To Russia, with love. (Not.)

We talked to the kids on the phone this afternoon. They seem to be doing well. They keep asking if we know when court will be, or if not if we have a guess. They are so anxious to come home!! Roman talked a lot more this time. He told us that he won an art contest at school for a drawing he did, and it is on display somewhere with all of the other entries. And because he won the grand prize, he got 500EEK ($50) to spend on school supplies for himself. :) He also wanted us to remind him if we have dogs. We told him that we have 2 dogs, and that he can see pictures of them in the album we gave them when we visited. I think he remembered about that when we mentioned it. He asked if he can have a dog sleep in his room and we said we may be able to allow that (since DogDog is so good when he's out of his crate, sometimes we let him sleep on the floor in our room). He was very excited about having dogs. We said we're happy he likes dogs, and he said that he doesn't just like dogs, he adores them. LOL We reminded him that we have dogs visiting for training, too, because that's what we do for our job. He said (in Russian) "Ooooh Wow! I see!" He was very excited. So cute.

He also said that he wanted to tell us the Leprechauns came. Larisa didn't know what he meant, and naturally neither did we. So we asked what he meant, and he said, "Don't you know about the Leprechauns? Don't you have them? They bring candy!" We said we don't have Leprechauns that bring candy, we just go to the store to buy candy. He said, "Oh... Well I'll tell you a secret. I don't really think they are real Leprechauns. I think they are really people dressed up to bring us candy." We laughed and told him that he is very smart.

At the end of the conversation he said he wanted to tell us that they miss us VERY very much and love us VERY very much and they want to be with us soon. Larisa laughed and said he's so polite.

Katya was a little less talkative today. We asked her if she was alright, and she said she is just very sad that she's not with us. We told her that we are sad too, but when she gets sad just think about all the wonderful things she will experience after we are together as a family and try to be happy. She said "OK, I will try to be happy!"

After last weekend's conversation on the phone with them, she was really talkative at first and quiet at the end of the conversation, so we'd asked her in an email why she was quiet at the end. She wrote back "I don't know, I just feel sad ("ОБИДНО", here means sad or offended, it's not fair, insulted) because I am not with you and I really want to be with you." So we know that if she's quiet, that's why.

Just thought you'd all like to know about our conversation. The made us laugh a lot. :)

So the MSA in Estonia sent the letter to Dmitry to take to the MOE in Moscow. After much fussing about what it should say and in what language. The MSA emailed Diana a draft, in poor English, and asked if they could send it in English. Diana added a couple items to the letter and said it should be written in Estonian with an official Russian translation attached, that they should NOT send it in English. Why would they send it in English?! That's like me sending something to Canada in Chinese because it has to do with children from America going to China. Then they said since it's going in Russian, maybe they should attach all the other documents related to the children (14 pages) and have them translated in Russian too (a month of waiting and $1000). So Diana (along with our approval of her decision) said no way, we'll wait and see if the MOE asks for any backup documents. But don't waste time and money that may not be necessary to spend. Just send the stinking letter to the Dmitry!!!

So this coming up week he should be taking it to the MOE, and I don't know if we'll hear something right away or not. We'll see.

Now you're all caught up!

Sasha (visiting little girl from Russia hosting group) gets here on the 16th, so that will be fun. She's one of 122 kids coming over on a hosting trip from Latvia and St. Petersburg. I'll keep you all posted. :)

Love,
Molly