Day 23, Thursday Last night we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant, along with about local Russian and Kazak professionals who were enjoying a business dinner. Fashion is very important here, so they were all dressed in formal black, business attire. They took turns toasting each other and you could see that the vodka was flowing... Evidently, this was the ending celebration of a three day convention of some sort at the hotel. You can imagine our surprise on Monday morning when we, casually dressed and slightly frumpy, opened the door to the usually deserted dining room expecting to partake of our complimentary breakfast, and found instead a room of business persons all gathered for a very serious breakfast/meeting. All eyes turned and stared at us quizzically. We quickly closed the door and turned our own perplexed expressions towards the hotel staff at the front desk. They took our order for breakfast and we were served in our rooms for the next three mornings. We left the hotel for the boarding school in a very welcome flurry of new snow. The wind kicked up and several inches came down while we visited, and of course, the city processes did not miss a beat. Business as usual in Kostanai, regardless of the weather. After our obligatory series of card games, Luda decided to make sketches of her future fashion design office in New York City while Lily (Luba) and Stacey made paperdoll creations and played in construction paper. After struggling with glue, paper, stickers and scissors, we cleaned up and the girls finished with separate drawings. Luda designed an outfit for her pretend agency and Lily (Luba) drew a picture of a bride and groom, complete with fireworks in the back. She asked to have "I Love You" written in above the picture and we obliged. We have begun teaching her phrases in English and intend to add two to three new each day. Today we practiced "I understand" and "I do not understand" along with counting to four. Stay tuned to find out what we learn tomorrow!

Day 24, Friday We struggled through all of our school assignments today, and were happy when the time came to go to the boarding school. Lily was happy to see us, with a warm greeting as we rounded the corner. She led us into the library and we started our vist with the regular card games. Interestingly, Lily decided to select her choices for "Red & Black" by the colors of the books in shelves next to where she was sitting. She and Luda still seem to prevail in these games... After a bit, our coordinator Dinara appeared with the social worker who was charged with the job of evaluating our current relationship with Luba (Lily). She asked us questions about how we are all getting along and about Luda's adjustment to living in America and to the prospect of getting a sister. The girls immediately clung to each other, demonstrating their unusual connection. The social worker was an intuitive lady, immediately commenting on how important their relationship with each other will be for both girls in the future, specifically, how it will help Luba (Lily) adjust in the future. She also commented on how well adjusted Luda is, and now she thought that Luba (Lily) would do the same in the future. We felt lucky to have such a lovely person as our social worker. This evening we went to dinner with our friends Mike & Drew from Milwaukee, and Corey, Robin & Hayden from Michigan who live below us and who just received a positive court judgement for a 9 month little girl. It was a celebratory evening, complete with "piva" and toasts for a wonderful future. At the end of the evening, Kevin commented that he thought Benjamin Franklin to be a very wise person...especially for his comment "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Enough said.... :)

Day 25, Saturday After last night's revelry, we were a bit foggy this morning. On our way to breakfast, Luda commented "Dad, your singing last night was really good." We all had a big giggle over that and proceeded down our 72 stairs, only to run into our comrades in crime. None of us missed breakfast this morning! Today's visit consisted of the continued exploration of the wonders of western technology. We took both of the girls toy cell phones that were actually containers for lip gloss. After making themselves beautiful, Luda showed Lily an actual cell phone. They explored the different ringers, screen savers and camera. We wrote down our phone number on a piece of paper and she practiced dialing it on both the real cell phone and on the toy one. Not surprisingly, she struggled to dial the numbers. As I watched her, it occured to me what a luxury a phone is, and I began to ponder just how many things we must take for granted.  It was obviously one of the few times she has tried to dial a phone. We are so fortunate in America. The world is a big place, and this young one has a lot of exploring to do. While our friends Robin, Corey and Haydn are getting ready to head back to Michigan tomorrow, new internet friends have joined us at the Medeo Hotel. Laura and Brett just arrived, albeit a bit jet-lagged from arriving at 9:30 this morning. Many thanks to Laura for recommending the Medeo to us, it is a nice hotel with very kind and patient staff. It has to be the cleanest hotel that I have ever stayed in...and for a self-proclaimed clean freak, that is really important! :)

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