Sunday's blog on Monday

Today, we welcomed our friends the Schmidts to town. They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and were greeted with much the same challenge we were. So we spent some time helping them get word to the states that they needed a random document delivered very quickly in time for court in two days. We tried to be a calming influence and explain that the feeling of panic will subside and the paperwork issue will be resolved.

The Krasnoyarsk project room

Here you see some fine jewelry being created as gifts for the orphanage workers, while Rochelle watches tv. A partially finished bracelet can be seen on the bed if you double click the picture. But what may be most impressive is the bead organizer being fashioned out of a tooth paste box! We have definitely built an alliance, and will not get kicked off the island.

We took a 3.5 hour tour today with Merena, the interpreter whose car was in Friday’s blog. She took us to some beautiful sites on a most beautiful day. It was in the mid 70s!

Kras is the second largest city in Siberia. About a million people. The town is named for its red stone hills stretching down to the river. Krasnee is the word for red and Yar is the word for slopes. The Yenisey is the deepest river in Russia. Our guide said it was the “wateriest.” Amazingly, it runs south to north. South of the town is a large dam that provides electricity to a huge area of the region. This dam is featured on the 10 ruble bill, along with the chapel pictured below that sits high on a hill overlooking the entire town.

It really was a great tour. It will be so important for us to be able to tell stories of Carson and Conner’s hometown. The details of today’s tour will be documented in the journal we have in our hotel room. We talked about the city’s history, its landscape, its leaders, and even a little bit of our guide’s perspective on the process of Russian adoption.

Tomorrow we see the boys for the first time since Friday!