Good evening - we are back in the hotel in Vladivostok, and I am SORE. My body aches from head to toe - and I think part of it is a touch of sickness because I feel like I'm running a fever. But a good portion of my aches are from holding a 22 pound baby and carrying him up and down four flights of stairs twice a day. I really am going to have to get back in perfect shape before we come back here - I know that won't solve my problem, but it certainly will help.

Anyway, that's not really what you came here to hear about, so I will get right to it:

Today was our last day to visit little guy, and we got to see him two times - once at 10:30 and the other time at 3:00. The first visit went pretty well. The caregiver came in the room with us for only a minute and then she left. Our facilitator and translator also left, so it was our first time to be completely alone with him. He actually cried for a second and then he calmed down. Such a serious little thing! He seemed to be okay with us - no huge smiles...a couple of times he seemed to want to laugh, but he would cock his eyebrow, pull back one side of his mouth, like he found something funny but caught himself before he actually smiled. Also, he would cut his eyes up at me when I was being silly - like he was trying to really figure me out.

His favorite book is the "Baby Faces" book I brought for him, I can't tell you how many times we looked at that book. And he enjoyed playing "Kidah" (throw) the ball with Nathan. He also loved looking in the mirror at himself - and blowing bubbles. My bubbles messed up a couple of times, and he became frustrated that I just quit trying to mess with them. The G3rber Fruit Puffs were also a huge hit.

He never left my lap, though. In fact, if I put him down, he cried - so I just held him. While we were reading Baby Faces, he fell fast asleep. I would imagine that he slept for a solid half hour before we took him back upstairs for lunch.

At some point before lunch, we signed our intent to adopt, which means the paperwork will start being processed.

(As I'm writing this, I know I'm not giving many great details. I'm beginning to feel worse - I think my fever is starting to rise - so I apologize that I'm not getting detailed)

When we came back in the afternoon, we were alone with him from the very beginning and he was in a REALLY good mood, babbling and even smiling pretty big. Then I think he started to get tired - he almost fell asleep a couple times, but would get distracted again and got cranky with us. He whined and cried, stopping to play every few minutes. It was about this time that I started feeling sick, so baby was cranky and mommy was not feeling well. Not exactly how we had imagined spending the last few minutes with him but we figure the imagination is pretty useless (or flawed, at the very least) when it comes to this adoption business!

It was finally time to go and we took him back to his group. We were VERY sad to leave him (especially since he started babbling/interacting more with us, and we feel that with more time together, he would really start coming out of his shell), but we know that he is in good hands until we see him again. His doctors and workers will take good care of him, and so now we are all back to waiting again!

Tonight, I am going to take a bath, and then I will take some Nyquil Cold/Flu and go to bed. I'm just praying that I don't have a stomach sickness (vomiting or the other - yuck). If I run a fever, that is fine, but please join me in praying that this is just a little fever bug and will pass soon. Just this morning, I congratulated myself on being so careful and not getting sick as of yet. Ugh! That will teach me! (it was about this point in our Germany trip that I got sick, so I don't know what is up with me and international travel!) For the record, I have not drunk a drop of the water.

Anyway, I can't wait till we come home and can show you all pictures of our little guy! Tomorrow, we will go to the notary office and have some paperwork notorized. If I'm feeling up to it, we will then do some sightseeing. Then we leave on Friday to come home.

Sometime tomorrow, I will try to post some pictures of our sightseeing adventure in Nakhodka today at lunch.

Until then, please accept my apologies for a short post. Love to you all!