As usual, Ilze showed up a few minutes early. The girls were so excited to see her they ran down five flights of stairs to open the door for her. It was one of those moments where I’ve looked at Sheri and said, Our girls have never been so excited to see us like that! Anyhow, as she entered you could tell she was in quite a bit of pain. Apparently, she had a lower back injury which I can completely related with. Several times during that meeting she had sneezed and you could feel the pain shoot up her back. Soon the orphans court representative had shown up in the meeting got underway.
Once again she spoke to us for about an hour. Outside of the normal questions like what had occurred this week, how are you getting along and have you had any problems with Nata. But there was also the series of questions about the old Foster parents. Please excuse me for not listing those questions as they were of the personal nature and only meant for immediate family. What I can tell you is that the Foster parents were fighting the court’s decision to terminate their standing as a Foster home. They have also asked us that if anything comes up the with the girls or therapist to please forward those reports on to them.
With our questions completed it was time for her to interview the girls. Once again, besides the normal questions they had asked the girls about their time at the old Foster home. Sheri and I were and still are concerned that it might trigger some bad responses from Sanija. But knowing how the old Foster parents were those questions could possibly save of another child from being at the home then we will deal with any repercussions it may have on Sanija.
At the end of the court visit which took about 2 hours the court agreed that everything was positive and we’re still a go. We have one more court visit next Tuesday which then all the information and reports are compiled and on Wednesday we will have our second official court visit. The great news is that once again Nata told the OC representatives that she wants us to adopt her.
After the representative had left, Ilze stayed around a while to learn about some of the math and English programs that are online that Sanija uses for school. Although the girls were a bit playful I know they enjoyed showing Ilze just how they work and what they do. Almost all of you have read the blog about Sanija’s adoption from last year. In those readings you know what Ilze meant to Sanija. Well, those same exact feelings are now shared with Nata. This is a credit to Ilze for the type of person she is. I don’t know what it is but Ilze possess some sort of magical power that makes the children she works with fall in love with her.
We can tell Nata is getting very excited about leaving for, as she puts it, her home in San Diego. Today alone, she must have brought up San Diego 5, 6 maybe 10 times. Soon we will be on our way back home, just over a week to go. The orphan’s court, Ilze and the US Embassy are all working quickly to allow us to leave very soon after the last court date in order to allow Sanija to return to school earlier.
As a celebration for the positive second OC visit Sheri and I set up a scavenger hunt that took the girls all around old Riga which included a photo shoot at some wonderful landmarks around town. Each girl was given clues to find the next location and if they found the correct location a photo would be taken and I would give the girls a thumbs up which meant success. They were then handed the next clue and so on and so on and so on. Once all other tasks were completed there was a reward of a chocolate ice cream sundae at the top of the Radisson Blu with a view that overlooks the entire city.
By the time we got home the girls made a very healthy dinner with the help of Sheri to explain why eating carbohydrates at night is not the healthiest of choices. It was music to Sheri’s ears when Nata said “I want to be healthy”. They also needed to complete today’s entries on their travel journals. Finally, it was Nata choice for what family movie we were watching tonight. For her despicable me 2 was the selection of choice.
Finally, around 9:30 we put the girls to bed. For both us and the girls it was a very exciting day and another hurtle we overcame.
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