Reunion and a Gingerbread House

Last year at this time Mike and I were extremely exhausted as we landed at the airport on our long trip back to Ekaterinburg. We had had no sleep and were hungry. But we still had one last trip to go. It was about 5AM Ekat time on Jan 30th (about 7PM Jan 29th our time here) that made it about 27 hours since our dinner at Olive Garden. And airplane food isn't that great.

We were met by Svetlana at the airport and we made the drive in the dark to Kamensk-Uralsky where we would be staying until court. The judge requested that we visit with Colby each day until court on Feb 4th. I was thrilled with that idea. Since Kamensk is a 2 hour drive from Ekat, we would be staying right near the baby home and would visit almost all day. Great for bonding!

The little log house we stayed in was very cute. I'm sure we would have loved it in the summer. Colby looks at pictures of it and calls it his gingerbread house. It was a little camping type place. However, no phone, no computer access, and very little heat. There were space heaters in the house but they hadn't been turned on. It was FREEZING! It was so cold that the water pipes actually froze later that day.When we arrived we had the chance to clean up and change clothes. Then we would go see Colby.

I was nervous seeing Colby again. I wasn't sure if he would remember us. But, everything went well. We met with the director of the baby home again and she was so happy to see us. She caught us up on how Colby was doing. When they brought him in. Colby did cry and was a little chy but he wanted to be held by both Mike and me. We played with some familiar toys and looked at a few books. We had about 3 hours to play and get reaquainted. We fed him lunch and then left to get our lunch. I'm not sure what we ate but I was thankful to eat. Then we went back to our little house and rested before going to see Colby again from 3-5:30.

I am just so thankful and a little in awe for everything that happened that day. I knew I had the piece of my heart back that I had left in Kamensk for those 7 months. I was again complete. It was not a perfect day. We did have the water pipes freeze so I couldn't eat or shower until very late that night. We were exhausted from our trip. We did freeze in that little house for a couple days until the heaters finally kicked in. But we were all together, finally. We were reunited.