Ill on Thanksgiving

Unfortunately, the day started out not so well… We went to visit the boys last night and were turned away b/c they both had fevers at that time and were sleeping. Then today we went in the morning, hoping they would feel a bit better, but were turned away again until tomorrow. I know they need to rest to get better, but I felt so sad – I think especially because it is Thanksgiving. We would have to go without seeing the little pipsqueaks, who so quickly came to mean so much to us, for almost 48 hours.

However, the rest of the day went as well as possible without seeing the boys. Our group of 8 and our translators went to a place for lunch together. Before we were served, our head translator met with each couple to go over our legal statement for court. This statement makes our request to adopt the boys. It was pretty cool to sign those papers and write the names of what we wish to call the boys legally. We decided on Andre Port Henrikson and Gregory Novi Henrikson. We chose to Americanize their first names (from Andrei and Grigorii) but then we wanted to give each of them half of their current last name so they always remember that they belong together as brothers and so they remember their Kazak heritage.

We had lamb kabobs, veggies, rice, fries, for lunch. Turkey is not an option here... After our partial Chinese, partial Kazak, not-so-great lunch yesterday no one was feeling too adventurous, so kabobs sounded good.. Nothing was de-boned so we had to pick it up and use our fingers and several napkins each. It was messy but pretty good.

We then went to a coffee shop for wifi. Of course we did not have our laptop with us so we had some desserts instead of wifi. J Then we went to the Dostoyevsky house/museum. Very interesting. Our afternoon continued with a few more food stops – to the bakery, the mini mart and to the chicken (rotisserie) store. Mom asked about prices here, I think. The food is quite reasonably priced – unless you want peanut butter ($7 a jar) or Nestle hot chocolate ($12 a container).

I will cut this off now as I know Ken wants to post as well.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
-Jenny

Let's see, I'll just add a bit to what Jenny already wrote. We are both dissapointed to not see the kids but we hope that their rest will make them heal faster. Dinner was certainly good and felt like a real "thanksgiving to remember".

We've been watching Gilmore Girls to kill time and are enjoying seeing new spots like the Dostoyevsky house. How fascinating that he lived here for several years in exile. We saw copies of his hand written notes on his most famous books including The Idiot, Brothers K, and Crime and Punishment. And of course, being in his actual house where he wrote was amazing.

Okay, I'll write more later and we'll include some pics.

Ken