Gotcha Day!

Well, he is officially ours. We can now post pictures and video, so I thought I would put together a little video montage of our trips, up to the day we picked him up from the orphanage (this is what I've done with some of the free time here). Unfortunately, if you are reading this and there is not video, that's because it's been over an hour and the video hasn't uploaded yet. I am going to have to re-think this strategy. In the meantime, here's a detail of our day, and I will follow it up with pictures on my next post (I don't have any with me in the business center) to satisfy for now until I get the video worked out.

Ok, this video is taking way longer to upload than I expected, so I will post a quick few words. We picked up Elijah earlier than expected, at 2pm instead of 5pm, so we had to rush around to try to get things ready for his big trip. We were anxious, but excited about what lay ahead of us. He welcomed us with a few tears when we got there (not a huge surprise), but settled down when we started changing his clothes. He found that pretty fun. He said "niet" again to the shoes, but we put them on anyway and he did fine. A quick goodbye to the orphanage director, and we were down the stairs and out into the open world. He rubbed his eyes in the sun (it felt more like San Diego than Siberia in the 75 degree heat) and Sara held him as we said a prayer for him on the steps of the orphanage.

He greeted the van with arms and legs extended in flight pose. There was no way he was having the inside of the van (he likes to look at them out the window, but getting into one is another story). And after the many near misses on the roads of Siberia we've had thus far, I can't say that I blame him. He settled down, enjoying the ride back to the hotel in the safe confines of mama's arms. No throwing up on the drive! Yeah! It is a pretty common occurance, but we were spared.

We had to make a stop at the photo place to get his passport picture taken. No tears there (thank goodness), and we were off to the hotel. He greeted our room with interest, and was pretty quiet as he explored. We gave him a snack, and proceeded to head outside to see the fountains in front of the hotel. It was very busy and a little chaotic for him (we could feel his nervousness as he clung to Sara's arms), so we headed back inside to the room for the night. Dinner of soup didn't go over too well with him (I guess Uncle Ben's is a little different than orphanage soup), so we added a banana and some bread and called it a night. A little wind-down time, and he was ready to be held by Sara. She fed him a bottle (part of his attachment process), and Sara rocked him to sleep. He slept through the night until 6 in the morning. Not bad for a first night.

Elijah is finally our son. Wow....that's all I can say...

JP