St. Petersburg Day 5-Friday

SUCCESS!!!!!! We had a great day with our little one today. She was dressed for outdoors when we got to the orphanage, so we went to the playground with her. She actually let Brian pick her up. She cried just a little when he first picked her up, but then as soon as I got out the bubbles, she started to let him hold her and play with the bubbles and there was no problem. She actually let him carry her around for about 10 or 15 minutes, so he was very happy about that. We felt that this was a very good sign that it might not take as long as we had feared for him to warm up to us.

And a really great thing also happened while we were there. The little girl I wrote about yesterday, the one who asked about Mama and Papa, her DAD was there today, walking around with her, holding her hand, etc. The translator said she overheard him talking to the caregivers. Apparently he visits alot and he plans to get her from the orphanage and raise her. He is a single dad, and apparently having a hard time. So that is very good news. I was thrilled that we were able to know that she is okay, I worried about her.

After we visited her, we were dropped off at the Hermitage museum Today is a holiday in Russia, so it was a very fun time to be down there in the crowd. The Hermitage was closed, unfortunately, but we were able to go inside the Church of the Spilled Blood, Michaelovsky Gardens, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the only Roman Catholic Church in St. Petersburg (St. Catherine's), and pick up a couple of souvenirs. We also found a great pizza cafe that we will remember for our next trip. All in all we've had a great day today.

We bid farewell to our translator, we will not see her again until the next trip. Our driver will pick us up at the hotel tomorrow morning at 5 AM for our 7:25 flight. We are SO anxious to get out of Dodge and back to the boys! We can't wait to see them. Brian and I have already decided that the boys should all sleep in our bed tomorrow night so that we won't have to be away from them for one minute. Only 14 hours until we are singing "Happy Trails"! :) And looking forward to the next trip and court.