Mike is such a good daddy!

Before we left for our trip I purchased some Usborne books from Marike Tamm. They are such wonderful books. One of the books is a build a medieval castle book. Well, I had in mind the books I knew as a child where you punch out the pieces and stick the tabs into the slots - takes just a few minutes and viola! This medieval castle book is different. I suppose if I read the instructions I would see that you need glue and a sharp knife etc. There are 93 pieces in all. Mike will be spending the next week putting the castle together and then of course we have to put it up high as I don't know that little Bacca will appreciate it.

Mike taught Tucker how to bowl yesterday with youghurt bowling. He placed little soccer ball stickers on the linoleum floor - lots of linoleum here - and created the spots for the pins. The orange we had was the perfect ball. Mike taught Tucker how to roll the ball rather than toss it and yes, now we have youghurt bowling as yet another form of cheap entertainment.

If Tucker isn't using the climbing gym outside, then he is all over Mike. Tucker uses him as his personal jungle gym - a regular dad activity. I expect that now that we know where some local parks are that they will be playing soccer together as well.

Mike does the laundry, as he does at home. There is a trick to the washing machine here which he figured out. We don't have a dryer. If you don't turn the switch the right way it means no hot water for showers the next day. We found this out after the first try at the washer. The clothes go out on the balcony on a portable clothes hanger unless it rains. It seems we did a good job packing as we are using all our clothes.

Today I vacuumed, cleaned and dusted the apartment. How nice and quick a job it is when your living arrangements are so small, adequate, but small. Sveta brought us over some flowers this morning which was very sweet of her. Tucker has really taken to Sveta she is like a most beloved aunt. He greets her with a hug.

It was a quiet Sunday other than the play and restaurant experience that Mike wrote about. Tucker and I had a nice nap. I am so proud of how he is taking this all in.

Mike worked on movies and organizing pictures on the laptop while we slept. He created a great slide show of our trip so far. He keeps it running on the laptop when we are not using it for anything else.

I had images and thoughts of Mia running through my head today. There was no visit today. To think that she will be coming home with us in 8 days. Wow! The energy level will be going up quite a few notches.

I am looking forward to tricycle shopping on Tuesday - we and the Jacobsens from Columbia, SC will be donating these to the Baby House. Rebecca Jacobsen sent me pics of their daughter Hannah, who was also adopted from Tchuchinsk baby house. She also sent cash to purchase donations to the baby house. What a beautiful little girl Hannah is. It is great to be able to share in the joys of adoption with other families who went through this same process.

We leave at 8am tomorrow for Tchuchinsk, back to our routine.