OK, so this is Dave. Here are a couple more photos of the kids. Alyosha loves taking pictures and occasionally takes one of himself. Zhenya is doing one of her favorite things, eating. She loves those apples, and pears, and crackers, and cookies...
The kids are doing good, even the kids back home. We had to take a day off from visiting today because our lawyer Svetlana needed to use the van to take care of some paperwork. It is good for us to be able to take a day off from the drive. It also gives us a chance to catch up a little.

We are very happy with our lawyer here. We can tell she is really on top of things and cares about us and the kids. We can also tell that everyone else likes her too. She has well established relationships with everyone who is in the "loop" of the adoption process. And she has a good team working for her. Her father, Ganadi, is the driver. She has at least four interpreters, 2 are more for translating documents and court work, and the other two work with clients on an everyday basis.

The other to photos are just some things I found interesting. One is the local version of Pringles. They are not very good, but they have a great name. The other is detergent for washing clothes. I am not sure how they add the "Love" and how much of it is in the mix, but how can you go wrong with adding "love"?

There have been other things that are interesting around here. Jeannie talked a little about the wedding parties taking pictures in the park. One thing I like and I think we should adopt it in the States is the traffic lights. They have the normal green, yellow, red progression except that they yellow light flashes when the light is getting ready to turn green, how awesome is that! It would certainly help me out when I fade into what I call the "red light zone" while waiting for the light to turn green. I usually snap out of it when Jeannie (or Grace, or Josh) point out the light is green or when I notice all the other cars are moving. It would also making mini-van drag racing so much more fun. It would be just like a real drag race, and then Jody would have one less excuse when I smoke him.

Another is the drivers or should I say driving. This is the home of aggressive driving. It is like one giant game of chicken. The good part for us is that they are very careful about pedestrians in crosswalks. I think pedestrians in the road but not in the crosswalk count as bonus points however. Surprisingly we have seen very few wrecks. It seems that everyone understands the rules, knows the other guy is going to be aggressive, and it all works out OK.

Eating out has been an adventure. The food is different of course, but so is the service. Everywhere we have gone the service has been very good. The hardest part for me to get used to is that they don't bring the check until you ask. Since we are never in a hurry and don't really have anywhere to go we usually end up spending an hour or more at the place we eat, usually on the internet. By the time we are ready to go I have forgotten that we need to pay the check. We haven't skipped out on any bills so far, but I could see it happening. Oh yeah, there is no such thing as a "No Smoking" section in most places, bummer.

Oh well, enough for today. We will be visiting the kids tomorrow and should have some more photos. We hope to find out about our court date by the end of the week. It cannot, by law, be any sooner than 7-10 days after the end of the bonding period. There was also mention of a waiver of the mandatory 14 day appeal period. This applies only in cases of medical emergency where the child needs an operation.