Since

Since we couldn't see Braxton yesterday, Ludmilla took us to the Pechory Monastary. It was really neat. Just walked around the grounds and looked around. It was rather chilly to do this, but it worked off some energy and was really neat, so didn't mind. Besides we had an english speaking tour guide, can't ask for more than that.

coins what to do with them...

When we can't figure out what to do with all the coin rubles, we count them up and if we have 30 rubles it will buy a little coffee.

A few pics in the gym at the orphanage when Braxton was sick the first day. We played in here while Robert and Jill had their time with Yuri. Its kind of a neat little room, don't know that they use it much, it was kind of cold in there.

Such a Day...

My day began at 4:30 a.m. couldn't sleep any longer. Brayden was up at 5:30 couldn't sleep any longer. So we have both been up the whole day. Our luck didn't hold out for Braxton though, or poor baby was still sick today. I did get to go look in on him, just touch his cheek and talk to him a little. They said that he cried for 30 min after we left him yest. I find that hard to believe, but we have to take their word and go with that. He was laying in his crib covered up and had his finger in his mouth, he felt warm to my touch, but not hot. Anyway, he isn't well that is obvious. After my quick check in with him Ludmilla took us to the Monastary there in Pechory. I took some great pics of it, some video too. It was neat to walk through it. We tried their holy water out of a very deep well, don't know how smart that was...but we aren't sick yet, so it might be ok. :-) We leave in the morning at 8 a.m. to head back to St Pete. Our driver will take us to Tamara's house, so we don't have to find our own way. Makes it easier. We do have to shuffle the luggage a bit tonight as we don't have to take it all to St Pete, we can leave some here with Jill. Especially Braxton's stuff, we don't need to be dragging it everywhere. We will see some sights in St Pete and have some time with special friends till the 20th, then we will hop a train and come back here. We get in about midnight on the 20th and we go get Braxton on Monday. Now, I am really looking forward to that Monday. But have to get to the rest of the 8 days first. :-) I know there is so much neat stuff to see in St Pete. We have found it a challenge to sight see with two toddler legs along. He is often not interested in what we are looking at and is always wanting to go back to the motel. Course today especially he is tired having been up for 12 hours straight he is doing pretty well. Now back in the room he is perfectly happy reading his book. Hope we can get on the right schedule while in St Pete, have to get started somewhere. Will let this do for now. No pics of Braxton today, didn't waste my two minutes with a camera.

ok, more...

Yesterday while we were with Braxton, he did seem a bit tired or just really quiet, but I didn't know what to attribute it to other than not really knowing who we were. He did feel warm to me, but the room was hot and he was layered up like always, so the fever news today in some ways surprised me and in other ways didn't really surprise me. The whole quarantined room was a bit weird too, it was in the far back bottom corner of the baby home. The kids in there were sick I guess, some more than others. Braxton didn't seem all that sick to me. Anyway, we hope for a visit tomorrow and then we leave Saturday morning about 7 to head back to St Pete. Antone will drive us to Tamara's house so we don't have to figure out a way to get there with all our luggage. We will return by train to Pskov on the 20th getting in about midnight. Antone will pick us up at the train depot that night and take us back to the hotel to check back in. We bought our train tickets today to take us from Pskov to Moscow on the 23rd overnight train. That is one more step done for now. Just more waiting now and some touring, the hard part is over other than the waiting. It sounds like we can get custody on Mon the 21st. We do have a little situation with the birth certificate for Braxton. He was born in Pskov, housed in Pechory, but registered in the town his parents lived in when he was born. That town is between Pskov and St Pete, so we will have to go there on tues after we have the court documents and have the birth certificate changed in that town not Pskov. So we will have to travel a bit with him right away. I think he is going to be shy enough that he won't have a hard time with that car ride. Brayden didn't mind car rides when we first got him, so I am hoping for the same with Braxton. If we hold off until Tues to take custody then Jill either has to wait too or we both have to pay the $170 trip out to get our kids. I think we will just both take them on that Monday and make the travel work for us. Have to go do a bit of laundry so it has all night tonight and all day tomorrow to dry. Don't want to go to St Pete with a bunch of dirty clothes. Thanks to everyone for all the comments, it really helps us to have that connection with home. We don't feel quite so alone over here, so thank you very much.

our Sick little guy