Wednesday morning for us, election night for most of you...

When I got up this morning, Craig was already tuned into CNN and getting the early elections results from home. With the 11 hour time difference, we'll be able to watch the coverage most of the day here. At home, we usually have to go to bed before the final election tallies are done so it's kind of cool to be able to see it all unfold this time. We're watching CNN Asia which has been doing extensive campaign coverage for days now...since CNN is one of only two English channels we get here, we feel well informed. (OK, the truth is we're getting pretty sick of the whole election thing and will be happy to see some new CNN programming starting tomorrow!)

No, we don't have a court date yet. After calling and sending messages to our coordinator through other adoptive families here, we finally caught up with her Tuesday afternoon. She told us that the court in Ridder says it's reviewing our file and isn't ready to assign a court date yet. No idea why that is since she says our paperwork is in perfect order but they do have the right to review and can't be forced to give a court date at this point. Alma is making use of her court contacts in Ust who are calling the Ridder court and trying to push things for us so there is a chance we'll hear something today. If not, Alma says we'll all go to Ridder tomorrow to meet with officials and try to convince them to schedule us. International adoption is always an adventure...and it never seems to be lacking in drama.

We walked to Arzan yesterday, the big Costco-type store Arman took us to last week. My dear husband convinced me to walk there, assuring me we could take a taxi back. Hah! It was a long walk over a bridge, through the woods, along a crazy busy highway and over rocks and stones on the narrow shoulder but we arrived safely and the shopping was fun...as for taxis for the return trip, there were none. We made the return trip on foot and with shopping bags, stopped for coffee in town and then finally got a cab back to the apartment. When we told our friends here that we walked to Arzan, they were stunned...they assured us that no one walks that far here! Yeah...tell me about it. After realizing that we logged about 10 miles walking yesterday, I've informed Craig that we won't be walking to Arzan again and that I sense there are more taxis in our future.

Today, we'll finally get to the pre-school orphanage to visit Tanya's and Max's former caregivers. Arman will pick us up at 3pm so we do have something to look forward to. We'll try to post pics after our visit.

Some of you have asked about our kids at home. They're doing very well with Aunt Donna and Uncle Woody holding the fort, waiting as patiently as they can for Mom and Dad to return. We are so blessed to have our family and our friends taking such good care of our kids, our critters, and all the little things that have popped up in our absence like clogged plumbing, missing paperwork, bills, etc. Everything is being handled efficiently and our kids are missing us but are secure and safe. They had a great Halloween...this year, we had a witch, a Jedi knight, and a woodland fairy.