) was pretty exciting, we took Malachi to go get his picture take for his passport. I guess the baby house has a couple of nice white shirts for such occasions and they dressed him in one. He looked like a little man, it was awesome. If course in Russian fashion they also put a sweater on top of that and then a jacket on that, I would have been dying, but hes used to it. What is he going to do when we go outside back home in Dec in shorts? Most of the ride he sat there kind of shocked by what was going on. I wondered what was going trough his little head. I wondered if he was thinking he just left the baby house forever. He did really good at the photo place, he sat there nicely and the picture was very cute, but I didn't get a copy of it. I did get a couple of pictures of him in the shirt though :).

When we got back to the baby house his group was playing outside, so we let him go play outside and I got some more pictures of his group. He was really playing in the snow, he seemed like he was having a lot of fun. I think he will like playing in sand at the beach better then snow all bundled up in Siberia :). We took him back inside and took off several layers of clothes and then played with him for a little while.
After we left the baby house we went to the store again. This is the store that feels more like home, its a big supermarket and kinda reminds me of Whole foods, seems like a lot of fresh stuff. I just had a thought, I wonder if the have any food that they can say has "never been frozen" ...hmm. I have spent the last few days telling Barbara all the places I have been craving food from. Do you realized how good Big Wok sounds right now, or Cheesecake Factory, or even.... McDonald's. I would do anything for a Rinaldi's spicy steak sandwich right about now. Ok, I better stop that, drool and keyboards don't mix well. At the store we bought a rotisserie chicken and some bread to make, well rotisserie chicken sandwiches. They were pretty good, but there was just something missing, like mustard or something. I kinda took a step back from the situation yesterday and looked at the fact that we are sitting in a hotel room, in Siberia, tearing apart a chicken and eating it, just another surreal picture for you. We are hoping that yesterdays shopping trip is our last one before we leave, but we'll see.
Our evening visit with Malachi started off rough. We got to the baby house and heard a familiar sound, it sounded like someone was playing tetris upstairs. I really like tetris, so we headed upstairs. It was actually just Malachi's group in music class. Malachi wasn't in the group so we headed back to his room to pick him up. He was not happy to see us :( but mainly because he had his mind set on music class and when he has his mind set on something there's no making him happy unless he gets it. We watched him in music class for a little while and then they all went back to go potty and then he came back out with this little hippo cart thing that he was pushing. After he got tired of pushing it around he used it as a ride on car for basically the rest of the time we were there. Anywhere he went we was on that thing. It was kinda silly, but that's what he needed/wanted at that point. We took him back to his room and said our "paca paca's" (bye bye in Russian) and then headed home for the night, had another chicken sandwich and then finished the day at about 7pm...

What's that strange feeling...Oh, I'm full!

Well today was the first time since our layover in Frankfut that I have had enough food in my tummy to actually feel full, it was wonderful! It wasn't the greatest food, but it will do. I had a peice of chicken covered in cheese, and Barbara had 2 chicken wings. We both had fries and shared some vegetables, and they gave us enough ketchup to keep you alive for about a week and a half. It was good enough to go back, I think. Well that meal was about 7 or 8 hours ago, and even after a nice dinner of ... noodles, I am hugry again, darnit.

Well today was a good day with Malachi. He wasn't very active today and just wanted to sleep in my arms, how could I deny that? He was pretty fussy and I am not really sure what was going on with him, but I figured I have tons of time to figure him out and I will just enjoy him :). Today was the first, and second time that we picked him up and he didn't cry. That's a successful day :).

Tonight our coordinator said that tomorrow we may go get Malachi's picture taken for his passport photo, talk about exciting! I am very glad that our coordinator is very good at what she does and that she is always thinking ahead and is definitely concious of the fact that we want to leave Siberia. Not that we dont like it hear, its just.... ok yeah we dont like it here, especially since we heard that Friday is suppoed to be -45c degrees! thats a - as in negative... NEGATIVE 45c thats -49 for all you Americans. I was thinking about how cold that is, and I decided that people arent supposed to live in -45 degree weather, I'm going to tell all these siberians, I hope they listen. I am only going by what our driver has told us, but weather.com says it will only be -23, I guess we will see. Ok...have a great Monday! Keep the prayers, and emails and chat and comments comming, we love em.

Southern Fried Chicken.... in Tomsk, weird. We havent tried it yet

People ice fishing...again, weird.

Us standing in the freezing cold for a pic of the Tom River

Lights...

His first english word...and some video

We heard him say his first english word yesterday! We are now on a constant mission to teach him English. So we were continually saying "fish" to him as he played with his fish puzzle thing (in the video below). He whispers almost everything but, I heard him say FISH!! :) It might have been more like "ish" .. but it was his first English word. He also knows what a nose is, but its very close to the Russian word "nosek". I think he also knows "eyes" but hasn't said it yet. If Barbara or I say "eyes" he pokes his finger in our eye, we have Barbara to thank for that one. So you can blame her if any of you suffer the same fate :).
Well I don't really have too much to say about yesterday mainly because we only got to see Malachi in the morning, because of the weekend I guess. Our driver just told us that the director of the baby house said we could only come 1 time on the weekend. Today was the first time we brought him back into his class before he was done playing with us. Barbara was playing with him and I was sitting on the other side just watching and he started packing stuff up. I said "looks like he is packing us up and telling us to go", but then he got distracted by his fish puzzle again, and then he peed. We didnt have anything to clean him up with or any clean clothes, so we had to bring him back to his group. That was a fun experience, and I can't wait for more, haha. I am glad I am being eased into it and that we can just have someone else deal with that part, for now.
After the baby house we went back to the hotel and sat around some more, read books, played word games in the books we brough, and I watched Shawshank Redemption on my portable dvd player :).

Enjoy the videos.

<--- this one's for Ty.

Picture post

It's Barbara today, catching you up on the latest news with our little Malachi:) As you can see in the pictures it was "warm" enought to take the kids outside at the baby house. It was definitely comedy watching all those kids bundled up, falling over themselves in the snow. This is Malachi's group (about 14 in all). We especially would like to pack away those 2 kids in the individual pictures (blue snow suit boy and pink/grey snow suit girl) and take them home with us. Malachi seemed pretty uncomfortable the whole time we were out there as you can tell from his face... maybe it was the 18 layers of clothes he had on under that jacket. All in all, we had a pretty good morning with him. The afternoon was a little more difficult... he wanted to be in his class. As with most 2 year olds, he has cooperative and uncooperative times.
For those of you counting days, as I know my mom has, next Friday will be our tenth day following court. We asked today for a timeline and were a little disappointed to find out how much more time we will be here. Although our 10 days are up Saturday, of course we have to wait for Monday to have the judge sign the paper (yes, more paperwork!) Then, it takes at least 2 days to get his birth certificate and passport before we leave here. Our representative here works fast and will get all that done as quickly as possible, but we're waiting on other people to get things done so, the day we leave here is still unknown... Wednesday (12/17 I think) at the earliest, Friday (12/19) at the latest. Then we go to Moscow to the US Embassy, it would be wonderful to get in there Wed and then we could take care of business, but if we arrive Friday, we would have to wait for Monday again....this business takes a couple days too. So, no plans are definite, but there's the best update we have.
Jason and I cannot get home soon enough. Only your emails, you guys keeping us entertained on AIM in the middle of the night (our night), and Facebook messages are keeping us sane. We just have to keep reminding ourselves why we're here... even when Malachi doesn't seem like he wants us to be here, we know it's for his good and we can't wait to bring him home and see him grow and change.

First day as Mommy and Daddy

Today was our first day with Malachi as his Mommy and Daddy. We went to see him at 10am as usual. He really didn't seem himself today, I don't know what was wrong, maybe he's getting a cold, or he's tired or just Mr. Grumpy today :). He was definitely sweet today, he was content just being held and hugged for quite a while. He is definitely getting more comfortable with us, and his crying when we first get there is almost a thing of the past. It's almost just a fake cry now.
After our morning visit we had to stop by the ATM to get some Rubles. Apparently our money is no good here and sometimes they dont like to take credit cards. We decided it would be 'fun' to walk home from the ATM, something i could do without repeating for the rest of my life. I think it was around -15 and it was 3-4 blocks, but i think i felt my eyeballs literally freezing. My nose was cracking inside from freezing and my face was being more frost bitten by the second. Good times huh? I told Barbara that I will never use the phrase "I'm Freezing" the same way when we get back home. I seriously do not know how these crazy Siberians live here. Just think, about 15 degrees cooler then your freezer...I think thats too cold. One good thing is, I wanted iced tea and we had tea bags but no ice, I just set my cup of boiling hot tea on the windowsill next to the open window for about 10 mins and it was just about frozen.
After we thawed off we went back to see our boy again at about 4pm. We got to see him interact with another boy in the room we normally play in. At one point the other little boy got a hold of one of Malachi's toys we bring (a car) and Malachi wasn't too sure he liked that, but he let him play with it. At one point, when the car got a little ways away from the other boy, Malachi picked it up and brought it over to him. He is good at sharing, but he doesn't like it. He gave the boy the car then stood there, looking somewhat dejected, playing with his fingers until I went over and picked him up. We brought our portable dvd player tonight in case we needed something new. We didn't need it but I did bring it out at one point. With all the toys and things around it didn't keep his attention very long but I think he will like it when there is not so much commotion. We said our goodbyes 'Pa-ca', got nice hugs from Malachi, (he gives us these hugs where he squeezes our neck, it the best:)) and headed home.
I made a special dinner tonight, shrimp and noodles in a savory broth with peas, corn and carrots. Ok maybe it was a "Cup Noodles", but I think you were almost jealous for a sec, weren't you...? I ended the night buying a new card for the internet because mine finally ran out. 150 Rubles lasted our entire first trip and the first 4 days of our second.. not bad for about 6 bucks. I think that turns out to be less then what my internet costs at home.
The pictures are from the last two days.