Busses, Pictures, Prayer

Marys says:

So, we have our referral for Vitaly, but won't be able to get our local referral or tell him we're his Mama and Papa until Monday. Rats!

Things worked out a little differently coming back than we expected. We did not take the overnite train, but took a bus instead. I know what you're thinking, and yes I have had enough of busses. :)
However, this bus was a little different than the ones we ride to/from the orphanage. It was a tour bus. It was almost like an airplane on the ground. It had airplane seats and a touch screen tv with built in movies in all of the headrests. Score right!? 
Well except that none of the movies were in English. Rats! So I watched Mickey Mouse cartoons for a little bit because there isn't much speaking in them. I tried watching some of the movies, but I couldn't get past the not knowing what they were saying. Tom enjoyed himself and watched three movies, The Incredibles, Cars and some action movie. He can watch them and fill in since he knows what is going on. Funny, he had never seen this particular action movie, but could explain the plot to me anyway. I did however become good at a card game that was also on the tv. It was like solataire. 

The bus also had overhead storage and a stewardess. Yes, she came around and offered us cookies and coffee or soda. I kept thinking we should take off at any time. :) The first time we asked for drinks, we said Coke please and ended up with 2 coffees. We just looked at each other and said "Coffee? ok". I took some pictures of the bus inside and out that we'd love to show you. Moving on.

The bus stopped every couple hours for bathroom breaks. Let me tell you, highway bathrooms are MUCH different than non-highway bathrooms here. For one thing, you have to pay to use them. For another, well I won't go into it, but it's just much different than American potties. Nuff said. 

So we figured on walking back to our apt from the bus station, only it turns out the bus station is not where we thought it was and we had no idea where we were.  We decided to hire a taxi. We settled back into our apartment. Remember those pictures I told you about, I'll get to them in a minute.

We were repacking our backpack today (we have toys, books, water, emergency tp, etc in our backpack daily) and couldn't find our camera anywhere. Sure it must be here somewhere, we looked again. There's only so much looking you can do in 300 sq ft of space. 

Then I remembered that I had the camera in my hands because I wanted pictures of the bus. I didn't put it back in the backpack but held it over my arm with the strap. I must have set in down on the backseat and not picked it back up. The driver didn't take us directly to our building, but dropped us off outside so he doesn't know exactly where we are staying.  Oops
After our last visit today, we went to the bus station to look for him. We walked around everywhere and asked some of the other taxi drivers and the only description we could give was "he was older with no front teeth and he spoke a little English". Apparently that wasn't enough to identify him with these guys. So unless we happen across him, our camera is gone. Oh, so back to the pictures of the bus. I can't post them. :( 

Our lovely friends, Alex and Ray have offered to let us borrow their camera for when we get to tell Tolly about his family. And they will take some other pictures for us. Thanks guys!!

On another note.....Tom and I were not sure if Alina knew how long we had been gone or if she even missed us at all. Until we saw her this morning and she had the BIGGEST grin on her face and came running to Tom. She quickly jumped up into Tom's arms (she has very strong arm and leg muscles) and would not let him put her down for either visit. She wanted reassurance that we were staying. And she was full of smiles and laughs all day! It was great! She did miss us! Thank you Lord!

Please pray for Vitaly, we found out today that he had a procedure done on his hands either yesterday or today. He was not there this morning and he came back before our afternoon visit. One of the nannies said that his hands are all bandaged up. We think that he is laying in his bed recooperating. Hopefully we get to find out more tomorrow. Our little man is not feeling well and he doesn't even know that we are right there wanting to comfort him. Soon.

Now for an update on the kids in America. Oh Oh, the kids in America.....wo oh. They are having a good time. Lee, Sophie and Holly just finished a week of VBS at a local church and loved it!
The girls have also recently been to a waterpark and had a SPLASH! hee hee Ethan went on a canoeing campout with John's (cousin) boy scout troop. Phoebe and Lee got to visit a friend's house and Trudy likes to play in the little pool. :)  And the girls are loving Aunt Mary's and Uncle Jim's dogs!