6 month Gotcha-versary!!

Can you believe it's been SIX MONTHS already since Lina's Gotcha Day??? Yea, me neither!!  Yet at the same time, it feels like she's always been here.

Making that long trek to Pskov seems like a very distant memory...

Pskov's beautiful Kremlin on the Velikaya River.... This city dates back to the year 903 AD.  The Trinity Cathedral was founded in 1138 and rebuilt in the 1690's.

I'm not sure what this little building was on this side of the river, but it was cute. :)  The railing behind this little building had padlocks all around and I knew it had to signify something....

I asked our translator and she told us that when people get married, they place a lock on the rail to signify their love being locked forever, and they then throw the key in the river.  We had noticed several were shaped like hearts and many had initials and dates inscribed, so we figured it was something to that effect.  Love it!

I wish we had been able to do more sight-seeing in Lina's hometown.  Our first two trips were extremely cold so we weren't really able to do much walking around.  Gotcha trip consisted of running around completing paperwork and collecting Lina's documents, spending one night, getting her the next day, collecting more documents and paperwork, and taking the train back to Moscow.  No downtime at all!

Our lovely hotel, the Rizhskaya, aka the Rizky ;) with the teeny tiny rooms but very yummy food in the restaurant

the breakfast buffet

a sampling of the dinner menu 

(stole a few of these images from some fellow Pskov families as Mike is doing work on the desktop where I have access to all my pics)

....and the train back to Moscow... oh the lovely 12.5 hour overnight train ride where we got very minimal sleep, and I acquired some food poisoning just about each time I ate their food.  Didn't eat on the train the last trip!

at the train station ready to depart Pskov with our tired, tired girl who had been snoozing in the car

in Moscow running more errands, when she really started to bond with us <3  Oh how you have grown and blossomed since we left your hometown.  Love you, precious girl!

Glimmer of Hope

Things have been quiet here on this blog as I have been anxiously awaiting an update from Marina in Pskov.... She has still been trying to track down Lina's biological family so she can purchase and deliver our donation to them.  For those new to our story:  all Russian orphans with special needs in particular receive something similar to a disability check and they each have their own bank account run by the Russian government and handled by the orphanage director.  It is customary to donate a large portion back to the orphanage.  We handed over our donation (Lina had a rather large account since she was collecting money for 5 1/2 years), and then Marina contacted me, asking if it would be ok to split the donation into three- one portion going to Lina's former institution, one portion going to a baby house in desperate needs of funding, and one portion going to help her biological family as they are very poor.  We were honored and excited to be able to help in so many ways!  Both orphanages have received their share, but Marina has had trouble contacting Lina's biological family.  It is common for families to leave their home for the entire summer to stay with family elsewhere, but she was hopeful that they would return when the school year began in September as Lina has a school age sibling.

Well Marina contacted me September 25th to say she still has not been able to contact the family.  She asked if she should continue trying or just send us back the money.  I replied to of course continue to try to find them.  And then a ray of hope.... I had done a little investigating on my own and was able to find two of Lina's siblings online.  I am not contacting them myself, but passed on the information I found to Marina, hoping it would help her in her search.  I am still waiting to hear back.  Hopefully she doesn't think I am some sort of stalker finding this information!  I just really really want to pull this off- our plan is to donate a refrigerator full of food to them and know it is much needed.  Marina will also share photos of our family and updated photos of Lina, and tell them a bit about our family.  She will also ask if she can take photos of them to share with us, which I am really hoping for.  I would love to be able to give this piece of Lina's heritage to her.

In the meantime, I am still raising funds for sweet Willow as well as another Reece's Rainbow angel- Aisha. Aisha's Christmas Warrior contacted me to hold a Tastefully Simple fundraiser for her and I was ecstatic to add her to the fun!  I would love to add more, so anyone looking for a fundraiser for their cherub PLEASE let me know!  All you do is share the link and get people to order, and your child will earn 20% of the total for your party.  If you wish to purchase and donate to Willow, click FIND HOST at check out and enter Amy Livingston as the host.  If you wish to donate to Aisha- her party has NO orders yet!! :(  Please enter Teresa Gorman at check out.  Both parties close on October 15th- just 6 short days away!!  I have a personal goal to reach $1,000 in sales by then, and so far have fallen $243.89 short.  Please help me help these sweet girls!  I did have a party for sweet Xenia whom her parents will call Kenzi- we were able to raise $70 toward her FSP which I will be donating shortly as soon as I get the money transferred. :)  Also, an added perk- those holding TS fundraisers will still earn the typical host rewards- free products and added discounts. ;)  And you don't have to be in the adoption network to hold a party either- you can hold a party simply to earn rewards for yourself and do some holiday shopping!  My Tastefully Simple site is found HERE for any orders you are interested in placing.

And after all that yapping, I will share Lina's portraits we just had taken this past weekend.  :) In the past I have always taken my kids for individual portraits around their birthdays to track their growth and all that fun stuff.... but with four kids it's becoming more and more difficult to keep up with!  I never got to take Justin for his portraits back in June, and was holding out for our adoption session we had at a local mill, but then was disappointed in the portraits and didn't order any.  Lina's birthday came last month and now Evan's is approaching in a couple weeks, so I've decided to just get EVERYONE'S pictures taken at the same time and be done for the year! ;)  Sooooooo.... here's our Lina girl!

And my favorite...

Oh how I hope we can share these and many others with your biological family so they can rest assured you are well cared for and LOVED. xoxoxo