Kemerovo- day 9

For those of you who plan to travel to Kemerovo in May, pack accordingly. The weather changes drastically throughout the day. We still have not seen a warm spring day like in Illinois. Most of the people we see out walking have heavier coats and carry umbrellas. We really wished we had an umbrella today. Chad did wear his coat for the first time since we arrived as there was a bit of a wind and the temperature was probably in the upper 40s. In Moscow I wished I had not bothered to bring the heavy winter coats for the boys that others had so kindly allowed us to borrow. Now that we are here in Siberia/Kemerovo I am glad we brought them.
This morning I got up and called the girls on Skype. They seemed to be in pretty good spirits which was nice to hear. Sam has been keeping her math grade up since Dad has been working with her. Callie kept saying her trademark, “Mom? I love you!” with a few “I miss you”s mixed in. She went on her field trip and enjoyed herself. They asked about our trip to the orphanage. Sam wanted to talk to Chad but he was sleeping.
This morning I ate breakfast with the other family while Chad slept. We get one free breakfast as part of our stay here so we decided to save the eight bucks daily and take turns eating the breakfast as we had bought cereal at the store. After breakfast I checked emails and read for a bit until Chad got up. We decided to venture out today in search of the “big mall”. As we were walking it started to cloud over and get chilly and rain a bit. We got to the mall without difficulty to find that the power was out. Thus, they weren’t letting anyone in. Chad suggested we walk for a bit and then check back. After we walked for a couple more minutes it started to rain harder. We decided it was silly to walk around and get cold and wet so we headed back to the hotel to return to the mall later. We came back and watched some TV for a bit and then headed back out. The power was on at the mall when we returned. It had mostly clothing stores, shoe stores, a food mall, and a toy store. On the bottom floor was a store similar to Sam’s/Walmart. We looked around and found peanut butter for me, more snacks, and in the deli they had pigs in a blanket, French fries, and rotisserie chicken. We purchased our items and headed home to see the rain had started again and was coming down pretty hard. We walked quickly and tried to use the buildings to shield us. By the time we got back to the hotel our jeans were pretty soaked. We were pleased with finding the market though cause they had lots of selection and the best prices we have found anywhere.
I found out when we got back that the hotel will do our laundry for 200 rubles, which is about 7.40 in USD. I would do the wash by hand but our bathroom sink doesn’t have a stopper and we just have a shower rather than a bath. Overall, we are doing quite well not spending much money thus far.
I got a reply to my email to the international adoption physician this morning. She would like for us to take the boys for an appointment the day after Memorial Day. This is supposed to be my first day of work so I will have to figure something out. On our court date our coordinator told us something about Pasha’s medical records we did not know before. It is nothing life threatening, but I had to check in with the physician to see if there was anything special we needed to do.
We ate a really late lunch of pigs in a blanket and French fries. Everything was pretty good. We plan on eating the chicken for dinner tonight. So, things are not too exciting for us here in Kemerovo. Eleven more days until we may pick up the boys!