Our last night here....

Tonight Rich and I ate our last “after the boys go to bed” candy bar … a frozen Snicker’s bar. We toasted to an end to an adventure which brought us our sons. Today was kind of the first time that Vladimir said English words on his own. He said, etta horse…it’s a horse. He also calls out “train” when he sees it. And he spontaneously sings “put down the duckie” (if you wanna play the saxophone) – from the Sesame Street DVD. They both say “thank you”. Vladimir was also saying “California” today. He said it about three times randomly. They are both learning how to count to ten. To watch and hear Alexei count to ten is adorable. We’ve still been teaching them their names too. I think that Vladimir really likes his middle name of Paul. Some songs that we made up and sang while here are: “Machina machina let’s get out of the way, machina machina let’s get out of the way, ….” When we sing this, Vlady and Alex know to run up on the curb to get out of the way of the oncoming cars. They are very good about doing this too. Vlady was singing it to himself today. Another song is: “brush brush - brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush brush - brush your teeth, brush your teeth….” This is the song that gets them both going to run back to the bathroom to what else but brush their teeth. They like the song and it keeps them brushing for awhile too. Another song is: “Tufleeeee, tufleeeee, tufleeeee, tuflee, tuflee…..” this is not actually a song but a call to get them to start putting on their shoes…tuflee means shoe in Russian. I was wondering whether before we left we would see the squirrel/rabbit again. I kept hoping that we would see him everytime we walked past his little house. Then I thought if it is supposed to happen it will happen. And it happened!! I think Rich saw him first and all four of us stopped and just stared in amazement at him. We got so many great pictures of him. He got so close to us that I could have hand fed him bread if we’d have had some with us. It was really neat and the boys were really excited. We have ¾ of a loaf of bread we are going to give him before we leave. He is going to get a big treat in his little wooden dacha tomorrow!! We walked down to the water again today around 11:30 a.m. and around 4 p.m. At 11:30 not too many people were down there yet. Today was May Day...a holiday here. But at 4 p.m. it was packed. Families picnicking and generally enjoying the weather and each other. Kind of like 4^th of July for us without the fireworks. I asked a woman down by the water to take a family pic of us four and she tried but couldn’t see us because of the glare of the sun so called her daughter over to help her and her daughter took a really nice one of us. I’m glad we have it as most of our pics are at the most 3 of us. As I was down by the water, I got choked up…with Rich and the boys. I can’t believe it’s coming to an end…and that it’s beginning to feel natural. The first week and a half were really rough. We were thrown into parenthood quickly, while trying to get to know Vlady and Alex at the same time, and then trying to understand one another!!! Ay ya ya…it was rough and now it seems like a dream as our time here is ending. Maybe we will come back Carol, like you said, and do a coffee table book on Vladivostok and maybe we will all take the Tran Siberian train from Moscow to Vlad … hey that sounds like an even better coffee table book. “Tran Siberian: A View of Russia.” Maybe Ellen’s Mom can set up a tour group for this??!! Becky, I know you will come as you said you have always wanted to do that. Rich and I watched American Idol tonight. This has been our only taste of home throughout the trip. We get so excited to watch it. It’s on on Wed. and Thurs. nights here. Still pulling for David A.!! Rich and I think that we have lost weight while we are here. The boys eat more than we do! And we both expend the same amount of energy. I wish we knew what the boys weighed when we adopted them but they don’t give you a weight, they only take a height measurement. Rich and I both think they have gained a lot of weight in the past 3 weeks. Before we leave for the airport tomorrow we will try to post one last time from Vlad. Rich and I are treating ourselves to a coffee down at the restaurant in the morning to get us in a good frame of mind for the ride home. We have been drinking Nescafe instant for the past 3 weeks (really roughing it!)…oh we did have some Japanese coffee too…and it was good but ran out too quickly. The boys watched “Beethoven” today on TV and they were saying Jotsi’s name here and there. Carol and Ellen, Thanks for all of your help while we have been away. It made us feel at ease knowing he’s with you and the girls. We can’t wait to eat Mom’s mac ‘n cheese when we get home! Thanks for making it, and doing all of our last minute requests and grocery shopping too! Thanks also to Betty for tag teaming with Carol in taking care of Jotsi! He loves his Gram Grams. We are glad to hear you are doing so much better Betty. Get ready to be called Babushka!! New pics posted! Enjoy! Thanks to everyone for the finale comments!! Just what we needed to help boost us home!!! We appreciate everyone’s love and support and enjoyment of hearing about our journey here. We could not have gotten through this without you. You have all kept us going. We will post tomorrow and then again once we recover from the jet lag! The first trip in Jan. without kids took us about five days to recover.

We love you,

Jayne, Rich, Vlady, Alex, Jotsi