We are home!!-two weeks later!

HOOOORAY!

We had a few calls from friends who were very disappointed when there was no posting on Friday. Thank you to everyone who is now addicted to our blog. Let me try to recap Friday for everyone.

We were a little late arriving to the baby home due to Arina's daughter being sick that morning. We arrived at the baby home and like usual went upstairs to wait for Nakita. Arina comes bounding into the room with out him and says come follow me quickly. As we are racing down the pink staircase, she tells us that his groupa is performing for the celebration of autumn. She asked the director if we could watch. We went into the music room.(Picture posted previously) His groupa is sitting ever so still in the lined up chairs all dressed up. His caretaker Rita is dressed in a gown of autumn colors and sequins with a crown on leading the songs. The girls are all in white dresses with HUGE bows( Pam this would totally put the girl's bows to shame:)) The boys are dressed in white t-shirts and bright yellow shorts. They all have bibs made of bright yellow crinoline and feathers. The boys had orange bow ties on theirs as well. Come to find out that the children were all chicks and Rita was "Mother Autumn". The 3 year old groupa came to watch and sing along too. All the doctors and directors were there. They sang a few songs, with a man who was dressed in bright colors with the children and playing an accordion. Rita gave all the children tambourines to play along with on the next song. They shook them above their heads, and on their feet. Nakita loved this part. Rita got a volunteer from the 3 year old groupa. He played a mini-accordion with the man for a special song( we found out later that he is 4 and is waiting for his court date next month!!) The little boy and Rita then went out into the hallway, when they cam back into the room, they were singing about machina(cars). The little boy was pulling a truck full of bananas. You should have seen their eyes light up! Then all the children were singing about bananas.( Arina told us that the children don't get many fruits, because there are very few available, and the ones that they import from China are full of chemicals) Nakita ran over to the truck and followed by all the others from his groupa. They then turned on the music and the children got up and danced and laughed. I was invited up as Nakita's mama to dance too! Great fun!

We were then able to go upstairs and play for a bit. – I thought saying good-bye would be full of tears. – We both gave him a kiss and then before we could get too sentimental, he ran off (being of COURSE he was late for lunch – and boy that boy LOVES to eat!) – he sat at his table and waved “paka” to us both. That was it! – HE is SOOOO loved and they really take great care of him there. I feel good and we know we are coming back right after the holiday season – (I’ve already put in a tentative leave at work!!)

We’ve had a rough time adjusting to the time zones coming back, but we’ve also found a WONDERFUL sleep aid! (this will help us so much on trip #2) – Nat was excited to see us and we’ve put up quite a few pictures of Nakita at home. – It won’t be long and he will be running down our street and chasing after the dogs!

I will post more pictures and possibly some video when our computer is back up and running - it has a virus and it is totally down - go figure!!

Thank you to Everyone who has helped us in this amazing journey! We are so truely blessed!!!