Waiting for Court...

Wednesday, May 24

Marina told us last night that the court is requiring that we sign paperwork stating we know the children’s medical history and that they had a family here in Karaganda that returned them or as Marina says “betrayed them”. The kids also had to sign paperwork stating they want to be adopted by us. We were a little surprised because only Sasha is allowed to go to court with us because he is over 10 and he has a say in the adoption.

We were picked up at about 11:30 and taken to a home office where we waited a while and then were given papers to sign. We did not have an interpreter this time so it was a little weird to just blindly sign paperwork but hey we are reasonable people. We understand we must sign or we will be delayed on our court date. Marina told us the details of what would be the intent of the document beforehand. The kids were given paperwork and it was read to them and there were lots of smiles and giggles. They were especially surprised when they realized our birthdays. Their previous adoptive family changed their birthdates but not birth year. Sasha’s birthday is Nov. 22 and Stella’s birthday is Sept.7. They thought it was really neat when they found out mine is Sept. and Garrett’s Nov. They told everyone. With our birthdays less than 10 days apart it will be busy months.

After we left we drove to Alona’s house, our English teacher for the kids, and she read our document to us which was good. They will take the notarized documents to the court. We are still waiting for a court date and do not know why we have not heard about a date yet. We just know it will be soon!!!

We went to purchase a video DVD game for the kids to play on our computer but are having a little trouble loading because the text is either Russian which is fine or all ???????? as the text. We have someone coming over that will help us later today. In the meantime we found a place nearby where we can go and pay 60 tenge for a hour of computer games. We had to monitor what they were playing. They tried to play Grand Theft Auto and we said “NIET”. They were not too disappointed and found other games to play. The games are so different here. To describe them would take to long! We played/watched for 1 hour and then it was time for dinner. Sasha was a happy boy on the way to computer games and not so much on the way back. He is one of those guys that has a hard time with transitions sometimes, well they both do. But most kids do, I guess.

Marina told us we also had to go to see the Social Worker today at 4:30pm also but then at the last minute cancelled us because she realized we are having court at Timertau and not Karaganda. We will see the social worker in Timertau just prior to court. They will check the children to make sure they are coherent and understand what is going on.

We watched most of Madagascar and they liked it but we had to turn it off because we are going to get up early to go visit at the orphanage. It is the end of the school year and their will be graduation ceremonies and the kids last opportunity to see their teachers.