.: Gotcha Day - 12/12/12 :.

 So, the day FINALLY arrived!  After much waiting and waiting... and waiting, Alex is ours... in our custody and ours!!  :-) The day went very, extremely well!!  We started out for the local superstore called the OkeN (similar to WalMart).  We had to get 2 cakes for the workers, fruit for all of the kids, and flower for our director and the doctor (it's tradition).  Once that was all taken care of, we headed to the orphanage.  We arrived about 11:00a, and after some meeting time with the director and Alex getting a morning snack, he was brought to us to be changed and readied to go home.

He did very well on the trip to the hotel!  Our translator had bought bags and wipes for travel sickness "just in case".  She had noted that a recent couple had adopted 2 girls and one cried the whole way in the car and the other was very sick!  Thanks be to God, Alex did _wonderful_!  Our translator estimated that he had only been out of the orphanage probably only 3 times in his life since birth.  So, he started out a bit scared and anxious, but quickly warmed up.  Unfortunately, because of traffic jams, he had _plenty_ of time to warm up!  :-)

We arrived back to the hotel at about 3pm, and Skyped with family quickly so they could get there first live glimpses of the "newest addition".  He had a brief nap, and then was a real live-wire!  We attempted to walk the hotel a bit, but it was so busy that it was just a bit overwhelming to a child who has seen only a handful of adults and has only seen brief episodes of the world outside his orphanage walls.

He ate a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stewed carrots, then bathtime, and is now in bed.  Leslie is laying down with him as I type as he seemed as though he might get a bit tear-y when she began to lay him down in the crib.

Overall, he has done very well for day one!  And he seems to have already picked up his first word in English ... "ball".  Unless he is saying something altogether different that his crazy American parents haven't figured out yet!!  :-)

We also have our high-speed rail tickets booked for next week.  We are taking the Sapsan train to Moscow which travels at 322 km/h (200mph) and makes the 650km (404 miles) trip in just over 4hrs.  I know the math seems wrong there for all you brainy people, but it doesn't go 200mph the whole trip and there are 4-stops.  Jeepers, this is starting to sound like a story problem!!  :-)

Tomorrow will be a low-key day ... nothing planned... just laundry!  It will be nice to just have a day to ourselves without schedules or driving or waiting!  :-)

Ok... now on to the good stuff ... the stuff most all of you have come to see ... the pictures!!  :-)

Changed into his new clothes ... Thanks to Lynette Duncan who _handmade_ this shirt for our boy!!

Bundled and ready to leave!

 

Relaxed and enjoying the ride home (to the hotel)

I really like this hat... I wore it a lot just for fun!

Hey! Did I mention I like this hat?!

Dinner time ... getting a chance to wear Daddy's hat!

Bath-time!

All cleaned up!

Ready for bed! (Can you tell I'm just a bit tired?)

PS: I love my teddy bear and I'm a thumb-sucker too!  :-)  Good night all!  See you in the morning after a (hopefully) long, good nights rest!  :-)