Latvia day 13 - Mother of Four

Well, a few more days have gone by.  Lots of walks around the city, going to the park, playing in the apartment...  Our days are pretty routine. 

Yesterday we thought about going to the beach.  You have to take the train and then it is a short walk.  But, the weather looked a little iffy (and it did end up raining pretty hard in the afternoon), plus we just aren't really beached-equipped.  We only have our bath towels, no sand toys, no beach umbrella... and primarily we just decided the girls are perfectly happy just going to the playground and hanging out with us.  Plus, I think I mentioned before we are on a limited budget... I am not saying that to complain, it just is what it is...

We did take the girls out to pizza last night.  It was a really far walk - right across the street from our apartment!  Ha!  We ordered a chicken Caesar salad to share (which the girls didn't like... probably the dressing) and a spicy sausage pizza (which they loved!).  I thought it was all great! 

We were the only ones in the restaurant at the time, and our waitress spoke English.  I actually think all of our waitresses have spoken English to this point!  The girls (well, Vika - who looked at the waitress and ordered a hamburger right away) started talking to our waitress in Latvian and I think it threw her for a minute!  The waitress asked Jon and I how the girls knew Latvian, so we told her it was because they are Latvian!  We explained that we were adopting them.  She was pretty interested in the process, asking how long it has taken up to this point and what was next.  Before we left she wished us all the best with the rest of the process.  It was pretty interesting to talk to someone here about it.  (By the way, we cancelled Vika's hamburger and shared a pizza instead... she still doesn't quite realize that she is not the one in charge!)

Last night Jon and I also skyped with our boys for almost an hour after the girls went to bed.  I haven't seen them in person for three weeks now.  That is probably what I find the hardest about this.  I miss them, and from the teary eyes I saw on the computer, they are missing us as well.  I can't wait to hug and kiss them!  Their willingness for us to bring more children into our family still amazes me.  When we were just going to adopt one girl, Devon kept saying we needed to adopt two girls.  Two girls about the same age so they could play together, since Ty and Dev are so much older.  Prophetic words from my little boy?  I think so...

Today we walked around the corner from our apartment and went up to the top of St. Peter's Church.  It was completely crowded at the top (you would think they would only allow a certain amount of people up there at a time) but the view was amazing!  You could look all over the colorful rooftops of Old Riga.  St. Peter's is first mentioned in records dating back to 1209.  So, it is pretty old!  I think the tower part of it has burned down a few times and it was damaged during World War II, but it is still an amazing building.

Then after naps today we walked back to the park.  While we were there we got stuck in a bit of a rain storm.  We had one umbrella with us, so we all huddled under that for the rain to pass.  The girls are so funny - they really don't like to be rained on.  I guess they will have to get used to it... how many times do I come out of a store or something in Georgia only to find it POURING down rain?!

Tonight (but earlier than last night, so the girls were still awake) we skyped with the boys again.  We told the girls about it just a few minutes before it happened.  They were totally excited!  Then when it actually happened, they just sat there quietly.  I think they were a little overwhelmed.  There was other family at Jon's parents' house right now, and of course everyone wanted to say hi to the girls and meet them!  Completely understandable, just a little overwhelming to two little five-year-old girls who have no idea who these people are (yet!). 

This is our last weekend here in Riga.  And our last few free days, as we have something related to the adoption process going on every day next week.  Six more sleeps and we will be on our way home.  Please be praying about things for when we get home.  We are basically "hosting" them until this whole process is done.  We need to figure out if we can add the girls to our insurance, because we are going to need to get Milana's medication.  Pray that there is no problem with this.  Viktorija has some medical issues as well.  We knew that she had had surgery, but we didn't find out for what until we got here - apparently she had some sort of cancer and they removed a tumor.  We still haven't heard what kind of cancer it was, but she will need to be seen in October by an oncologist.  Again, we are going to need them on our insurance to have all this happen.  So prayers would be appreciated.  I know people are probably thinking that this (the cancer) is something we should have known about before we got here, but it is what it is and we wouldn't have changed our minds about the adoption.  We serve a God who heals.  They are princesses of the Most High God, and they are our daughters.  It is still amazing to me how God could put this type of love into us for children that were not born to us.  It hit me today - I am now the mother of four children, and there are two fewer orphans in the world now.  Praise God!

From the top of St. Peter's Church. The curved-roof buildings in the picture are WWII-era German zeppelin hangars - they now house Europe's largest market and bazaar.