2 more days and a wake up!

Today is the first day of our final week of visitation. We have 2 more days - Tuesday and Wednesday - and then we bring Lena and Dub back to Hotel Gazovic with us on Thursday. Vera has told us that Thursday is going to be a wild day. She has the Morin family taking custody of Dianna (more commonly known as "Tookie"), the Sandlins taking custody of Dub & Lena, and the Littlejohn family arriving from Almaty to meet their two children, all on the same day. So we might not even get to go to Umit to get L&D until late Thursday afternoon. That's OKAY! We get them on that day for the rest of their lives!!

So we had a good visit this morning, although (it's a Monday) Lena was her usual Monday self. We've got the sippy cup thing down, but Lena asked mommy to remove the cap from hers so she could drink it like a regular cup, and mommy said no. Lena threw the cup across the room, so mommy took it away. 45 minutes later, "susie" went away and Lena came back. It was good to have her back.


Pouty Lena.


Happy Lena, along with the rest of her playgroup, a frame from the video we shot this afternoon. Not quite as high quality as the regular photos.

Between visits we had a great lunch at the Miller's apartment across town, and then went to Tsum, the local souvenir shop, and got some more gifts, bath toys, and other stuff.

This afternoon's visit was very good. All the Morin family was there, since the Umit Director is away, the mice are allowed to play. Normally, kids like Alec (10) and Chelsea (13) Morin are not allowed inside the orphanage building because they think that the outsider kids will give germs to the orphans. So we had a grand time, and then we got a full video of Lena's play group's room and their bedroom. We'll be compiling a DVD of Umit inside and out for posterity. It'll be interesting to see if Lena and Dub will remember any of Umit when they are older.


Lena sleeps in Bed #9.


Lena putting her shoes in her locker, also #9.


Bye, bye, Lena...until tomorrow!


Dub & Papa playin around.


Lena started informal Piano lessons with Chelsea Morin today.

We got Lena and Dub's "official" medical records today. Lena's early days look very serious. Turns out she was a few weeks premature and somewhat small at birth. Dub was fat at birth, and otherwise healthy. Both get the typical orphanage label of being physically and speech delayed. Both true and both changeable with proper love, care, diet, and time.

2 days and a wake up. WOW! We still have 10 episodes of season 3 of "24"! Gotta go! :-)

Please pray that our days here in Taraz with D&L will be funfilled wonderful full-time bonding days. Still looks like we'll be returning home on July 5, but we'll be patient and wait to see if God wants us to come home a little earlier.

Blessings,
Kevin, Angel, Dub & Lena