Day 12 of 14 - Son of a Birch that is Cool!

Today is was a beautiful day when we woke up. We quickly tuned into the second game of the Ottawa/Tampa Bay game on the internet to find out Ottawa had lost and the seires is tied 1-1. No biggie....didn't expect to sweep Tampa anyhow. We just hope the Senators are still playing hockey when we get back to Canada.
Because it was such a nice day outside, Valentina thought it would be a good idea to go to the 'Birch Forest' outside the city. We didn't know what to expect other than a bunch of birch trees huddled together. When we got out there it was very cool....I don't think we have every seen that many birch trees before....all you could see in all directions were tall white stick reaching for the sky. It looked like it would of been a good place to shoot a scene for one of those Lord of the Rings movies I thought. You could see little bond fire pits and empty beer bottles all over the place where it would appear people had parties at night. Some of the best vodka is apparently made in the Petropavlovsk region from the birch trees they have here. We have already bought a bottle of the good stuff for our Russian friends back home, Galina and Igor.

The Mystical Birch Forest

Speaking of trees, they have some strange arbouring practices in the city with the trees that line the streets. All the trunks of the trees are painted with white paint and they have been chopping off all the branches leaving these stubs all over the place. There must be a good reason for both practices and we will have to ask Valentina about that tomorrow.

Prune Those Trees Boys!

After the visit to the forest it was off to the baby house. It was such a nice day we asked Valentia to see if we could talk Darya outside for a walk around the baby house. The care takers said yes so we fed her lunch and bundled her up in a big snow suit and borrowed a stroller and went outside. We were pretty sure this was the first time Darya had been outside the baby house since she arived there in late October. It is just way too cold here and too much work to dress all the kinds up to go outside when it is -30 below. You would of thought it was still -30 below today the way the care taker put the layers on here before we could take her outside today. It was betwee 15-20 degress centigrade, but she had a big old snow suit on and a hat and little booties. Better safe than sorry - but if you have to break a sweat dressing your kids to go outside, maybe you are putting to many clothes on? We did a few laps around the baby house and then went back inside to go upstairs and play

Taking Darya for a spin outside

Another first today! When we arrived at the baby house and went upstairs to see Darya we picked her up and cuddled with her in our arms. We then put her down in the play pen and she started to cry - this was the first time she every cried to be picked up and it broke our heart - but took it as a sign that she may be starting to bond with us which is awesome. Naturally we picked her right up to give her some more love....it felt so good!

Playing in the play room was a blast today. She had the walker again today and really loves to zip around in it. We also introduced her to a sippy cup today. At lunch they would always give her juice to drink in a tea cup. She can't handle the tea cup on her own so you would have to tip it over in her mought and let the juice kind of fall into her mouth. Most of the juice ended up all over the table, her bibe and/or our hands (Note that this could be due to our inexperience in feeding a toddler as well :-) So we put some of the juice in a sippy cup to give it a whirl. At first she really didn't know what to do with it, but with a little coaching from Mom and Dad, she started to figure it out and wouldn't let go of the thing. In general, Darya seems to pick things up very quickly. She likes to be stimulated with toys and games and is very interactive when we play with her.

"Mom, sippy cups are for big kids like me?"

We would like formally announce our daughter's full name, Darya Nicole Moorhead. Her given first name is just too beautiful to change. Nicole is after her bio father's name Nikolai (SP?). Together we thought it was a very sweet name and it just suited her. Kids with the name Darya, also go by Dasha which we use with her here. We expect to keep both Darya and her nickname Dasha while she is young and she can decide what she wants to go by as she gets older.

Svetlana didn't come today but is coming tomorrow. We were told that she is bringing the doctor with her which is great! We were also told the the court date will be on Friday May 5th which will be a week and half after our 14 day bonding period which isn't that cool. I need to get back to Canada for work. We will talk with Svetlana about that detail tomorrow.