Another new experience

Well today we took another small step forward. Our attorney picked up the police report, but when she went to get it notarized, the notary was not around. Consequently, she could not go to the Ministry to drop it off....that should come tomorrow morning. Our plan now is to go to the Ministry around 9:00 AM and wait for the Minister's letter, the ultimate proclamation of this process. When I say wait, I mean...pack some snacks and toys, set up camp, and hope to get it by nightfall. The Sisters at the Orphanage also told us to do the same thing.

We did not activley participate in any of today's tasks, so today turned into a sort of "down day". To fill the time, we arranged to meet some friends of friends at a local swimming pool. This was completely new to Gabriella, and it was really fun just seeing her reactions to all the activity.

We met Kelly and Laura Sager and 3 of their children at the pool. Gabriella was not sure what to do at this strange place, so one of the kids (Grace, who was adopted by the Sagers from the Home of Hope Ophanage) came over, took Gabriella's hand, and the 2 just walked over to the pool and stepped right in. Grace was so amazing because she did all this unprompted and Gabriella went along with it completely trusting.

All the kids played very well together, and Gabriella, true to form, began immitating some of their actions in the pool. In a few minutes, she looked like a natural. It was really neat to watch it all play out. At one point, Gabriella watched Grace go down the slide and so she decided to try it as well. Well, it really took her by surprize when her head went underwater. A little while later, she climbed the slide again, but decided to not go down that time.

Gabriella had a harder time tonight watching us go, but we did get a treat. Another volunteer had a copy of some pictures taken of Gabriella just a few days within her arrival at the orphanage, and she let us keep them.

Laura and I managed to get up enough energy to go to a local restrauant and have an adult dinner.