Details Delivered!

Well, folks, I got the juicy details today of Lori and Dart's visit with Julia. For those of you not yet aquainted with Lori from previous posts, she is a friend I met while we were in Kazakhstan. She and her dh are adopting from the baby house the most beautiful little angel you've ever laid eyes on. Lori and Dart, and their three boys, are over there right now. Their little girl turned two years old on Christmas Day, and she got to celebrate it with her forever family.

Anyway, Lori had graciously (read insanely) offered to bring gifts to the children in Julia's orphanage for me, so we bundled up nearly 200 wrapped coloring books/drawing pads and another 200 boxes of crayons. Lori and her strong men hauled many suitcases filled with these gifts across an ocean and a couple continents to bring the goodies to the children on Christmas. Unfortunately, they were unable to hand them out personally (the beuocrats always win, don't they?) but the gifts did get delivered, so a big thanks out again to all those who sent money to contribute to this effort.

The picture above is of Julia, dressed in costume for the pageant, talking to me on Dart's phone. Below is Lori's account of meeting Julia. It's hard to believe she (and Borya) will be home with us in less than two weeks!

We ended up going the day after Christmas because (we were told) there were officials at the orphanage and we could not go on the 25th. Whatever. So we went the next day, your Christmas day, and we brought 6 suitcase worth of stuff. When we got there someone left to get Julia. A few minutes later she appeared in the fox costume. She was holding her doll and had a huge smile across her face. The Director came with her. We explained that the gifts were from Julia's mother and father and the Director smiled and nodded and shook our hands. Julia was beaming. We told Julia that you missed her and loved her and that you were waiting for her to come home. We said your mamma is preparing a beautiful room for you. Then I said your mama wants me to give you a big hug from her. Anne what a loving kid, with a smile a mile wide she wraped her arms around my waist. I hugged her and kissed her over and over for you. Julia open the card and was so excited to see all the pictures. She was pointing to them telling the Director something in Russian about each one. It really made her happy to see she was in the pictures! We then told Julia and the Director about the children who made cards for the children at the orphanage. My son presented them all to Julia along with a picture of his classmates. We did not get to pass out the gifts. Instaed the director kept the bags and asked they we come back the next day for them. That worked out ok because she agreed to let Julia talk on the phone then. I couldn't go the next day but Dart did. he took a bunch of pictures of Julia in her Christmas pagent. When he came back all he said was Fred better buy a gun. OMG Anne she is gorgeous.