Thursday, April 1 - bonding Day #7 "Ab-ni-mee-nya, pa-zha-lus-ta" (give me a hug, please). so today was the day that a connection between kirill and his papa took place. When John said in russian the above phrase, Kirill smiled and moved forward to give a sweet sweet hug without reservations. Kirill loves to hold his arms up to John and listen to John say, "a-deen, du-vai, tri-marsh!" (1-2-3-Go!) as John lifts him high in the air (don't be too impressed, we can't count past 5). He loves to be chased (and caught) and tickled. He is all into "machina's (cars) and trucks and smacks them together. He loves playing with plastic bugs, Lego's, and balls. Sometimes he speaks Russian 90 miles an hour in excitement and other times he seems to understand that we really don't know so mych Russian after all. Needlessto say, bonding is going very well and I am confident that if we do get this child home, the home adjustment should be the easy part of this process. This bonding thing is a little like joining a small group at church. It's hard to say what it is that causes a group of people to connect and get toknow one another. As much as I would rather be home, something does take place when you meet regularly with another person and "share life" - whatever that may look like. wheter it's holding his hand to take him back to his room at the end of a visit, helping him put on his boots to go outside, pointing to pictures and hearing him tell youinRussian what it is, rubbing his back while he sits on your lap... all of it is working toward some trust and familiarity between the three of us.

Friday, April 2 - Bonding Day #8 (that means we are over half way through.) HUGE DAY for building our case - and this process of going to court, truly is pleading our case before a judge. we have learned that a Kazak family attempted to adopt Kirill two months after he was found, but they could not because it was too soon and they had no statemnt from his mother to release him. After the morning's bonding time, John and I, with gulnara, Zhanat, and our driver Iger (like tigger in Winnie the Pooh, but without the T) headed to Tamartow, a smaller town about 30 minutes away from Karaganda City where Kirill was found. We were able to learn needed info about Kirill's birth mother, where he was found, when he was brought into the hospital last July, documentation of mother's address, ect. Our attorney is going back on Saturday for more info and hopefully to find the mom and obtain a written release of her son for adoption. That would be our best hope in having success in court (which should be around April 15 or 16th).

Still much is up in the air with all of this but we are very grateful for how much information was obtained today. This is absolutely CRAZY. Driving around a town with people you don't really know, speaking a language that you don't understand, trying to find a woman that doesn't want to be found, to obtain a release she may not want to give, all for a child you feel called to bring home.

We enjoyed a dinner (that felt like a celebration) with Zhanat and Gulnara of rotisserie childen and "free" (french fries), cow tongue (good chew), ect. all of the food (minus the horse milk) has been delicius and LOADED with calories (but whose ocunting when you're on the other side of the world and you feel like treating yourself). I laught to think that we brought our tennis shoes along on this trip and actually talked about "finding a gym" to work out while we were here - ha! didn't think we'd shift into survifal mode so quickly where physical fitness didn't find itself on our list of priorities. Grateful that my back is holding up! I've been sleeping on John's down coat which is helping.

Spring is sort of in the air. Snow is melting and lots of slush, but still freezing over during the night. The days have been sunny with blues skies (a big contrast to everything on ground being gray). Since I only brought the one (good to below 0 degrees) coat with me, I'm kind of hoping it stays pretty cool. Clothes in Karaganda are expensive. \pretty funny because most are made in China (where we paid pennies for the same when we were there!) Learned from our driver (who owns a German car dealorship) that a new Toyota Sequoia costs $160,000 here. Aren't you glad you live in America?