Beautiful Day

Today was an absolutely beautiful and sunny day. So nice to see the sun. When Mike was here it was gray and there was a small snow storm every day.

We had morning and afternoon visits today and had so much fun with the girls.

Today during our visit one of the caregivers took M and swung her all over the place, and threw her up in the air. She did not like it one bit but it reminded us that M is not as small and fragile as we think. Since that time we have swung her around and she does seem to like it.

M has a cold and a runny nose. I think I have caught it. I am sure not the last time that the kids will get me sick, but it is the first.

D knows there are cheerios in my bag so any time she sees it she goes crazy trying to get into it. She will take everything out of it until she finds the cup. She loves them and is so sad when they are ‘all gone’. I cannot wait to be able to feed them myself. Right now we are really not supposed to be giving them anything so it is like contraband that we have to hide when the caregivers come through. I look forward to be able to feed them. Right now the caregiver sits behind M and shovels food into her mouth. She really needs to eat more slowly as she has a tiny mouth. I bet that is why she is so small and why they say she has a ‘digestive problem’ because they do not give her any time to eat and swallow.

They both love to look in the mirror and point. There is a mirror on the wall in the room that we are using to visit with the girls everyday. We have had such fun showing them their reflections.

We enjoyed a few minutes outside of the orphanage after our visit in the sun before our driver showed up to pick us up. The sun felt good, you do not see it that often here. I took photos of Russian kitties outside of orphanage this afternoon. There seems to be about 4 stray cats that hang out outside the orphanage.The picture of my parents in their Russian hats enjoying the sun is great so I added it here too.

During lunch we walked around town and I gave them the official Tver town tour, which take all of ½ hour. I showed them the statue of St. Michael, Lenin, the Volga river and the pedestrian street. We had lunch at a small café because we did not want anything too big. So, we had hotdogs and soda.

The day was exhuasting and we had dinner at hotel tonight.

We really tire out my dad. With all the walking around town, over icy and crazy streets, up and down 3-4 flights of stairs and being busy chasing the girls all day my dad is wiped out. I have lots of funny pictures of him napping any time he sits down.