Hello again everyone! We're pleased to report that we have a new son today. After a one-hour court session beginning at noon today, the judge declared that Benjamin is officially ours. We went straight to the orphanage (a short walk from the courthouse) to get him and take him back to the hotel. He was napping at the time, as was the little boy being adopted by our traveling partners from New Jersey, so we had a little tea-and-cake party with the orphanage staff. It was a wonderful time to hear stories about Russia and learn some Russian lullabies and traditions. Then we got Benjamin, dressed him and took him away. Most of the orphanage caregivers were in tears, which was very touching. He is quite special to them, as he now is to us. As near as we can tell from our experience, Benjamin is on about a 6 month development level, though he is almost 1 year old. That's pretty standard for an orphanage child, we understand. We expect him to catch up quickly, though, especially when we get him home. That won't be for a while, though. The court ruled against our petition to waive the 10-day waiting period mandated by Russian law. Thus we will be here until our scheduled return date of October 11. (Rhonda, please forward this message to my students. I suspect you'll be able to hear the cheering down the hall...;-) Though we are thrilled about Benjamin, of course, this news has us rather melancholy, especially since we received an e-mail message today from our kids back home. We miss them so much! And alas, we are feeling like hopeless American fishes-out-of-water here so far. We don't know the language, of course, and the food has been, well, interesting. Let's just say that you don't get what you typically expect when you order as you do in the U.S. This might be just what I need to lose some of my excess weight! ;-) At least until we get back to Moscow where they have a MacDonalds! We'll be doing some "touristy" things in the coming weeks -- the local museum, Lake Baikal (the deepest in the world) -- so hopefully we'll become more at ease soon. Our guide Valentina has been wonderful to us. We're close to being adjusted to the new time now. We thought we were going to do it easily by getting very little sleep during the trip and thus being drop-dead exhausted by 9 p.m. local time last night (8 a.m. on the east coast). However, we both woke up at 3 a.m. and never got back to sleep! Our bodies won't be fooled that easily... We'll probably get used to this just in time to come home. Well, we pay for these messages by the page, so I'm going to stop now. More updates to come in the days ahead. We miss you all, and look forward to returning home to introduce Benjamin to you! Love, Kevin & Julie