Day 9

It has been another super wonderful day. We left earlier today to go to lunch with our facilitators. We went to a place called Mama Roma's which is supposed to be Italian. It was far from an Olive Garden but it was good. They had a bunch of salads (which in Russia are all loaded with beets and cabbage and heavy on the vinegar). The meal (it was all buffet style) there was something similiar to pot roast (again with cabbage in it), some cream based pasta that was very good, some kind of fish, some sliced potatoes and onions and then pancakes. The pancakes here are nothing like at home. They are more like crepes. They put sour cream on them and I figured "when in Rome..." so I ate sour cream on the pancakes. They were sooooo good!
From there our facilitators took us to a mall that has a very big grocery store in it. I could have looked around that place all day. They helped us pick out some meats, at which point we found out they eat a lot of horse here. Please Lord, don't let the meatballs that we so bravely cooked the other night have been horse! We picked out some Russian salami and some Russian sausuage. We also got some ground beef and a couple pork tenderloins...which Benji repeatedly asked to double check that it was cow and pork. HA!
Next...the best part of the day....seeing our precious boys! We had another fabulous day! D was very silly today. He loves to play with his daddy. And he is so easy to get to laugh. I don't want to be repetitive everyday, but he is a super sweet little boy, and very obedient. He is obsessed with putting things back exactly where they go, he loves shoes and now one of the first things he does is goes to my our bag and pulls out my chapstick and brings to me to put on him.....is this my son or what? No one can ever say that the Lord didn't hand pick him:)
N was a little less stubborn today. He was very snuggly and would let me hold him rock him more today than he usually does. Benji will click his tongue at N and N starts doing it back to him...he loves this. He is so precious. Towards the end of our visit, another Russian couple came in to visit the sone they are adopting. This wasn't working out for N so well. D stuck right by us hte whole time the other family was there. N was determined to steal every toy that the other little boy had. He did not like sharing the toys that he already had out with this little boy. At this point N threw a few fits when the mother took out toys that she had brought for her son and I wouldn't let him have them. He was not a happy camper with me. We just have to laugh...he is our strong willed child. Even though he has his little fits...I could still just eat him up.
We don't get to see them again until Monday so it was tough to say good-bye today. I have a pictue of them walking down the hall with one of the caretakers turning around waving good-bye. I am so ready for next week when we don't have to wave good-bye anymore. I am ready for them to be waving good-bye to the caretakers!
Here are a few pics from the day. We are so ready to be able to post pics of the boys. I have a few of the backs of their heads with them looking out a window that I almost posted, but I don't want to take any chances.


This is the mall with the grocery store. I wish it were closer, I'd love to have more time there.
This is the river in Krasnoyark. The sun and clouds over it was beautiful today.

Oh happy day....sweet tea. Not an easy find here and still not the tea that we are used to but makes my dear hubby a happy man. I saved a water bottle to make tea in. Yes, I am aware that it looks like coffee here. It was a touch strong but has since been diluted. Anything that you can do to make it feel more like home here helps tremendously.

Our food finds for the day. There is not such thing as pre-packaged foods here. You get at a meat counter and they put it in a baggie right there. There are tons of food just out in the open, you scoop and bag it youself. I have a new found respect for the FDA:)