Day 13 - Updates

Our apartment is really a hotel room right in the center of town. The owners are amazing. They have bent over backwards to help us. An example of this is Andrew left our cell phone in a taxi cab yesderday the after a couple of hours of calling every one they knew and driving us to the cab company, we found it. We feel as though they are kind and genuine people.

Things here are really inexpensive. For $15.00 USD you can eat a great meal. Soup, salad, a main dish and drinks. The town is really a step back in time (about 50 years). More photos will be attached later.

We go to visit Galina twice daily (for a total of about three hours). All is going great. She has beautiful big brown eyes, a great smile and is tall for an 18 month old. She is pale, and has super short brown hair (because they shave their hair to prevent lice) and has an infectious giggle. We have seen her five times now and already see an improvement. She is not walking, but you can tell is really trying. She has no words yet, but just today started making about three new expressions and sounds. Galina recognizes us when we arrive and waves bye when we leave. Her caregivers seem to be very caring and helpful.

We have decided not to announce her new name or post pictures of her as we want to wait until we are sure all is in order to complete the adoption. All the medicals will be completed this week and this is a a major hurdle. Once we have a court date and all is good to go, we will make our announcement. Sorry to make all of you wait.

We will continue to provide updates, but there will may not be one tomorrow. Galina is off to Uzkarad (bad spelling) and we will not see her, so there will not be much to tell. But we will try to post more pictures.