Photos and Day 3!

Yesterday afternoon, we had a tour of the city with a tour guide from our adoption agency.We tried to take it all in so we can share photos and memories with Nik as he gets older.

This morning, we had another great visit with Nik. He was very, very excited to see us when we arrived and immediately started hugging me and didn't want to let go. We played with him for a couple of hours and had a lot of fun with him. We seem to be getting into a groove of communicating with him, so I am a little less intimidated about figuring that out when we bring him home. This afternoon, we spend a couple of hours in an attorney's office signing a lot of papers that we didn't understand very well, so they can file a petition in the court to officially adopt him! We were told we will know our court date in about 2 weeks and it should be before the end of September. Tomorrow morning will be our last visit with Nik before we head home. He was very upset when we left him today, so I am anticipating tomorrow being a little (okay, a lot) rough. We appreciate your prayers for us, but especially for him as we leave him for the next month or six weeks.

Below are photos from our tour of Moscow and from our visit today!


Brent and I at St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. This was built to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon by Russia and is one of the few cathedrals to survive the Soviet era.



Photo in front of the Kremlin, also at Red Square.  The wall was the original wall to the city and dates to the 1400's.  Currently, government offices and the president's office are at the Kremlin.

This is the Cathedral of Christ our Savior.  It originally took 44 years to be built but was destroyed by Stalin. He built a swimming pool in its place.  In the 1990's it was rebuilt in 2 years by workers working 24 hours a day in shifts.  We went inside and it is very ornate and beautiful. 

This is a photo of a gate at a famous nunnery in Moscow. In times of the Tsar's, infertile wives were sent there to be nuns.  During the soviet era, it was used for different purposes but it is now a nunnery again.  There is a very large cemetery there with many famous Russians including Boris Yeltsin and Stalin's second wife and various writers and actors. 

Nik loves the flowers around the orphanage.

Playing with Nik on the outdoor play equipment.

Brent is getting Nik started on technology with my iphone.
He quickly figured out how to scroll through photos and enjoyed
a video of Maddie and Dylan.

So sweet!  Nik loves hugs. 

Nik thought it was VERY funny to put my sunglasses on me
upside down. Shortly thereafter, he broke them.  It was a
small price to pay for the fun!