Interesting Weekend

We had a busy weekend dog sitting for friends and Calum stayed with us as well. Calum is a senior in high school and I started tutoring him in math when he was in 7th grade. Although math is not his strength, art is. He is an amazing artist with a level of creativity I cannot understand. My drawing ability is limited to geometric figures to teach math. Calum agreed to stay with us for the weekend while his parents were out of the town and start painting a mural in the nursery. He will be moving back to Australia this summer so it will be something we can tell the kids about and explain to them a family that was very important in our lives. I have attached picture below of the start of the mural. We gave him an idea of colors and Calum is taking it from there. It has been an amazing process to watch. He will be back to work on it for the next couple of weeks whenever we can arrange it.

The other major thing we did this weekend was attend a Christmas event with Future. Future is the adoption agency we are working with and they hold 3 events a year for all the families who have adopted through them. It was neat to see all the kids running around and learn some Russian trivia. Rich actually did really well with those questions. Additionally, we were able to talk to the director of the agency who just got back from Russia. She confirmed that things have slowed down, but is very glad they have not stopped totally. She is not sure what the next couple of months are going to look like. Things may change with the drop in the price of oil and the economic downturn. Her best estimate is that the process is now taking 12-14 months. This means that we have added 5 months onto our original time table. This may or may not hold but at least we have some time frame. The math teacher in me appreciates that one! We will keep everyone up to date as we learn more.

Enjoy the pictures of the nursery in progress.

Adoption update

We heard today from our agency that adoptions out of Russia have significantly slowed down. There are a lot of reasons including an increase in Russian families adopting. The time line we were originally given will most likely not hold now. We are bummed to say the least, but are still hopeful we will have the boys by the end of the summer. Say some prayers and keep your fingers crossed that this is true.