5/31 - Adjusting to American Life

It's hard to believe that Christina has only been with us for 2 1/2 weeks. It just feels like she's always been with us. You may notice that I've gone back and added some pics to the blog. Now that she's officially ours, we are free to share pics with you now.

Christina is adjusting so well but, of course, has those moments where she's really homesick for Latvia. She's concerned that she'll lose her ability to speak Latvian and Russian, but at the same time wants to learn to speak English without an accent so no one will know she's from Latvia. At times she feels overwhelmed but we just tell her that we're here to help her every step of the way. She's been working really hard on her reading and studying of English words. I have no doubt that she'll do well in school. If only she could feel that confident about herself. We're working on that.


During these past couple of weeks, we've done a lot. We took a trip to Florida and spent some time with family at the beach. Christina already knew most of the family members so she felt right at home. Rob's mom surprised her with a "Welcome Christina" cake and a beautiful necklace with her initials on it. Christina thinks her new family is very cool!

Over Memorial Day weekend, we spent some time with friends. We are friends with another adoptive family who are in the process of adopting one of Christina's friends from her children's home. They also have a bio daughter Christina's age so we had fun hanging out with them on Saturday. Christina enjoyed jumping on their trampoline for hours and spending time at their neighborhood pool. On Monday, we went to see different friends who have the pool where Winston loves to swim. Christina thought it was funny how Winston would jump into the water, but that quickly got old when he accidentally scratched her on the back while trying to swim after her. Then he wouldn't let up and barked at her continuously to make her play fetch with him. She says he is "hyperactive" and "crazy."

We have also quickly found that we have a little entrepreneur in our midst. Christina said she really wants an Ipod so we told her that those are expensive and she would have to earn the money herself. I took her to Michaels Arts & Crafts and got her an inexpensive bead kit to see if she might like to make bracelets to sell. She made a few to show us and we were blown away. They are beautiful! Once she sold the first one, that was it. She made business cards and everything. Her title on her cards is "Business Woman". Too funny! She's selling the bracelets for $4 and the rings for $2. She's quickly learning that it feels good to work hard for something. Plus, she's learning about money and how to make change, etc. Thanks to all of you who have bought bracelets and rings. Christina is so excited that she almost has all the money she needs to buy her Ipod.

Other miscellaneous things we've done over the past two weeks include shopping for clothes/shoes, going for a physical at the doctor, etc. We found a doctor in our area who has a Russian nurse. At her doctor visit, Christina and the nurse just talked and talked in Russian. It was so good for her. Yesterday we got her officially signed up for school so that's another thing we can cross off the list.

We're spending lots of time with Christina now, but we're also wishing Olegs were here. We got to talk to him last week and he sounded happy to hear from us. The conversation was short because Christina's friends ran to the phone and wanted to talk to her. We're still waiting to hear when the court date will take place to see if he can be cleared for adoption. We just don't want him to think we've forgotten about him. We will wait for him as long as it takes. We only hope that he still wants to be with us. The Lord will have to work it all out.