Day Three

The weather was really nice today so Randy and I decided I told Randy I wanted to head to the Red Square for the traditional St. Basil picture and he wholeheartedly agreed my idea was perfect. It's an easy walk to Red Square from our hotel and once at the Kremlin we let the boys walk around picking up acorns and leaves before making our way to St. Basil.

From there, the madness ensued.

First of all, we were being stalked by Japanese paparazi. Two women would not leave us alone and kept taking pictures of Artem and Andrik, calling for them and getting in my shot when I was trying to get my family staged for a picture. Artem wouldn't even look my way, he just kept posing for the Japanese women saying, "Cheese!" and I was yelling at my three boys trying to get them to look at me. I finally gave up and started taking pictures of the women taking pictures of my family. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Look how proud Artem is to pose for the women. Mama who??

After the women finally left we decided to give the boys a chance to stand for a picture. We told Artem he was going to have to help us keep Andrik close and get him to stand next to him by holding his hand. I'll let you decide how well that worked out...

This big brother stuff is much harder than Artem expected. Sometimes it's like herding cats little buddy!

We were invited to our translator/driver's house for supper this afternoon. What a special treat for our family. Pasha was our translator/driver for Artem's adoption and we stayed in touch with him over the past two years and he worked with us again for Andrik's adoption. Masha his wife, went with us when we met our first referral back in July to give us her input on the different medical conditions we might see in a child's file and has been a good friend to our family as well. Pasha made a big pot of borscht and different traditional Russian foods and we had a great time visiting with them. I really liked the borscht and had avoided it in the past because of the beets, but Pasha's version was really good and he topped it with cilantro and sour cream. Yum!! After dinner we had homemade apple pie compliments of Masha; a little Russian and a little American at the meal, and finished everything with some black tea with herbs.

After dinner we all went outside to let the kids run some energy off and Randy, Artem, Pasha, and his son Nikita challenged each other to a game of soccer.


Andrik played a little soccer as well...

But most of the time he walked around cheering for the others and looking cute.

Well except for this, this isn't really cute but I'm not quite sure what my son is doing and I was the one taking the pictures.

But this is definitely cute,

And so is this, so I guess we'll just let the other picture slide.

Tomorrow Dr. Boris comes to our hotel room at 8:00 a.m. for Andrik's Embassy medical exam. I'm sure we'll get the same spiel he gave us last time and say the same thing he says to all the parents, "Don't baby them", "He's so handsome he's going to be a movie star", "He's going to have so many girlfriends"... Anyone want to place a bet?? After that I think we are headed to Old Arbat street for one last souvenir that I had to special order and then we are free until Wednesday when we have our Embassy interview. It sounds like we might be finished up by Thursday and if that's the case, I am thinking of calling Delta to see if we can get out a day early.

As always, I'll keep you posted. Dasvidanya!