He's a cutie **long**

Woke up after sleeping in for a couple of hours yesterday morning. This is it, I kept thinking to myself, now we get to see him in person. We had to be in our hotel lobby by 10:30 to meet with three different people. "A" the driver "V" the translator and "T" the coordinator. We ate granola bars and dry cereal from home and went to the hotel cafe only for a coffee. The coffee made me want to walk to the Baby Home. Very strong.

They where a little late and that just made me more nervous. Once we got going we could see why the traffic sucks here. "T" explained a few things and after about 30 minutes we stopped at a four story building and went in to meet a Gentleman who heads the MOE. He was nice and gave us our first surprise. Bunny is younger then we thought. They give you a brief description and some of the background story but not too much. He asked us a few questions which we answered "yes, no or we understand." Rich and I together maybe said eight words. It was an important visit but very short. He did give us permission to enter the Baby Home and visit the baby, Yeah!

"T" left us with our driver and translator for the drive two hours East of Kaliningrad to a smaller town. Ok, I have been reading a lot of blogs about the driving but nothing can prepare you for that. The roads are so bumpy and riddled with pot holes. Everything was jiggling uncontrollably and Rich and I where holding on to each other. Neither one of us are back-seat travelers. I narrowly avoided car sickness.

Once in the small town where the BH was we stopped for some tea, crackers and diapers to take with us. Then we went in and climbed up stairs to the director's office. It was about 2:00ish and no one wanted tea so we sat down on a couch across from the director's desk and the meeting started. Lot's of talking and changing of eye direction, our heads where moving. First Director would speak, its translated by "V", written down ( filled in a list from the agency) by me and follow-up questions. We kept looking at each other to make sure we got it. Then this starts all over again. Not on every subject but on at least five or six Rich and I had follow-up questions. So we are writing, studying and talking and then the voices in the room changed. All of the sudden I was holding Bunny. He was so cute and had just woken up from a nap. You know how you get those blanket/sheet wrinkles on your face when you sleep real hard, he had one. At first he wanted to cry, his lips where pouting. Then everyone in the room distracted him, there was about eight people, Wow. He focused a little on the chandelier and men which he sees a lot of ladies and very few men. His face of course had the "what's going on here" surprised look. Rich got him to giggle, he played with some toys we brought and spit up some. About an hour into our meeting we took turns using the restroom and when Rich came back I had Bunny asleep. Now that is the picture I want to post but we can't. His privacy has to be respected. We have some cute video and pictures we will share later. He did smile at both Rich and I, it was so Great! It ended way too soon but at least the car ride was easier because our minds where on what had just happened. "A" had to pull over, sort of, a cop held out a little plaque and directed him to the side of the road. The plaque looks like what the judges use on "Dancing with the Stars" to show scores. There was no ticket just an on the spot fine, Ouch! Quite a day! We'll post more later.

I did share a picture from our tour in St. Petersburg. Can you guess what this is?