Play Date

Woke up this morning and felt good - we were going to have a good day. After a morning of pancakes and playing we went to meet several of the other families at the Hyatt - where they have a heated whirlpool for the kids to play in (with mom's and dad's of course) and a big weekend buffet. Unfortunately for us, the Hyatt food service workers decided to strike today, so we spent a couple hours at the whirlpool and had to go elsewhere for lunch. Tara, still not a fan of water, put her feet in but was not yet ready to go in completely. Next week we'll bring our swimming suits and try a little bit further.

After a lunch of Indian food (she eats lots of vegetables if they are covered in sauce!!!) Tara and I walked over to one of the other family's apartment. Jennifer has been here since early November and living with her daughter Maya, who is about Tara's age. Maya's smaller, so I had brought some of the 2T clothes that are too small for Tara and Jennifer had some pants to give us. Jennifer and I ended up sitting on her couch for almost 2 hours watching our daughters play dress up with the fancy headbands and jewels her mom had brought. It was such a joy to see our little girls playing together - even if there was some grabbing and pulling. Neither of us had seen our daughters interact so well with another child and it was just so fun that it made us laugh to see them so giggly and girly. I'm posting a bunch of photos - please excuse the snotty nose on my daughter - it's getting better but it's still there.

After a dinner of leftovers, Tara was exhausted and went right too sleep. I'm not too far behind! On the investigation front - the advertisement about her abandonment with an updated photo (the same ad that was done when she was first brought to the orphanage) will go out into the paper tomorrow. This will help show that I have looked for her birth parents in my response to the US gov't. The formal investigation should start in about a week!