Tomorrow is Gotcha Day!

Tomorrow is the day!!! It's finally here!!!

Okay, now I will tell you what we've been up to. This weekend we had to venture out on our own to get Sam new shoes and a new coat (the ones we bought were WAY too big, I told Tim there was no way he wore a size 12 shoe). The whole thing was an experience because the first time we left we had not done our homework and had no idea how to convert the Russian sizes. So after eating lunch (at Chili Pizza, weird spicy pizzas) and looking at the four kids stores we came home and looked at what Russian sizes he should wear and then went back out. Turns out all the malls around us are like designer malls. There was no way we were paying $100 for a pair of kids shoes. Finally we found a jacket that looks very Russian and will probably be warn a total of three times when we get home since it's never that cold in Nashville, and a pair of adidas sneakers that were the right size. I've never spent so long by such little clothes.

Sunday we fully intended to go out but we didn't. It was cold and rainy so we just napped and Tim finally got his computer to connect to the internet so we could watch all the stuff off the slingbox (thank you Chip Hayner!). We are so desperate for American TV that last night when we got home we watched almost the full hour of The Price is Right. The time change really does mess with your tv schedule though.

Monday was our LOOOOOONG day. Everyone kept saying it would be long and they weren't kidding. It was the day we were officially declared Sam's parents so as of yesterday he belongs to us! However we spent the day driving three hours to Priorzersk, the town Sam was born in, to get a new birth certificate and an adoption certificate. As of yesterday Sam's birth certificate has his new full name and lists us as his parents! We then got back in the car and drove the three hours back to St. Petersburg. The pictures are from Priorzersk, which is a very old city right on the border of Russia and Finland. There is an old fortress there that the king of Russia used to stay in. The town is very pretty and sits on the edge of a pretty river. We were lucky that the weather was clear and beautiful. We also had about an hour to kill and ended up eating lunch at a Japanese/sushi restaurant. Our driver Andrey was laughing about how we had to fly all the way to Russia and then drive all the way almost to Finland just to eat Japanese food. I can confirm though that all Japanese restaurants look the same everywhere. All in all we spent about 11 hours driving and doing paperwork yesterday. Then we came home and crashed.

Today was a little easier. We met Irina (our coordinator) at the passport office. It's this huge building that looks like five DMVs all smushed together. When you go in you take a ticket with your number on it. Our number was 304 and they were on number 135. Needless to say we had to wait again. It's a good thing waiting has become our specialty. After lunch in the little cafeteria and about another hour of waiting finally Tim and Irina went in to the assigned office and came out ten minutes later and we were done. After a quick stop at a huge souvenir store where we spent way too much money but got all of our shopping done at once, we went to the grocery store to get stuff to take to the orphanage (tea and cakes and candy). And then we came home and now we are cleaning up and getting ready for Sam.

I've put pictures of Priorzersk and of our apartment below for your viewing pleasure. We miss and love all of you and can't thank you enough for all your sweet comments and kind prayers.