Our Last Day with Anna

Well, here we are on our last night of our first trip. Can't believe the week is over already, but then again it's been soooo long. (Did that just make sense?) Our flight is leaving at 6:00 am. We're going to fly first to Frankfurt, then to San Fransisco, then home. Not looking forward to a full day of traveling. But I can't wait to see the kids and come back to the good 'ol USA, where buildings are free of smoke, strangers will smile at you and riding in a car isn't a harrowing experience. Not that EE isn't wonderful. We just have it soooo good. I told Jeremy last night, I didn't realize how rich we are. By American standards, we are just like most families, but man, we have it so, so good. I am so thankful for my home land this Thanksgiving!

We scheduled two visits today so we could soak in all of our little Anna that we possibly could before we leave. For both visits, they had us go into the little therapy room. It doesn't really matter which room we are in because she is content to color for most of the time.  She's so funny.  She scribbles all over one page, then she wants a new one.  So she puts that one aside, grabs another one and starts going.  I think we've gone through a hundred sheets of paper and an entire coloring book this week.  She is also ambidextrous.  She uses one hand, then she switches and uses the other one.  Is that a DS trait?  Someone tell me if you know. I'm curious.

We had fun with this little velcro shape board for a while.  She's very particular about how we do these kinds of activities. If she doesn't like where you're putting something, she says "nyet!" or whines.  I think she's used to getting her way with her caregivers.  They all talk like she's got them wrapped around her finger.

 

In the afternoon, we braved the Subway system again so we could go find the kids some treasures at the flea market in the Nevsky Prospect area of town.  It was so cold and wet, my toes and fingers were frozen.  So I whined the whole time and made it miserable for Jeremy. :)  We had to walk all the way down the sidewalk that is behind him and around that big church at the end to get to the flea market.  What we do for our children.  Geez. :)

The Church of the Spilt Blood

After our adventure in the cold city, we went back to the hotel room and I slept for two hours...making up for my four hours of sleep last night.  After that, I felt all refreshed and ready to see Anna for the last time.
We had a great hour with her and just tried to soak in every little detail we could about her.  Her smile, her mannerisms, the way she waves her hand back and forth when she says "nyet," the way she uses the back of her chubby little hand to brush the hair out of her face or pushes her sleeves up, etc. etc.  We know she doesn't really have a concept of time, so we didn't tell her we were coming back in a few months or anything.  She wouldn't have understood that, even if it was explained in Russian.  We just hope she recognizes us when we see her again, and that she remembers how she felt when she was loved by us this week.  We think she will.  Her caregivers really have their hands full.  I don't think she's ever experienced this kind of one-on-one attention.

After taking her back to her groupa, I pulled a little girl named Angelina out of the room and took some pictures of her.  She's listed on Reece's Rainbow and her picture is...not a good one.  That was on my to-do list for this week: Get a good picture of Angelina.  OK, so it's a little bit blurry.  But if you compare it to the one that's on the site, it's pretty darn cute, if you ask me. Go here and scroll down to Angelina to see her profile.  I hope her family will find her before she's transferred to an institution.  She deserves the love of a family so much.  I was sad to learn that her best friend, Elizabeth has already been transferred. 
Elena described to us today what happens when these special kids go to the institutions, usually at age 5.  It's not a good place like the orphanage. They are pretty much written off as having any hope for adoption, and no money or time is spent on giving them a good life.  No classes or stimulating activities.  Not as many caregivers to provide them with the basics.  Just a very dull life.  If or when they turn 18, they are transferred to an adult institution for the rest of their life. Yuck.  No child deserves this.  The thoughts of our little Anna living out her life in one of these horrible places literally makes me sick to my stomach.  She was sent to this earth to share her light with others and change them for the better.  That is her purpose.  We just learned that her mother was single and had no means of taking care of a child with special needs in this country, so she did the only thing she could do.  Now Anna will be able to change lives, the way she was intended to. We thank our Father in Heaven every day that we found her and that we have the opportunity to witness this. Man, are we ever blessed.

This was our last view of Anna as we left her in her room tonight.  All the kids were going crazy, coming over to us, trying to hug us.  We were able to hug a few of them before their caregiver re-established order.  Anna just sat in her little chair, looking at the video, totally un-phased by all the commotion.  She had already had her fill of affection that day.  She was good.  (Gretchen: Ian was behind the lady's arm.  Sorry I didn't get him in the shot.)

Goodbye, sweet pumpkin.  We love you more than tongue can tell.  See you real soon, all right?

Our Most Memorable Thanksgiving

I think it’s safe to say that this was our most memorable Thanksgiving ever.  Wow, what a day.  It’s the wee small hours of the morning (Black Friday, now that I think of it!) and I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d record our Thanksgiving Day adventures.  They are definitely worth writing about.

We were lined up with a woman in her early 30’s named Natasha and her mother, Nadesdta, who are members of our faith here, by a mutual acquaintance.  Several weeks ago I emailed Natasha to see if they would be so kind as to have us as guests while we are here, so that we could save some money and experience the true culture at the same time. Natasha was so kind and willing to open up her home to us, but told us that they only had a sofa in their living room where we could sleep.  Since there are two of us and we knew that sleep would not come easy anyway, we’d better stick to the hotel option.  This has proved to be a very wise choice, especially since 1) my awesome sister and brother and law have paid for our hotel with Marriot points and 2) our hotel has been a true haven every day after experiencing emotions, fatigue, harrowing driving experiences, culture shock and bitter cold wind against our faces.

After deciding to stay at the hotel, I told Natasha that we’d still really love to come see them while we are here so that we could really get a first-hand glimpse into the life of an Eastern European family.  She invited us to come to their home for dinner one of the nights, and we chose Thanksgiving as that night, and were so happy to have them as our “family” for our American holiday.

Natasha and Nadesdta live on the other end of the city and it really didn’t make sense to have to pay $60 or so to have someone drive us there, plus have to deal with rush-hour traffic.  So we decided to brave the subway.

The subway experience, itself made this our most memorable Thanksgiving.  To get an idea of how funny this was, you have to realize that Jeremy and I have never lived in a big city.  Jeremy said he rode the subway in London once, and we rode one in San Frascisco once on a vacation.  But it’s a different experience when you can’t read the signs, and you’re in Russia!

We walked 5 or 6 blocks from our hotel to get to the metro station.  When we got there, we saw hundreds of people out in front of the building, piling in to the main doors.  No lines.  Just a big herd of people.  The only way to get in to the doors is to join the herd, and the only way to join the herd is to start at the back and inch your way through it like everyone else is doing. It reminded me of when I was a kid and would hold your breath, plug my nose and jump into the deep end of the swimming pool to dive for a penny.  I would get to the bottom and feel pain in my ears and start to panic, but realize that the only way to get the penny was to keep going. After about 20 seconds, we noticed that we were being squeezed from all directions, almost suffocated!  I held on to Jeremy’s hand for dear life, hoping we wouldn’t separate.  Logic told me to panic, but no one seemed to be the least bit phased by it, so we figured it’s just the way that masses of people get into buildings here.  Boy, it sure was a relief to make it in to the doors of that building.

So we made it through the first step.  The next step was getting into the main station. We had some tokens that Elena sold us so that we wouldn’t have to buy them there.  But when we got to the part where you put the tokens in, we couldn’t see anyone using tokens. Everyone had cards that they were scanning.  Where does the token go? In an effort to prevent us from getting trampled by someone, Jeremy drug me back to the back of the station and suggested that we watch to see if anyone has a token.  We couldn’t see any, so Jeremy called Boris, our English-speaking driver to ask him what the heck you do with the tokens.  He laughed and told him you put them in the little slot in the front of the rotating gate thingy.  Oh, of course.  Thanks, Boris.

OK, got into the gate thingy.  Now we have to make sure we get on the subway that is going in the direction that we need to go.  We found the sign that had the longest list of stops on it and figured that must be the right one, since the other one only had one stop and we need to go two stops away before we switch to the next subway. Just then we noticed that the train was stopped and the doors were open to get on.  So we ran up to the doors and Jeremy stepped in.  At the same time, the door started closing.  He tried to stop it from closing by pushing it with his hand like an elevator door, but it didn't work.  I squeezed in and my foot got stuck in the door.  Somehow I managed to pull it out and the trian took off.  Aaaagh!  People were looking at us like, "you dorks, don't you know you can't do that?"

Well, we somehow made it to Natasha’s stop.  She was waiting for us there, warm and welcoming as we knew they she.  We felt at home with her immediately.

Their apartment was only a few blocks from the subway station.  It was built in 1917 and they have lived there since Natasha was three years old. To get into the building, she opened this tall, wooden door with her key.  We took five flights of concrete steps before we reached their floor. Imagine hauling groceries or a stroller up those stairs every day! No elevators. 

Their apartment consisted of a tiny entryway with a tiny bathroom, a kitchen about the size of our master bedroom closet, a living room with just a sofa, bookcase, and a table with a TV, and two bedrooms. The floors were made of old patched-together wood and the walls were covered in a heavy wallpaper that had been there for decades.  It was so simple and small, but we felt the spirit of Christ there and knew that they were as happy as anyone could be.  What humbled me most, was knowing that they were not considered  “poor” people here.  They were as middle-class as it gets.  They have a simple life that all takes place by foot or subway, and they are just as happy as we are.

Our two Russian Hostesses

Nadesdta was so sweet and welcoming to us.  She couldn’t speak a single word of English and she was surprised that we didn’t know any Russian.  We communicated through Natasha.  They made us the most delicious dinner that consisted of mashed potatoes with a Hungarian “Chicken Catiatorie” type of topping (didn’t write down the name of it, but it sure was good) fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, canned corn (not heated up) and sliced bread.  In true Russian fashion, she kept offering us more and more.  We were full.

 I’ve decided if I could have my way, I would some day travel the whole world over and have dinner in the home of one family in each country.  You truly learn about people when you are in their homes, experiencing their lives in such an intimate way.   We enjoyed every minute of our conversation.  If I had all day to sit here and write, I would talk about our conversations.  It was really a neat experience.

Our journey back on the subway  was interesting once again.  We got on the wrong one and when we exited, two stops later, we discovered that we were not in the same station we were in when we first started.  Woops!  Our trip back to the hotel took twice as long as it should have.  Hee hee—we just laughed at ourselves and chalked it up as one more interesting piece to add to our subway story.  It woudn’t have been so funny if we had kids in tow or were on a time schedule at that moment.

It was wonderful to get back to our warm, safe hotel room.  What a day.

And now for the eye candy. (If you haven't already scrolled down looking for it. Ha!)  Here are the pictures from that morning that we took at the orphanage.  This was our favorite visit.  Tanya was so excited to see us when we got there. She also started calling us Papa and Baba (momma.)  I don't think she has any concept of what parents are, but just hearing her call us that warmed our hearts.  What a gal.

 

Papa taking her back to her groupa.  She cries every time we have to take her back. 

She looooves all that attention and hates to see it come to an end.

  We so hate to see our visits with her come to an end.  If only we could bring her home with us.  Boo.

Thoughts from "Papa"

What a little girl has done….

The past year has changed my/our lives forever. We are in a place we have never before, meeting a little girl that we have never known surrounded by people we are not familiar with and doing something we have never done, yet we’re confident and sure about our direction.

I wish I could express in written word my thoughts about the past 12 months since Heather approached me about the idea of adopting. I just may be the poster child for a deft husband learning from an inspired wife that they need to be the parents of one more child that they did not create, is not entirely typical and is located half way around the world. This is exactly what I would discover as my future….

After the countless conversations that filled our once-a-week date nights and any late night time we had alone, the promptings that Heather was receiving slowly became mine as well. The spirit had been prompting her for a long time and she was now acting on it. (Thank you Heather.) This shows you how my wife inspires me and how I am learning to listen better as time goes by. This time I was blessed to catch up more quickly and take shared ownership of her thoughts and ideas. This is when the momentum started to pick up.

The conversations didn’t stop, they just became more interesting until one day when Heather mentioned the possibility of adopting a child with special needs. This was almost like going to back to the drawing board for me at first.  It was scary, but at the same time it felt right.  It started us in a whole new direction and lead us to Reece’s Rainbow.

One night after work, my cell phone rang just after picking up a few things for Heather at Costco.  I remember thinking I’ll answer the phone like “if you need anything else I’ve already left the store”.  Well, luckily I just said “Hello.”  She didn’t ask me to get more milk, she simply told me with emotion in her voice, “I think I just found our daughter”. I remember clearly today. I also remember walking in the house and seeing her picture for the first time on the computer screen and my wife and daughter in tears…now fast- forward 6 months and here are Heather and I in one of the coldest and strangest places I have ever been, walking up to the door of an old blue orphanage and being guided inside and watching Anna come confidently through the office door swinging her head around and talking a mile a minute in Russian with her two little pig tails flying. Heather and I laughed out loud while wiping away the familiar tears that started 6-8 months ago when the spirit confirmed to us that this was going to be our new daughter. There would be many more tears this week still to come. 

I’ve been trying to live in the present this entire week because I know it will quickly come to an end and we will be back home missing our little girl and wishing the time would pass more quickly so we can come back to bring her home. It’s tough! 

We’re allowed to visit the orphanage two times a day, though sometimes we only make it once because of committee or other meetings or simply due to the cost of the driver. ($150/day when we go twice.)

A few small observations:

I love the smell of Anna. I know it’s the smell of the orphanage, which of itself smells like what you would think an orphanage smells like, but it’s just her. I love to see her walk in a room. She has a commanding presence and she looks like she’s in charge when she enters. I love when she turns her head from side to side because her little pig tails that are wrapped in multi-colored rubber bands flip back and forth and just add to her personality.

Heather and I immediately noticed her little stubby fingers and how dexterous she is as she holds a crayon and colors with perfect form. Funny, I know, but I’m amazed how everything about her is so new to me. You know when you have a new baby and you first get the chance to really check them out, think of all the things you notice…fingers, toes, nose, back of their neck, eyes. 

Anna was just born to us and I love that we get to experience all of these things about her for the first time. It’s amazing to me that I have noticed this and that it matters to me. Her eyes are amazing. She can focus on you when she wants to and I have been nose to nose with her when she does. She has little wrinkles in the corner of her eyes that make her eyes slanted a bit and I wonder if that is typical of Ds. Her lips look chapped and Heather keeps commenting on how she needs some Chapstick.  She has a cute flat little nose and attached earlobes and her neck is chubby,  like the rest of her.

She has been a joy to be with, smile with, teach to "give knuckles" and "high 5" and just be with.

I feel so blessed this week.  I know we have just found our daughter.

 

Wednesday Adventures

Hello from the Arctic blast!  Thanks to everyone who has left comments!  You have no idea how comforting it is to come into our warm hotel every night, turn on the computer and see that so many people are out there cheering us on.  This whole experience has been overwhelming, exhausting, and confusing being in a foreign country and taking in everything that comes with this process.  Nothing warms our hearts more than your words.

Wow, it suddenly became so bitter cold that you can hardly breathe!  The wind is gusting and throwing dry snow around with a vengeance.  We want to go sightseeing,but it’s nearly impossible when you feel like you’re on the North Pole, and that’s with a down coat, scarf, gloves and hat! 

Unfortunately, today started off on the wrong foot.  We were supposed to meet our coordinator in the hotel lobby at 9:20 am.  Well, we didn’t even think about setting the alarm because we’ve been waking up at 7 or so every morning, no problem.  At 9:30 our phone rang.  We were sound asleep.  I only slept about 4 hours last night even after taking a Unisom. I lied awake from about 3 to 6 am.  The combination of stress and jet lag is not good when you need sleep.  I think she was a bit annoyed by us.  We had to throw on our clothes, brush our teeth and fly down there so we could get to the Notary Public on time.  We were scheduled to go get our official acceptance paper notarized at 10:00.  Getting something notarized in this country is a much bigger deal than it is in America.  Notaries have had extensive law training and you have to pay them quite a bit to stamp your papers for you.  It’s serious business.

While we’re on the subject of "this country,"can I just say how surreal everything is to us?   We walk into these old, run down buildings, like the place where the Ministry of Education works.  Stucco is falling off the walls and there is a grumpy man with a fur hat sitting behind a glassed-in desk as you walk in and you can’t help but think, “We are in a movie, no?  This can’t be 2010.”  Most of the professionals are women who are dressed really nicely, so you would imagine that their offices would be nice.  But they are right out of the 1960s.   The buildings in this area are all tall and many of them look like they were built 40 years ago or so, but they are only about 15 to 20 years old.  There just isn’t money to keep them up updated or repair them.  We take our nice buildings, cheerful customer service and laid-back driving in America so for granted! 

 

After having our paper notarized, we stopped into this quaint little restaurant that no one but the people who work in the nearby government building likely know about.  It was so cool, though.  We ordered "Stuffed Pancakes" which are really more like crispy crepes with stuff in them.  (I haven't been impressed with the food we've had so far, BTW.  It's expensive and...not real tasty.)

When we were done with breakfast, we drove through the thick traffic to the office of the Minestry of Education and Elena took our official acceptance of our referral in.  So the committee now knows that we have met Anna in person and that we indeed still want to adopt her.  (That’s what this trip is for.)  We could probably go home tomorrow if we wanted to, but we want to have a few more visits with our Anna girl before we leave her for 2-3 months.  We're worried she won't remember us. :(

 We had several hours before our time at the orphanage so Jeremy and I went to the Hermitage Museum.  Wow!  What a place!  It's one of the largest museums in the world with over 1,000 rooms!  And packed full of original paintings, sculptures, tapestries, mosaics...you name it, from all over the world.  The queen who lived here kept building on and building on to the palace and buying more and more artwork to fill it up.  I've never seen more original works in two hours in my life! 

It was really cute seeing all the groups of school children walking through the museum. I had to get a picture of one of the groups leaving.  Also, Leonardo DiCaprio was in the museum when we were there! We didn't see him, but one of the workers told our tour guide they saw him.  Cool, huh?

Jeremy wanted me to take this  picture so he could show one of his contractors that he advertises for him all over the world! :)

And to the right, we have nothing other than a Michelangelo sculpture!

After our adventure at the Hermitage, we had the driver stop at the hotel so I could put a little makeup on for the day since I had no time that morning and take a 10 minute snooze to fuel up for our one orphanage visit for the day.  When we got there, the director had us go to into their rec room.  Anna came running in all excited to see us and wondering what fun things we had in store for today.  We got out a ball and some My Little Ponies, but all she wanted to do was color and look at her photo book we made her.  It's obvious that she is not accustomed to any roughhousing.  We tried that and she just got mad and said "Nyet!"  Elena told us that's totally expected, I mean all of her caregivers are women, and they have 12 kids under 7 to look after....who's ever going to do any roughhousing with these kids?  She'll learn about all that when she gets home with her brothers, though. Hopefully she'll like it after a few nights. :)  She didn't like rolling the ball or playing make believe, either.  She just likes looking at pictures, coloring, playing with the iPhone...anything visual and fine motorish. Typical of Ds...we'll have to work with her to round her out a bit, I'm sure. 

What a gal.  We wish we could bring her home with us. 

 Tomorrow, I'll have Jeremy write.  I think he needs a turn at this.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We'll miss our family greatly, but thinking about what we are grateful for will make up for any emptiness we feel being way from them.  We can't complain a bit.  Just look at what the Lord has given us. More than we ever imagined, times a million.

Tuesday with "Tanya"

We woke up this morning feeling somewhat rested, thanks to a good 'ol Unisom! (Man, this jetlag thing is not easy to shake! We are exhausted!) Our driver, Boris (a member of our church who lives in St. Pete) picked us up 9:45, then we picked up Elena, our coordinator, then went to the orphanage.

When we got there we went into the orphanage doctor’s office so she could go over all of Anna’s medical info with us. Luckily, there were no major surprises. For a child with Ds, she has been quite healthy. She has never had heart issues. Yeah! She rarely even gets colds. There are three things we'll have to get checked out when she comes home. The first thing is her eyes. She does have glasses but they only have her wear them a couple hours a day for some reason. When we were playing with her I noticed that she has a hard time focusing in on things and her eyes twitch a little when she's trying to focus. I imagine a good eyeglass perscription will take care of that. She also has some weak muscles in one of her eyes and it gets goopy a lot they said. So we will probably need to do some patching. Lastly, she is short for her age, but a bit overweight, even living in an orphanage where she doesn't have a chance to overeat. There's probably some thyroid issues that need resolved there. Lastly, we'll have to get her tested for allergies. She gets rashes easily and they haven't pinpointed what she's allergic to. The doctor said the rashes are less frequent the older she gets. So maybe she'll grow out of that. Our daughter Sadie had this problem big-time when she was little but has mostly grown out of it.

OK...on to the good stuff! Pictures! For our first visit today, we got to go upstairs to Anna's groupa area. This is where she spends almost all of her time. The kids are divided into "families" with 12 kids and 4 caregivers on shift at all times. Not a bad ratio, thankfully.  This area includes a playroom, a little kitchen, a bathroom, an eating area and sleeping room. When we first came in, all the kids were gone except one, who was sick. He (I think he was a boy in pink jammies. :)) had to stay in the bedroom and was clearly bored. He kept sneaking out to play with us. The caregiver kept shooing him back into the room.  Poor little guy.

We had a tea party with Anna.  Even Papa had fun with this. Every time we pretended to sip the tea out of the cup, it made her laugh.  She thought it was so funny.  I'm smiling as I sit here and think about her laugh.  It seriously makes us melt.

We showed her the book we made her about her family.  She LOVED looking carefully at each picture and pointing to each one.  She would point and say, "what's that?" in Russian and we would tell her the name of each of her siblings. She doesn't have a clue who they are or how she will fit into this picture.  But we're hoping that letting her memorize their faces will help when she meets them in a couple months.

Sadie, you'll love this one. :)

 

I love this one the most. It makes me tear up just thinking about what it implies.  

The people in this picture are going to completely change her world.  (**Post-edit:  Actually, she will change our world for the better, much more than we change hers.  Thanks, Ken. :) )

Soon, Anna.  Soon.

After this short visit we went back to the hotel and took a nap, then woke up just in time for our driver to take us back to the orphanage for our afternoon visit.  This time they let us go in the therapy room where there were lots of puzzles and things to do.  We spent two hours completely focused on our pumpkin.

We did puzzles.

She colored every page of the coloring book we brought for her.  We were impressed with how long she would focus on one thing.  And she didn't want us helping her one bit.  She'd say "nyet!" (no) every time we tried to help.

 

I love this one.  We have this app on my iPhone called "foggy window" where you blow on it and it fogs up, then you write on it with your finger and it clears away where you write, just like on a foggy window.  Jeremy showed her one time how you blow on it, and she figured it right out.  She took it out of his hands, wrote on it, then blew on it to fog it up again.  We laughed so hard.

Something we learned about Anna today was that she is a very determined little girl.  She knows what she wants.  Cute as a button, but stubborn!  Both the orphanage director and the doctor told us this about her.  As they would talk away in Russion, we noticed they were smiling, like "just you wait."  Then Elena would translate and tell us that "Tanya" is sweet, funny, warm, happy and stubborn!  It made us laugh when they told us this because Sadie was exactly like this at this age, and still is.  But we are told that people with DS are even more stubborn than the rest of us, so watch out!  We now know why Sadie was sent to us first...to prepare us. Hee hee.

We are happy, exhausted, and freezing our tails off!  We  walked down to the corner market last night and that was quite the experience.  This city is everything we pictured...cold, dark, and super fast-paced.  There is no way we would survive driving here.  Talk about scary! And pedestrians have to be as aggressive as the drivers if they want to get across the street.We decided we are just going to stay in our comfy, Americanized Marriott hotel room and call it good.
Спокойной ночи (Spokoinoi nochi) or in English...Good Night!

Kindred Spirits Reunited

Oh my gosh.

We

are

wooped.

No words

can express

how much we love her.

How do you put into words the experience of meeting someone who you have only seen in pictures, but somehow knew was yours? Well,  I don't know how exactly, but I'll try.  All those months of just going on blind faith are over.  Our faith is now knowledge.  She is our little pumpkin, there is no doubt about it.

The orphanage director told us that they call her "Sunny" there because she is their little ray of sunshine that makes everyone feel warm.  In stark contrast to the dreary place where she lives, she lights up the room, melts your heart and makes you happy.

"Tanya" is very spirited.  All the pictures we have seen of her don't show her personality.  I pictured her as being shy.  She is not shy!  When she walked in, she looked at us with a big grin, like "Cool! I think they want to play!"  She immediately started talking to the orphanage director with a few short Russian phrases.  I wanted to just sit and look at her and soak in everything, but she was immediately off to get the big teddy bears that were on the sofa and show them to us.  She LOVED our iPhone.  Between that and the Magnadoodle, she was in heaven.  She got excited about every little sound and cool image that she saw.  We love her sound effects.  She does this little growl thing like Eli does when she thinks something is funny.  And her giggle...oh her giggle.  It just makes your heart sing.  There's something about seeing a child with Down Syndrome giggle.  You just want to squeeze the heck out of them.

Here's the orphanage where she lives.  It's very old and run down.  But clean and well-kept at the same time.  And if her caretakers are anything as warm and loving as the director, then I don't worry that she isn't getting great care.

Situated in the middle of lots of old, tall buildings.  They get to go out and play and go for walks twice a day.

There's so much more to write about, but I'll save it for tomorrow.  *sigh*  Life is good.  So, so good.  Thank you, Father in Heaven for leading us to this perfect little person.  We love her so.