A few additions and or corrections to Matt's previous post

It is about 9:00am on Saturday, and yes we did go to bed at 4:30pm last night, but no I did not sleep the entire time, Matt has gotten a bad cold, so I spent most of the time laying and listening to him snore very loudly. I knew he needed to rest, and if he heard me get up he would also be up, so just stayed put. And I did not get up at 7am but close about 6am.

I have added more pictures from the last three days. There are many of the ballet, but the lighting was not so great it does not reflect how beautiful it really was. And the music was wonderful, and like Matt mentioned the atmosphere in the audience was a lot of fun. And No he really did not attempt the wave. We had noticed the sign for the ballet earlier in the week, when we still had Anya out with us, before we were restricted to visits only within the orphanage grounds. At this time we asked Anya if she would like to go with us to the show, she was very clear that she did NOT want to go to the ballet, she hates the ballet. So we decided to just go anyway, the opportunity to see the Russian Ballet preform Swan Lake in Ukraine is not going to happen for us again.

The reason I mention this is because when we were at the orphanage with Anya Thursday evening and told her we had to go soon to get ready to go to the performance, she melted down. She refused to talk to or interact with Matt the rest of the visit simply because he was the one who told her we were going. So I am not sure if she really did want to go, or if she just wanted us to stay, but at any rate we had real tears and sadness for a while, not just the pouting we have become accustomed to. She was OK by the time we left, but I had to hold her and soothe her for quite a long time to get to that place.

Our time with Anya is not as adventurous as it used to be since we have been asked to stay at the orphanage, we are given about three hours each day to hang out with her, we can pick the time of day for the most part. Three hours is a long time when you have nothing to do but stare at each other in a little room, with a very noisy loud parrot. When we were there on Wednesday Ludmilla told Nadiya that we should work on English with the girls (us and the Fields with Nastiya) so we got out a notebook and Anya began to write what she knows in Russian and then in English. She really is very good with the written English. She wrote her new name, Matt and I name and all of her sisters names. Then her address and phone number and many simple phrases she had memorized.

We have since discovered that when she needs to because Nadiya is gone for several days, Anya can speak quite well. She can say short sentences, such as we heard yesterday, when I asked her what time we should come to visit tomorrow. "10:00, no 11:00, no 12:00 I want to sleep tomorrow." When Brian told her no we would come at 9:00, she said" No 9 I can not sleep, please come at 12:00."

Court was on Friday at 11:30. We arrived a the orphanage to get Anya about 10:00. She was obviously nervous and hardly acknowledged our presence, some type of defense for her I guess. She was not dressed yet, because we had brought her shirt with us, it had been drying then ironed by Matt. So I was asked by the care givers to go up stairs with Anya to get her ready. Turns out we shrunk her shirt, as you will notice in all the photos. But it was too late to do anything about this now, and Anya tells me it is OK, she always says it is OK even when I know it is not. So then we went back down stairs to take a few pictures and call the taxi's. Nadiya left first to go pick up the Regional Director, and we went in a separate taxi with Anya and the attorney for the orphanage, I can not remember her name. But she is very young and pretty and for this occasion she was dressed as a pirate slut. Fish net stockings, knee high high heeled boots, short pirate looking black skirt and a white puffy shirt with lots of cleavage.

Like Matt mentioned the court was really just a judges chambers with a desk for her and a long table adjoined to the desk where Nadiya, the public prosecutor, the jury lady, and the Regional director sat.The pirate/attorney, Matt, Anya, I sat on chairs at the end of the room facing the judge. We did not understand much except for names of people, and places. I heard Anya's former parents names often, our names, and Tsentr Opiky, and also Adoption Journey International when the Regional Director read from our home study. And I could understand names of documents in our dossier, which the judge went thru page by page and had them submitted into the record. There were microphones on the table recording everything. Besides what Matt mentioned the only other question we were asked was about her health issues, we were asked if we understood these and if we would get her proper care in the US. I told them we were informed about her conditions and that we would certainly have her examined by our doctor back home. After we were invited back in to the court room, the judge began to read the decision and I agree with Matt all the language barriers where no longer in place. I knew she was saying we were Anya's new parents, and when she read her new name "Anya Rain Garrett" I could no longer hold back the tears, I could hardly stand I was so overcome by emotions, and I tried so hard to hold it in for I was making a big cry baby mess of my self, but it was just something we had hoped and prayed for so many months and it finally was done! I wanted badly to began singing praise God from whom all blessing flow as loud as it was singing in my head, but I thought they may have me committed at that point.

After we thanked the judge and went out to the hall way, Anya was hugging everyone except Matt of course and she hugged me so long and kept telling me it was OK, I tired to explain to her I was just crying tears of joy, but she could not understand me, and she kept trying to comfort me.

When we were waiting for the judge to call us back into the court room earlier, I had asked Nadiya to ask the attorney for recommendations of nice restaurants to go afterward to celebrate, and she DID NOT recommend the "Santa Barbara strip club" as Matt said in his blog she recommended a very high class place near there with French and European food, which we stopped at before Santa Barbara, and we were not allowed in because it had been reserved for a wedding party later that day. We ended up at the Santa Barbara because our Taxi driver took us there, it was one of his favorite places. And to help you understand the truth, not according to Matt, the main club area is a separate building from the little house we ate in (see Photos) and the strip club is not open during the day, only at night. So even if the food and service was not great the atmosphere was very appropriate, other than the sign in front. The Little House was decorated with Ukrainian cloths and artifacts, and we were right on the sea shore.

So I have been rambling on and probably not making much sense so I am going to have to end this soon. I have got to get ready to go hang out with Anya at the same little room again.

FYI for those of you traveling soon the weather has gotten a bit colder has been in the high forties last few days. Time frame for the rest of our trip is as follows: We will get our court degree on the 20th (thanks to Nadiya's magic, we are not delayed she got the judge to agree to count the court day even though it is on a Friday) On the 2oth we travel to Donetsk to get the passport and birth certificate( again thanks to Nadiya's magic Ludmilla has agreed to let us fax her the copy of passport and birth certificate and not have to return to Mariupol to get Anya, Anya will travel with us to Donetsk) Then we will take a train to Kiev on evening of 20th. We will arrive in Kiev on the morning of 21st and begin our immigration paperwork. We will have Anya's medical exam and Visa appointment hopefully only about three or four days more in Kiev and we will fly home. We have not booked our return trip yet, but we will let everyone know as soon as we have done this. We should be home by the 26th of October I would guess.

That is all for now, off to see Anya soon and more shopping later with Tami and Brian, we discovered a new Super Wal mart type store closer to us than the fox mart, and also a big mall next to the pizza place where we found some souvenirs.

Video of Anya learning to eat her shrimp: