The ball is rolling

So we got great news yesterday that our court decided to make the decision now to give us our needed documents rather than waiting until next week! We are so excited because this will get us home a week sooner than we were initially told and now we don't have to spend all weekend wondering if there was going to be something else come up to keep us here even longer. It was definitely an answer to many prayers. I'm really missing my family back home and can't wait until we are all back together again.

As always Becky has been slaving away on her blog, keeping such a great record so rather than recap it all, I'll send you over there. Ha ha, yes I'm being lazy. Our friend told Wayne he could just picture me lounging about eating grapes while Becky is putting in the hard work on the blog, and that pretty much sums it up. I'm the entertainment and she is the public relations in our duo. That's what she gets for being so good at it.

http://preecefamilyadoption.blogspot.ru/2013/01/celebration.html?m=1

She did however forget to tell you about our day on Wednesday. You see lately I've been the one causing a ruckess where ever we go but Tuesday was here day in the limelight. I have to admit it was nice for me. Ha ha.

So it started when we were walking around the GUM mall. It's this fancy high end mall right on red square. We were looking around in this gadget shop and were turning around to head out and Becky knocked over a display of about 13 containers of ribbon and bows. We quickly started picking them all up cracking up while doing so.

Then a bit later we were in our favorite store. It's a british called Accessorize. Kind of like a Claire's but much cuter, every time we go to the mall it just sucks us in. It's where she found the cute Russian had for Gabe. So while she was checking out she saw a cute nesting doll Santa so she picked it up to see the dolls inside. When she picked it up the bottom fell off and the pieces went flying all over the floor.

I quickly hit the ground trying to pick them up and I couldn't quite reach one that had gone between the feet of a woman that was waiting in line. When I looked up at her just staring at me like I was complete idiot down on the ground I started laughing so hard I could barely breathe. She didn't even budge an inch. When I got back up and handed the piece to Becky we saw that it had cracked. Becky tried explaining to the teller that she would pay for it but the lady just examined it, gave us "the look" and set it aside. Becky handed her the cash to pay for the hat and the lady stuck out her hand and said something in Russian. Becky asked if it was on sale because she thought she had given her enough. Then the lady said, 20 rubles. She was asking for exact change.

It's funny because everyone here wants you to pay with exact change. So different from the states where I almost feel silly when I give exact change for something. I rarely pay for things with cash so it's just different. We are definitely brushing up on our math skills, always trying to convert rubles to dollars. I still feel like I'm paying with Monopoly money. For instance if something costs 3,000 rubles, that means its $100 US dollars. So I'll be carrying around a wad of 100 rubles bills and think I'm so rich and then I do the math and its only like &20.

To top if off when we walked out the door the alarm went off and they had to pull all the stuff out of my bag to make sure I wasn't stealing anything. At that point we were so embarrassed we just wanted out of that place. Good times indeed. I was so excited to report Becky's blunders to Sally when she picked us up and let her know its not just me doing all the crazy things over here. We had a good laugh.

Here are some pictures from the produce market we went to yesterday and the bag of goodies I got to bring home and take to the kids at Jaymi's orphanage to go with their blankets.

We are hoping to pick the kids up by Tuesday and will most likely be home the following Wednesday.