Ahh ... Day 2 with the boys. It is Sunday and we look forward to a day without any schedule with the agency folks. We didn't make it to Kaliningrad last week in time to get to church on Sunday so we don't know what the particulars are here in K'grad. Unfortunately, we don't feel to adventureous so we will skip our church attendance again this week. But we're praying for guidance with the boys!

We had our usual breakfast at 9am ... no change in menu. It is getting old for us now, this being Day 7 at The Turtle. We did tell our Russian hotel clerks that we didn't want them responding in Russian to the boys today. They agreed and were nice about it. If we knew what they were saying it wouldn't be so bad but it seems there are a lot more words they're being told than we are getting translated to us. Not a good thing.

We took the boys to the nearby playground and let them expend some energy on the swing and teeter-totter. I don't think they know much about a teeter-totter. We had to show them how to mount the seat, how to use your legs to push off the ground, etc. These boys didn't have much to play with at the Orphanage other than sticks and dirt. It will be interesting to see what other types of 'common' things we grew up with are a complete mystery to them.

We returned to The Turtle and Carol took a break. Adrian kept the boys outside and played some more kick ball. They seemed to enjoy it yesterday and were ready to have some more fun. Sasha kicks fairly well. They both kick straight which was a great surprise. But, like many things, the attention to this doesn't last long and they were determined to check out the work being done on the basement exit staircase. The workers throughout the week were installing tile and doing a great job. But they weren't finished and had sealed off the area ... sort of. It wasn't sealed for a 5 and 7 yr old, I can tell you that. It wasn't long before the kickball was at the bottom of the stair well. Another hard lesson to learn. The ball got to stay there while we went back inside.

We had a light lunch at noon and then enjoyed some quiet time from 1 to 2pm. It was becoming apparent that the boys were not going to sleep during this rest time. They didn't yesterday nor did they today. We are surprised. The Director ensured we knew about the rest time and we were trying to continue it. The boys were even asleep during a couple of our visits when we arrived around 3pm. We'll have to see what the next few days bring. But we don't look forward to it actually as our schedule will be very different and the likelihood of tired boys in the afternoon is very real.

After our rest period we had some Snickers bars. Alexander (agency) had brought the boys and Christina the large size Snickers yesterday. I had put them away until today and so we diced them up for all to enjoy. It sure was nice having something made in the USA!

With everyone now on a sugar high we headed for the zoo. This was a 15 min walk back towards town. It was pleasant and uneventful. The zoo charges higher prices for foreigners and children were free. $8 for the three of us USA types. The boys became excited fairly quickly as the toy vendors were close to the entrance gates and they wanted something new. Too bad. No junk trinkets for these little tikes. The zoo was an interesting place. It was fairly expansive considering it was near the middle of town. They had many varieties of animals and the proximity of them to the visitors was sometimes alarming. Pictures do it more justice than my words ...

About an hour and a half into our visit low clouds moved in and it wasn't 20 minutes before we started to have rain. We made it back to the entrance area without getting really wet and stopped in at the Zoo Cafe. The boys were given ice cream for being so well-behaved in our first family outing. We were fortunate in that the rain ceased as they ice cream disappeared. We made it back to The Turtle without incident or getting drenched.

We decided to have a light supper this evening and ordered from the bar downstairs. We had the warm ham sandwiches again that we had upon our arrival just a full week ago. The boys are hand-washed again and we prepared for bed by 8pm. Sasha was really begging to sleep in our bed tonight. I couldn't resist the likelihood that he'd dreamed about this for how many years in that Orphanage. I relented, even against Carol's better judgment. The boys were invited up to the king bed so there we all were ... filling it up. There were smiles as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. They bedded down nicely and drifted off to sleep.

But that's not the end of the Sunday night story. It seems Carol was a bit cramped and left sometime in the middle of the night and joined Christina on the pull-out bed in the sitting room. The boys, nor I, noticed when this happened. We were tired. We were just snuggly happy. And I was very pleased to be a Papa.

NOTE FOR FUTURE TURTLE VISITORS ... the extra bedding the boys used was stored in the garage at the rear of the hotel. The bedding actually had a fuel oil smell to it. We actually discovered this on Sunday and were not going to let the boys sleep on them anymore because of it. I'd suggest you carefully check out the bedding when you have it delivered to your room.

Tomorrow's plan:
+ Breakfast at 0900
+ Passport office at 1200
+ Travel Agent afterwards