Court and Great Brittan!

The short version is we went to court, Anya was told to speak her mind and said yes both times when asked is she wanted us as mama and papa and if she wanted to live in America. There are 10 other adults in her life that also felt it wise that she make this decision. But, being strong minded, she still had to decide for herself. Anya was taken back to the orphanage (3 hours away) for two weeks for the waiting period. We spent the rest of the day doing administration things to finish off the adoption and went back to our place to pack.

Took at train into Moscow, where were then taken to the airport. Dave headed home to get back to work and Matt and I headed to London, via Istanbul, Turkey! My body chose to have a meltdown on the airplane while we boarding and there was a seat mix up. The flight attendant sat me down in a seat to wait and some of the stress started leaking out of my eyes! I just looked at the emergency exit door and let the tears flow. I had to tell her that it has been an extremely long and stressful two weeks and that I was fine. Matt's seat was taken and he was given a seat in first class, which he gave to me after he got permission from the flight attendant. 

I am so, so glad we are staying in this general time zone instead of going back and forth and spending 4-5 weeks in jet lag. We are staying with my parents’ friend on his gorgeous estate and he is generously housing and hosting us, showing us around and we are meeting his friends for various dinners and such. We got to eat a wonderful meal in a really lovely pub near his home. We spent a few hours in London, but it isn’t as much fun as it sounds when you are with a growing, grumpy 17 year old male.

To see sights and not overwhelm our host, we are off on a road trip tomorrow for as long as 8 days (just shoot me now, 4-6 hours of travel a day with a manual transmission and that same 17 year old, who is generally happy, but that means he talks continually at me, usually in a nonsensical fashion). The housekeeper here had a good idea she uses when driving in different countries. She puts dashed lines on the hand, above the thumb, before the first finger, that is nearest the dividing lines, so if you forget which side of the road to be on, you glance at your hand and see that the dashed lines are “lined up”. Hope it works. We just discovered that the housekeeper has wireless in her house here, so we are able to get this info out. Not sure how it will work as we travel through England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Hope to post some awesome pictures!!

~Monica