Ready for a long day of travel.

Well.... We are off. 22 hours of travel and back to our own bed. We are looking forward to being home. Thank you to everyone who has been praying and following along. It has been great to feel like we aren't alone here. Plus we won't have to completly re-tell this long, sad story to everyone separately.

Looking forward to seeing you all.
KC & Michele

God Bless You All!

Thank you all so much for your thoughts, prayers, and comments! We definitely needed to hear from family and friends! Your words of encouragement and practicality were like hugs from afar. Seriously! We have been in a state of shock ... I felt numb and deflated all day. No, we can't see why God has brought us here right now and that's hard, but we still trust Him and want to follow His perfect will for our lives. Yes, it seems impossible to bring Lina to America now. She knew what we were offering her and she still ran. We understand that she's had a hard life and that she's definitely being powered by hormones right now. Maybe we can stay in contact with her somehow. Who knows?

We are looking forward to being home and being around family. We will be okay.

Love you all!
Michele & KC

Well... Lina made her choice.

We awoke this morning and Michele went to rouse Lina for our meeting with the Adoption Services. She went into Lina's room and found an almost Hollywood scene. The window of our ground floor flat was open and the curtians blowing in the breeze. Lina has gone. She took most of her things in her shopping bags but left several items. We don't know why she wouldn't take everything. The only thing I can think of is that she may have felt guilty taking all of the stuff we bought her. I have been taking her cell phone at night because otherwise she will talk and text all night long. I gave her several chances to just turn it off but that wasn't working so at 10pm she gives it to me. Last night was no different. She gave me the phone and hugged us both goodnight. We discovered in the morning that she had removed the sim card before giving it to us so that she can install it in a new phone later and we wouldn't know what she was planning. She made her choice. We called Elona and she set the paperwork in motion. The director of the orphange wasn't surprised and it sounds like the police just kind of said "oh well." Can't really blame them. She could be anywhere.

(bear with me on this one)
When Michele and I worked in Alaska I was the manager of a good sized tourist opperation. We would have up to 1500 cruise ship passengers arrive daily. One of my main responsibilities was to park all buses. We had 3 rows of parking and sometimes there might be as many as 5 buses in each row. There was no backing out. They had to pull through to get back to the highway. To further complicate matters, some passengers would stay just for the 1 hour show and some would stay for a salmon bake and then attend the show. Making sure the flow of buses got parked appropriately so that they wouldn't get boxed in was a constant challenge. Some buses arrived early and some later than planned. It was always very complicated with many unpredictable variables. Sometimes life would throw me a real curve ball and I would be forced to make a quick decision in the midst of chaos. I had several very capable employees and in these times those quick decisions didn't always seem to make sense. I would get that quizzical look and I would just say "trust me." They would shrug and do as they were instructed. It was my responsibility, I had the schedule, I had the big picture. They trusted me to make the correct decision even when it didn't seem to make sense. That is the situation we find ourselves in with God. I am sitting here in Lithuania with a quizzical look on my face saying this just doesn't make sense. But God can see the big picture. He has the schedule of our life events. And I always want to be that trusted servant that he can say to "I know it doesn't make sense to you right now but trust me."

Lina made her choice. She arranged to be picked up by her boyfriend or someone else. By all account she was very happy. She was excited about coming to America and that she would have a family and a future. Everyone here was shocked, except for the orphanage director. I guess it's true that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. We are still here wondering how this fits into Gods plan and what we should do now? But we trust Him and know that He brought us here for a reason. We are hoping that He will give us some kind of really clear direction. We could use the encouragement right now. Keep praying for Lina, she really is a sweet girl.

KC

The Double Coffee & Russian Rubles

Today we were able to visit another orphanage. Loretta, who we rent the flat from, is a physical therapist at an orphanage for younger children ... ages zero to six years old. There were 100 children in this particular orphanage. Loretta says that there are 5,000 children in state care in Lithuania!!! Lithuania is not a large country.

Anyway, Loretta showed us each group of children and then we went back to her area. There the therapists work individually with the children ... working their muscles, sitting them on excercise balls to strengthen their balance, they even have a swimming pool. The children love seeing Loretta come into their rooms because that means that they get to have special attention and they can leave the confines of their living space. We gave Loretta a bag of mini Tootsie Pops for the kids and she thought that was great ... the kids usually get a treat after their therapy session.

Loretta also talked a lot with Lina. Lina is interested in helping younger children with special physical needs, so I was very glad that we could have this visit ... pretty perfect, huh? Loretta encouraged her in this and about starting her life fresh now that she has hope for a future. Loretta seems like a pretty practical lady ... we all like her very much.

We had lunch at our new favorite haunt ... "Double Coffee" ... the name pretty much says it all! ;) They have a large variety of good food, delicious mochas and free wireless internet. They also play good American music and not the scary disco-era stuff that a lot of other places play!

After lunch we walked down to Cathedral Square (where the original castle stood ... and where my horse statue is ... hee hee) and walked through the National Museum. I've always found everyday, historical articles so interesting ... much more than paintings and marble statues. This museum had displays of how the people use to live (what there living areas were like), swords, locks, coins, official land grants from the 1500's, an ornate Catholic church pew, wooden statues, etc, etc and an awesome sleigh (it was upholstered and had a little saddle-seat on the back for the driver... it was cool)! I think Lina got a little bored after a while, but I'm glad we went. (Pictured: statue of 1st Lithuanian king, museum & Upper Castle Tower in background.)

Then we walked around Old Town for awhile. All the streets in this section of Vilnius are cobbled which is nice ... except when your "taksi" driver is screaming through a curved intersection and it feels like you're going to slide into the closest building. We've had a couple taxi drivers give us the scenic tour on the way back to our flat ... the cobbled streets let us know we're finally in the right neighborhood! :)

There are a lot of people walking around all the time (feels very safe) and most of those people wear head-to-toe black. You do see the occasional bright color, but it's definitely not the norm. We wandered through the street vendor stands and bought a piece of amber with insects in it and some Soviet coins ... those are probably the most random souvenirs I've seen so far. Lina probably thinks we're crazy, but that's not new. ;)

Every once in a while it hits me that we are in a former Soviet Republic ... behind the old "Iron Curtain" ... weird. Never could have imagined that we'd come here. What an adventure!

Don't miss KC's post after this one ... we realized that we should probably answer some of your questions from the comments that you've sent! :)

Labas vakaras! (Good evening!)
Michele, KC & Lina

Ok ... to start with ...

Matt: I may have watched miserable hours of "Highschool Musical 3," spent more time in the mall than I have in the past 5 years combined, and sat quietly in the corner while Michele and Lina made jewerly. But over here it's ok to not shower for a week, attempt to go from 0-60 between stop lights, and having control of all the money is better than just the remote control. And, given the choice between sticking out like a sore thumb or dressing like a European guy, I'll stick out all day long. No man-capri's for me.

Jason and Jocelyn, Thanks for following along. It has been great to read your comments. I know that someday you will make great parents. When we get back we'll have to have you guys and Jimmie B. over for dinner. We aren't taking a huge amount of pictures and video because Lina is still a little camera shy. We told her about the blog and have been showing her the pictures we post. I think that it is all pretty overwhelming for her to think about all of you back home following along. Plus she gets a little frustrated trying new things until she gets the hang them. We don't take pictures because she has already thought we are laughing at her. But we haven't been laughing just big grins as we watch her move from fear to interest to "lets do that again." There are so many things that she has never done, even here in her home country.

Margaret, she does love horses, but looked worried about riding them ... I'm sure she'll change her mind once she tries it though.

Philip, We have been praying for you in Haiti. The BBC was reporing on that school collapse that killed all those people. What a huge need in that country. We hope you are weathering the storms alright. Keep doing God's work my friend, I know He is pleased.

On the subject of when we can bring Lina home. We are meeting with the adoption state services again tomorrow. We were hoping once would be enough but they wanted to meet again after we had a longer amount of time to spend with Lina. If they will give us their official seal of approval tomorrow they will start another round of paperwork and try and set up a court date. Looks like November is out and December is packed because they try and cram lots of work into the first part of the month so that they can take a long Christmas holiday. So that means that we won't be able to get into court until January sometime. Lina is not excited to go back to Ukmerge but she will have no choice but to wait. Then it's all up to the judge. Our lawyer from the Adoption Services was quick to point out that there is still a risk that the judge will deny the adoption because Michele is 3 months short of being 18 years older than Lina. So please keep praying.

KC

One More 1st ... Bowling!

Today, we went back to the Akropolis (giant mall) because they have a bowling alley! Yee haw! Apparently, Lithuanians enjoy bowling very much (or so I've read), but Lina had no idea what these two crazy Americans were taking her to do! (What? Trade my nice new shoes for these things???) She was very intimidated at first, but eventually she started taking her turn without us dragging her up to the lane. She actually did fairly well for her first time! It also helped when I stopped telling her to use her right hand ... apparently texting is for her right hand and bowling for her left. We also learned that her and I are even more alike than we thought ... we both don't like doing things we aren't good at! I'm glad she started getting better and building her confidence or else it could have been a very long game! We didn't push our luck though and only played one game.

This afternoon, we went with Elona to a different orphanage to visit with some of the older girls there. We have friends in Michigan who adopted a sibling group of three from this orphanage and we were able to meet a good friend of their daughter! All the girls seemed very nice ... most were older, but there were a couple younger girls there as well. There are eleven girls that live in this particular living group. They were all so beautiful! I wanted to just pack them all up and bring them home! It was fun watching them eat the sour American candy we brought for them! ;) We were also able to get some pictures and video for our friends. I had a hard time leaving because the one girl we went specifically to see was crying (she missed her friend very much) and I hated to leave her there like that. I gave her a hug, but felt helpless. Anyone interested in adoption...? I had a hard time not crying myself and I thought about how hard it will be to leave Lina back at Ukmerge on Friday.

Once we got back to the flat, Lina wanted to show Elona all our family pictures. Elona is such a great lady! She has been so helpful to all three of us! Here is a picture of Elona and Lina. After Elona left, Lina looked more closely at some of our pictures ... she seemed very interested in her room back in America and how our house was set up. It was fun to show her the pictures and she was happy to see all the space in her room (she shares a tiny, very plain room with two other girls at the orphanage). I told her that when she gets to America, she can help decorate her room ... she liked that idea, of course!

After looking at the photos of the three of us again, she asked if we could show some to her boyfriend. Yes ... she has a boyfriend. His name is Edgaris, he's 17, lives at home with his mom, and he is the one who pays for her phone. We might get to meet him on Friday ... KC's cleaning his shotgun right now. Just kidding! Anyway, so we emailed him a couple photos and he emailed us a couple back of himself. I'd like to cut his hair, so I guess that makes me old and parental. Lina was very happy to see his picture ... actually that's an understatement ... she was completely giddy about the whole thing. (See 1st photo above) A boy-crazy, phone-talking teenage girl ... maybe we are crazy! Heaven help us! :)

After dinner I came to the conclusion that God has given us both (KC & I) good temperments for this whole adoption thing. Lina had said last night that she would wash the dishes tonight. When she saw the pile however, she wanted me to wash the two pans. I said no way, you can wash those and I left the kitchen. God has given us a love for this girl that we've known for eight days now and yet He has also given us the personalities to not be taken advantage of. We want to give her everything she doesn't have and yet we are still her parents. I know that we're new to this whole parenting thing, but I think we are starting off on the right foot.

We just had our first conversation about going back to Ukmerge. Lina is crying already, but we reassured her that we would not forget her. It's so sad. It's going to be very hard to leave her there. We don't know when our court date (and next trip) is yet, but hopefully it will be soon! Okay, crying is over and she wanted to see her boyfriend's picture again ... smiles all around. Ah, teenagers. Gotta love them!

Labanakt! (Good Night!)
Michele, KC & Lina

A Lithuanian Lazy Day

I'm not one to get bored easily, but oh my goodness! We all had a hard time waking up today (although we have been sleeping well ... thanks for your prayers!) and we all felt like staying at the flat. Now that it's evening, I think I'm suffering from Flat Fever. There's just not much to do in a place that's not your own. Oh well.

We did venture out for lunch though ... pizza, of course! Did you know that in Lithuania you can get sliced pickles, whole pickles or canned tuna on your pizza? They also usually come in individual sizes and you eat it with a fork and knife. Luckily I read about that before we came here, so we didn't look completely foreign.

Oh, the whole phone thing turned out well. Lina had called Elona, which made her think she had won ... you should have seen the triumphant grin on her face! But Elona told her that we made the rules and she would only translate, so at 10pm Lina actually brought her phone in to KC for the night. We were both impressed that she did that. This morning she thanked KC for taking the phone because she slept really well. Ah, parents really do know best! ;)

We thought we might be going to visit another orphanage today, but it is scheduled for tomorrow in the late afternoon. That should be fun ... Lina is excited to go ... she really likes babies, but I told her we didn't know if there were babies there or not. I guess we'll see. Before that we are planning to go back to the Akropolis to go bowling. Now that should be fun!

Well, that's about it for this non-adventurous day! I didn't have any photos from today ... the one above is from our first day together. It just didn't feel right not having a picture!

Hope you are all doing well!
Michele, KC & Lina

Happy Sunday!

We went to a small church here in Vilnius today. We found it on the internet before we came to Lithuania. It's called Grace Baptist Church of Vilnuis. Everyone was very nice. The pastor preaches in English (he's from Ohio) while another man interprets in Lithuanian (standing beside the pastor) and another man off to the side speaks Russian into a microphone (those people listen with an earphone). It was quite interesting, but we definitely felt the love of God there. Some of the songs were in Lithuanian, some in English and some we sang first in English and then Lithuanian. Lina sang along. I was glad she could listen along as well ... it was the perfect set up for us!

Last night, when I told her that we were going to church, she looked quizzically between me and the dictionary and asked, "why?" I told her that in America, KC and I go to church and we have lots of friends there. I asked her if she had ever been to church and she said that she'd been twice last year to prayer for her brother. (He died when she was nine.)

Anyway, she got a little squirmy, but so did I. Not knowing how long a service usually goes makes it seem abnormally long. It was about two hours. Afterward, we talked to the pastor more and he invited us to his house on Wednesday (they live in the countryside). Of course, he has to check with his wife first. She's pregnant with twins and they have eight children ... not sure if that counts the twins or not? They have a couple girls around Lina's age, so we thought that would be good. The church also has a Youth Group night on Thursday that we thought we'd check out. Who knows, they might really like playing "Shuffle Your Buns" as much as our Youth Group kids do! :)

Their church website is www.church.lt. They are actually doing a wheelchair distribution in May with Joni & Friends. We really like this church ... good people!

We explained to Lina that God brought us to her and that God loves her. She pretty much just said okay. At least she didn't call Elona and say that she didn't want to go to church!

Well, that's about it for now ... not sure when the next post will be. We are scheduled to visit a different orphanage tomorrow with Elona. Okay, now I'm just stalling because KC and Lina are bonding over the dictionary across the table from me and I don't want to interupt such a sweet scene. You (everyone who reads this) will love Lina ... she really does fit in so well.

Lots of love to you all!
Michele, KC & Lina

Well, I hope you enjoy today's blog ... we went to three cafes just to find one that actually had internet, even though the others advertised that they did ... oh well! We have now found a great little cafe just down Pilies Street from our flat. They actually play good American music and someone is filming a movie outside. Plus, Lina was very happy to get an evening mocha and Sprite. (We asked at the last two cafes before buying anything ... we learn quick!)

Anyway, today Lina wanted to just walk around town, so we walked up to the marketplace. It was huge! There was A LOT of meat for sale (like a big deli), but there was everything else there too. We were able to find a backpack for Lina ... we told her it was more useful than the small handbag that she saw at the Acropolis. She recognized it as something she could use for school, but she didn't know how to adjust the straps! It's so interesting to be able to introduce her to so many knew things! We were also able to find her a new pair of jeans. She has been wearing the same ones all week because her only other pair has a broken zipper. She was SO excited about these jeans! As we were walking away from the market, she called some friends to tell them that she got a backpack and jeans. It's amazing what we take for granted!

We were going to go to the paint-your-own pottery place today, but standing outside of the store, Lina decided she didn't want to try it. I'm not sure why, although there were a lot of people in the very small store. Oh well. It was getting pretty chilly out so we started back to the apartment, stopping at the store on the way home. We stocked up on grapes and apples ... Lina really likes those. She also REALLY, REALLY likes Pringles! She tried them last night and KC actually hid the canister, so she wouldn't eat them all at once! Now she and KC negotiate the next time she can have some "chips!" ... it's really funny!

Oh, this morning, KC and I were dicussing our budget and Lina, looking sad, said, "don't understand." So we told her what we were talking about. Then she got worried and asked if we would have enough litas (Lithuanian money) to come back to Lithuania to get her! We reassured her that we did (we hope). Then she called Elona and asked Elona to tell us that while we are in America she will miss us very much. Elona told her that she could tell us that later, but Lina wanted us to know now. She is really excited to come live in America! We tell her every time we write you that her family in America loves her and is looking forward to meeting her. She understands, but I doubt she realizes just how many people love her!

Well, I better close for now ... our Sprites are dwindling fast and we already ate lunch out today. Love you all!

Michele, KC & Lina

A "Good Family Day"

Labas!

Family Movie Night went well ... we set the laptop up on the TV, had our headlamps shining up on the wall behind the screen (for ambience), popped some popcorn and all curled up on the couch. All the set up was KC's idea. The movie (Titanika) was in English with Lithuanian subtitles ... we were hoping it was the other way around ... oh well, I guess they're use to that over here.

As for the sleep aid ... we stopped at a store called "Drogus," thinking we could find something there. Nope! This was a wall-to-wall women's toiletry store! No kidding ... the far left wall was covered with nailpolishes and the far right wall had hair color kits. There were at least 10 women standing in line. Not my kind of store at all! (Not KC's either ... just in case you're still keeping track, Matt ;) )

Anyway, today we went to the waterpark! In the morning, Lina was so nervous about swimming that she called Elona to translate that she wanted to go, but not swim. We said that we understood and that it was okay and off we went. We asked Lina what she wanted to do first and she pointed to a tube slide! So KC went and then Lina and I went down together (on a double tube) ... this slide alternated from pitch black to colored lights. I was worried that she might freak out, but she liked it! We tried all the slides except the extreme ones, which was fine with me! There was one slide that we could all go down together and that was fun. They also had a lazy river you can float down, a wave pool, and hot tubs. It was fun to watch Lina become more and more comfortable. When the wave pool was calm (no waves) she started trying to swim and in no time at all she was swimming with her head under the water! She is so adventurous! She had such a big grin on her face! When we asked her what she wanted to do next, it was always SWIM! She had a great time ... so much so that after dinner she called Elona to tell her all about it! We couldn't take the camera into the complex (the pic was taken by a staff person & we bought it so Lina would have a picture of the three of us ... this one is a picture of the picture), but here is the web address if you want to get an idea of what a Lithuanian Polynesian-themed waterpark is like: www.vandensparkas.lt. The only disturbing part of our time there was that the song playing while we were changing to leave was a man singing "Mr. Sandman." That's just not right. Neither is the fact that my board shorts had about seven times more material than the older men's suits (and some of the younger boys too). I was the only girl wearing board shorts, thank you very much!

Dinner was "hamburger" spaghetti. Actually, as KC was cooking the hamburger, he said it didn't look right (hamburger turns brown when you cook it not white) and asked me to use the electronic translator to translate the label. He said he didn't want it to end up being some kind of intestines. Dinner was saved ... it was minced turkey meat! Thank goodness for the translator!

After dinner Lina was goofing around ... she fits into our family SO well! We had been joking about "babushkas" (not sure of the spelling ... Russian grandma) and she put her scarf on her head and was walking around like an old lady. It was funny!

We are trying to learn more Lithuanian, but my very limited Spanish keeps trying to slip out! Like "la cuenta por favor?" (It takes forever to get a check around here.) And for some unknown reason I keep wanting to say "danka". That's just weird.

Thank you all for your prayers! We appreciate them so much and have seen God working to bring this whole thing together! The Adoption Services lawyer asked if we were aware of the risk since I am under the age limit ... so keep praying about that!!! I just cannot imagine not being able to bring Lina home. It would be tragic. But God is in control!

Oh, concerning today's title ... Lina described today as a "good family day".

Labas vakaras! (Good evening ... our time!)
Michele, KC & Lina

Pancakes & Fajitas

Labas rytas! (Good Morning!)

Today was our meeting with Adoption Services. Elona said it went well ... it's a little disconcerting when you hear people who are speaking a different language say your name and laugh. Hmmm. I'll assume it's all good. Elona said that Lina did well ... they talked mostly to her. We will be going back to see them again on the 14th ... the day before we leave ... just to check in again.


After the meeting, we walked to a bead store that I had read about in a Lithuanian magazine while I was back home (thanks Neringa!). The ladies there were very nice and took the time to show Lina how to make her earrings. I made Lina a pair as well which are a little less ... big? She really had a good time! I'm glad we could do something like that together. Poor KC. He sat and waited, held our stuff and paid for the beads. He is such a good sport! And he's the one who pointed out the paint your own pottery place next door! :)

We went to our local haunt for lunch ... we knew they had Lithuanian (potato) pancakes and that Lina really likes them. We both got the plain pancakes and Lina got the meat stuffed ones. We should have followed her lead. Oh well! It's always an adventure trying new things! We finally figured out that her "boyfriend" is just a friend who is a boy ... thanks to Elona translating for us over the phone! Whew! We were starting to not feel good about that situation when Lina said he was in Vilnius today. Elona said that Lina knows that she is coming to America and doesn't want that to change. She's a smart girl. I think she appreciated it when we told her that we just want her to be safe.

We were all pretty tired, so we came back home to hang out in the late afternoon. We are planning on having fajitas for dinner and watching "Titanic". Lina loves that movie. We bought it yesterday, but I'm still not sure if it will be dubbed in Lithuanian or just have Lithuanian subtitles. Should be a fun family night!

We are glad that there are so many friends and family members keeping up with our adventure! You all can't wait for our next post and we can't wait to read your comments! That connection to home is really nice ... knowing that you are all praying for us! Thank you!

Tomorrow we are headed for the local waterpark! Should be lots of fun! Lina doesn't know how to swim (although she has a swimsuit!?!), but who better to teach her than a past lifeguard and a girl who grew up swimming almost everyday? I anticipate lots of laughter... good family bonding!

Lina's favorite colors are blue, black and silver ... lots of dark colors in this country. Dark colors and fake mustaches. Anyone want me to pick one up for them? :) The scarf Lina is wearing in the picture is her mother's ... it's very special to her. She also wore her new shoes and headband today and liked them very much.

Wow ... I'm tired and I think I'm rambling, so I will say labanakt (good night ... our time). Please pray that we will all sleep well tonight ... KC and I keep waking up in the middle of the night ... arg!

Viso gero (Good bye)
Michele, KC & Lina

A Slice of Lithuanian Life

Hello! Today we slept in ... I asked Lina what time she wanted to wake up and she said 10 am. My kind of girl! She likes coffee, chocolate, music, jeans (not skirts!) ... if it wasn't for this pesky language barrier, I would swear we were related! She likes calling us her family and gives us hugs or lays her head on my shoulder all the time. That's enough for me ... I'm taken!

So today (after sleeping in and having some coffee) we took a taxi to the Akropolis ... a huge mall! KC's favorite pasttime. We were able to find Lina some non-high heeled shoes and got her a CD, so we didn't have to listen to the same 3 Avril Lavinge songs on repeat again. :) Then we ate at a Chinese restuarant ... KC's pick (you'll see why in a second). Lina is a great sport ... adventurous and brave. She ordered some kind of Chinese food wrapped in a pancake ... it was good! So KC got to pick the food because Elona picked the movie ... High School Musical 3: Senior Year! Hee Hee! Let's just say that KC is not into musicals. Lina thought it was okay ... my sentiments exactly.

After the movie ... since we had already boughten Lina a few items & she wanted a handbag, but the one she picked was fairly expensive, we had to try to explain to her that we couldn't buy everything we/she wanted. She basically has nothing, so it's understandable but we need to establish clear boundaries. We called Elona to help translate and Lina said she understood. She seemed sad for awhile ... I think she felt bad. She's trying so hard to be good and I think that she thought she messed up. We assured her otherwise and she soon cheered up. (Side note: don't be expecting any souveniors from this trip ... we don't want to send her mixed signals. Besides, those fur hats only come in brown.)

Before leaving the mall, we went grocery shopping at the Maxima. Hallelujah ... they have a Mexican section ... I'm saved! It took a while to find the spaghetti sauce, but I think that's what we bought. The family-size pizza is closer to a personal-size for KC ... our stomachs are shrinking to accomodate European portions. I like European portions! Except when it comes to coffee. Good luck finding a true "grande". Oh well.

The taxi ride home was fun ... Hollywood car chases through Europe have nothing on that taxi driver! Lina has been listening to her new CD ... I actually like it. I can't understand a word of it, but I like it. She also insisted on cleaning the living room. She actually kicked us out of the room while she was cleaning! She's a sweet girl ... good personality ... funny, resourceful, polite. I wish we could bring her home now!

Tomorrow we go check in with Adoption Services. They want to make sure that we are all doing well. These are the people that denied us early on because I'm 3 months shy of being the required 18 years older than Lina. Keep us in your prayers!

Oh yeah, Lina can text as fast as any American teenager (yes ... she has a cell phone ... I have no idea who pays for it though) and Lina is short for Linute (lyn-u-ette-a).

When in Lithuania ...
High heel boots are in ... running shoes, not so much.
Hats are in ... baseball caps, not so much.
Winter coats are in ... gortex jackets, not so much.
Lots of pedestrians ... pedestrian safety, not so much.

Michele

PS. I will try to get more pictures, but Lina is a little camera-shy ... hence the not-so-good pic of me above ... after all, no one is looking at me! Isn't she pretty!?!

Today we finally met Lina.

We woke up pretty early this morning. It was hard to sleep knowing that today is the day we have been waiting for. Elona picked us up in a taxi and we drove up to Ukmerge (ook-mare-gare). Getting out of the nice old town district was interesting for us. The city is nice and clean. It looks well taken care of but the countryside is much more the image of post Soviet life I expected. Ukmerge was pretty run down. The orphanage looked to be one of the nicer buildings. It was clean and well taken care of. They house 99 children, mostly older kids. We were brought into what I believe is the social workers office and there Lina was waiting for us. She knew we had flown in on Saturday but that we wern't coming until Tuesday. This was a harder wait for her than we realized. She has been wanting a family for so long and didn't believe that it could happen. She tried to prepare as best she could. She had someone she knows help her with some basic English. She had a piece of paper with Lithuanian words followed by phonetically written English. It was very touching that she went to so much effort to try and make a good impression. In very short order we met her caregiver who is responsible for her and around 10 others, and the orphanage director, an older gentlemen in buisness attire, who was pretty serious but seemed nice. We had only been there for around 5-6 minutes when Lina and her caregiver got up and walked out. We were then informed that it was time for a tour. So we went up and saw Lina's room. Very small. Just enough room for the 3 small beds. She then came back with a coat on and a plastic grocery bag with, what very well may be, everything she owns. And we left. Total stop around 30 minutes. We piled back into the taxi and headed back to Vilnius. Elona (from the Family Law Center) is a wonderful lady. She is very kind and helpful. She translated for us all the way back. We learned a lot more about Lina and her history. The deal with the orphange is pretty much as we thought. Lina does not like it there and they don't care. The only person that she cares about and that cares about her is the social worker. She has given us the most realistic opinions about Lina. I think if I was stuck in that place where one overworked social worker is the only one who cares what you do I'd take off too. We got back to our flat and Elona translated more for us and then she left to go back to work. It was almost lunch time and Elona had asked what Lina would like for lunch. Lina said she would like pizza. She had a pizza once a few years ago and loved it. So we took her to lunch. We used our dictionaries and a lot of charades. I think Michele and Lina spent more time laughing at me than trying to understand what I was saying but we had fun. Then we went for a walk through old town and I determined that tomorrow we are buying Lina new shoes. Like most of the women here, high heels are the most common choice even on cobblestone streets. Needless to say, Lina's are in bad shape and must have been killing her feet. I explained that we are going to be doing a lot of walking and that she needed decent shoes. So tomorrow we are going to the Acropolis. I guess it is a big mall. What's worse than going to the mall? Going to a mall where everyone looks when you walk by and trying not to get that "what the heck are you looking at" look on my face. But I'm starting to get used to it and not noticing it as much. It helps now that Lina is here because she can call taxi's for us and help with a lot of things that our electronic translator doesn't have the words for. After we got home we opened up the lap top and showed her our itunes collection. She loves music. She spent the next hour just listening to our music and trying to find stuff she likes. Seems like the 2 Avril Lavinge songs Michele has are the big winners. We spent a bunch more time with the dictionaries and learned that Lina describes herself as independent and tidy. She is also very happy. She has been on the verge of tears several times. I know that she is putting her best foot forward. She is desperate for love and has dreamed of having a real family for a long time. Even when she was with her mother. So even though she is on her best behavior we can tell that she is a great girl. We asked if we could do a short hello video to post here but I think that is a bit too much right now. Maybe later. We miss you all. I'll write again tomorrow. KC

Our Flat.

St. Anne's Church


















Even the local crow- pigeon looks at us funny!










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KC with Gediminas' Tower in the background. Named for King Gediminas this is part of his Upper Castle. It's a great panoramic view of the city.

Pictures below are Michele with the Neris River in the background, view of the area where we are staying with St. Anne's chapel (gothic) on the left, larger view of the area ... we are between St. Annes' and Pilies Street (with the other tall building on the right), Pilies Street (main street of Old Town) ... Soviet area building on right, and a statue of King Gediminas himself. I (Michele) have been really tempted to climb up and ride his horse. Hmm ... I wonder what Lithuanian prisons are like?

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Well. Today has been our first complete day. The flight was long but thankfully uneventful. Elona from the Family Law Center (FLC) picked us up at the airport. I was surprised that we didn't have to fill out any customs declaration forms or have our luggage checked. We got our passports stamped in Copenhagen by a rather unfriendly customs agent who sort of grunted and muttered something under his breath but that was it. When we got off the plane in Vilnius we just collected our bags and walked out. Even in Mexico they randomly search bags. I'm not complaining it was just a surprise. Elona took us to the small flat we are renting from a very nice lady named Loretta. It has a small kitchen and Elona suggested that we go together and buy some food. She took us to a small grocery store and we bought some sandwich type food for dinner. Even though it was supposed to be around 9am for us we were very tired. We only slept a few hours on the airplane. We had a salami and cheese sandwich and went to bed around 9pm local time. We slept well and are feeling better now. We are also now on a more local schedule.
We slept in this morning and got ready to go at around noon. The flat we are staying in is in Old Town Vilnius so there are lots of restaurants within walking distance. Lots of shops and souvenir stands. We ate lunch at a restaurant pretty close. The waitress spoke English so that was easy. I think it may be our local haunt. Michele had a Lithuanian-style omelet and I had Lithuanian Raviolis with bacon sauce. The raviolis are the ones that I tried to make back home. Here they are much smaller and the bacon is much thicker sliced but other than that I was pretty close. After lunch we came back to the flat and Loretta took us to the Maxima, which is a supermarket. It is pretty difficult to try and shop when your not sure if you're buying what you think you are buying. Not to mention that everywhere we go people stare. You'd think we were back in a small village in Guatemala where the people could count the white people they have seen on one hand. Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad but we definitely stick out here. We even overheard some parents saying something to the effect of "look Americans" to their kids. Fortunately everything American is cool here so I guess that includes us. Hope Lina thinks so.
Elona says that the number one question that everyone wants to ask us is why we want to adopt an older child. She said that this is highly unusual. That people who come to adopt always want babies or very young children. And it is especially unusual because we are so young. Loretta asked us our ages and told us that she thought I (KC) was 18. They think that Lina will be very happy about being adopted by a young couple. Fortunately the "why" question is one we are very familiar with as everyone wants to know why. So I'm not too worried about trying to explain to most people. I'm only worried about trying to explain it to the Judge, but that's next trip. I'll try and upload some photos we have already taken and maybe some video of the inside of our flat.
We'll try and write as often as we can but once Lina comes to stay with us I think we are going to try and see more of the country so there might be some time gaps. Hope this finds everyone well back home. We appreciate all your prayers.