Wednesday, January 28, 2009

34 HOURS AND COUNTING

It's about 7am here on Thursday. Tomorrow at 5pm the court decree becomes official and we have a new daughter. That also gives us some more tax deductions, but Stephen is 100% sure that our new president will see to it that we pay more taxes, not less, no matter how many children we have. Oh well, nothing can dampen our spirits, not even more taxes.

We've made arrangements for a tour of the champagne factory tomorrow and will hopefully get to see the salt mine on Saturday. Sunday will be a day of travel preparation, and then Monday the fun begins.

No big news really. We continue to enjoy our time with Katrina. She understands quite a bit of Russian, although she doesn't speak much. Stephen has been working with her on her English and she has attempted to articulate such words as blue, star, and banana. Not to worry... she'll be an English-speaking little chatter box by the time kindergarten starts in 18 months.

Speaking of language, Stephen entertained the grocery store clerks yesterday. Here, they always ask you first how many bags you want and what size. (You get charged for grocery bags.) So, Stephen learned to say "Two big ones" in Russian. Yesterday, they threw him a curve and asked first, "How would you like to pay?" And Stephen responded in his broken Russian and with a very proud grin, "With two big ones." The clerk was a little embarrassed at his response and several of the clerks couldn't help but laugh. She then explained that she wanted to know if he was paying with a card or cash. Well, that embarrassed Stephen when he realized the inappropriateness of his response. He got so flustered that he didn't what to say when he was finally asked how many bags he wanted and what size. What can you say, he's a computer nerd and a professor.

Katrina sends her love. Maeve, congratulations. Gary, thanks for all the emails. LA staff, we truly appreciate all your comments. Nana and Popeye, hang in there and thanks for watching Darian, Trevor, and Alexis.











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