Saturday, May 26, 2007

This morning started out with yet another trip to the notary. Lena met us there and we filled out paperwork requesting the adoption of Amina and Khrystyna. We had previously done these documents for both of the Khrystyna and we did lots of other documents so that we could get our referral for Amina, but now that we have our referral for Amina, we were able to do a joint application to the Dept. of Child’s Rights Protection Services and an application to the local court system. We were able to get things notarized very quickly this morning and then we headed off to the orphanage.
When Fred and I arrived at the orphanage this morning, the girls had not yet returned from a special party as school. Svetlana decided to leave Fred and I at the orphanage and take our driver to go pick up Mark and Christine. I guess she needed to talk to them, but I found it to be quite strange. After being dropped off, we waited only a few minutes before the girls returned home from school. All of the children were walking in a line of groups of 2. It was to so cute to see Khrystyna and Amina walking together! They seem to have embraced sisterhood! As soon as they saw us waiting, they said something to their teacher and came running over to hug us. Amina showed me that she ripped her skirt that morning and told me that she needed to go change. The girls ran inside to change and came out a few minutes later. Amina had her hair in a French braid and Khrystyna’s hair was in a normal braid, but looking much neater than normal. (Khrystyna hates brushing her hair!) When I told them how pretty they looked and that I liked their braids, Amina explained that the teacher braided Amina’s hair and Amina braided Khrystyna’s hair. While we were waiting for Mark and Christine, the girls started making swimming motions and saying “slimming, slimming”! They all really wanted to go swimming. I told them that we could talk to Svieta, but I wasn’t sure if they would be allowed. We told them that we would go to lunch and then go to the park with the crocodile. Amina told us that her sunglasses had been stolen at school last week and we told her that we would stop after lunch to get a new pair. We ate lunch at Vivotttime (I’m sure that is spelled incorrectly) one of the cafeterias that we frequent. The girls ate a ton of food, but were willing to pass on dessert so that they could have ice cream later. After lunch, we headed to the market to buy sunglasses for Amina. She tried on a few pink pairs that were similar to the ones we bought her last weekend, but they were too small for her head. She finally settled on a brown pair with a few crystals on them. They make her look much more grown up! After the market, we headed to “crocodile park” with Masha and her family. The girls had noticed a house of mirrors when we had been there previously and had asked to go on it. We told them they could go on a different day. As soon as we got into the park, the girls started asking about it. We told them they could go and they headed inside. While we were waiting, Svieta asked us if she minded if we got some cotton candy. She knew that if she got some the girls would want some too. We told her that was fine with us. She got cotton candy that was larger than she was! When the girls finished in the house of mirrors, they wanted cotton candy too! We bought one cotton candy and made the 3 girls split it. They totally enjoyed themselves. When the cotton candy was finished, the girls immediately began discussing which rides they wanted to go on. They went on the roller coaster, the crocodile, the centrifugal force ride, and a ride which was like a very large swing that went back and forth. When we were finished with the rides, we headed to the playground and played on the playground equipment for a little while. The girls had a great time and they were totally filthy by the time we left. We headed for the ice cream shop next for some super delicious ice cream. I’ve even figured out how to order the ice cream I want! It was a very fun day! When we got back to the orphange, we asked Svieta to ask the orphanage workers if the girls were allowed to go to the sea and if they had bathing suits. She told us they would look for bathing suits that night and that if we tested the water and thought it was warm enough, we could go in! We didn’t tell the girls because we wanted it to be a surprise. When we got home, we were too exhausted to do much of anything. The weather has been consistently in the 90s and it has been totally draining. We don’t have air-conditioning in our apartment, so we usually don’t want to do much more than lay around! We decided that we would try to head to bed early so that we would be ready for our big day at the beach!