Andrew & I are once again in Warsaw after spending 4.5 days in Kaliningrad with our handsome son, Roman. It was amazing to see the transformation in him from day to day. We actually got to meet him on Monday as planned, but just for an hour. He was a little overwhelmed and pretty quiet, but cracked lots of smiles and giggles. He crawled for us and passed his toys from hand-to-hand...we were watching for all the developmental signs. The doctor met with us before our visit with him and we were able to ask her questions about his growth & development.

Then, off we went with HUGE smiles and many photos to Sergei & Vasileeka's (sp?) house (that looked like a castle) off in the suburbs of Kaliningrad. We walked in the door and were told 5 mins until dinner...and what a dinner we had. It started off the many, many huge meals that Vasileeka would cook for us, but I will leave that to Andrew to tell you about, because his stomach was very happy the whole time.

Days 2 & 3 with Roman we saw many changes in him. He smiled immediately upon seeing us again and we really got him laughing and babbling and his smile could light up the room. Days 1, 2 & 3 with Roman, we were with him on our down in the Doctor's office. Nice and quiet place for us to really get to know him and for him to get familiar with us.

Day 4...what a day...we were in a room with 2 other families and their babies. Babies everywhere. We really got to see Roman interact with others besides us. We decided he might just be the bully as he stole many toys on his crawling journeys across the room. Look out Haylee...hide your toys :)

Then, court to meet with the judge one-on-one...HOORAY!! We have our court date and it is April 24th at 11:00 a.m. We will be flying to Kaliningrad the Wednesday before that.

We went bowling on the evening of Day 4 with Yuri & Sergei...and yes, Andrew embarassed the poor guys when he got three strikes in a row in the first 3 frames!! He won some kind of crazy contest on the first 2 games and got 2 free "shots" of whiskey!! Yeah, right...those were big "shots". Yuri was not happy with losing :)

Day 5 was our short 45 minute visit with Roman to say goodbye...we were alone with him which was good. We made friends with another family, though and hope to stay in contact with them. They were taking their son home next week...

Roman was full of energy today and seemed sad to be putting his coat on to leave after such a short play-time.

Now, we are in Warsaw again...but this time, by choice. There were no flights out to DC via Chicago on Lot today, so we are spending the night at the lovely Courtyard Marriott which is right across the street.

We just had dinner and it was a "St. Patrick's Day" buffet...complete with Irish Stew and Shepard's Pie. And Irish folk songs (along with some Scottish ones thrown in) while we dined. Now we are just in the Internet Room and Andrew wants to do his own post after mine...beware :)

It is 7:30 pm here now in Poland...or around that. Poland is 6 hours ahead of us in Virginia. So...both sets of MOms & Dads...give us a call when you get home from work :) We will be up. Love to everyone...especially, dear sweet Roman. ~gaye

p.s. I didn't cry until the plane was taking off from Kaliningrad, but as Andrew said "he has been without us for 11 months, one more month will go fast"