We arrived in Riga late afternoon on August 5. The flights were long and was an all day process to get here. Diana and her husband were waiting for us at the small modern designed airport. We were excited to finally arrive and were told a few days prior that Aleks would be able to stay with us the first night in Riga. So, as we walked through customs, we could see Diana and gave her a big hug and was introduced to her husband. She pointed to Aleks that was sound asleep on the chairs. He had arrived about 30 minutes earlier. We managed to get him up and walk to the car, load the luggage and head off…before we could get out of the parking lot, Aleks was asleep again on my shoulder. When we arrived at the hotel to check in, we found him asleep on a small sofa in the lobby. The hotel was nice, simple, and the rooms were small. Once in the room, we let Aleks nap for a few hours, he managed to tell us that he didn’t sleep on any of the planes…I struggled with that one too…only 2-3 hours at most for me…Once up, we walked around one block of Riga and found a restaurant called K | I | D and below the logo, it said “not referring to children”…but there was a Mickey Mouse painted on the window, the place was very vintage and eclectic and of course I loved it. We each got a pasta dish and enjoyed our first dinner together in Riga. It was an early night for bed…and we needed to get up and be ready for court on August 6, 10 a.m.
August 6, Happy Birthday to me…we were up and got ready for our big day. Kevin ran out to try out the coffee shop a few doors down and find breakfast. Aleks and I stayed to finish packing up our things. Aleks had a hard time with everything that was getting ready to take place. His emotions surfaced in not wanting to dress up for court. He just didn’t want to wear the black dress pants and button up shirt. With tears and frustration we sat in silence waiting for Kevin to get back with breakfast and coffee. We negotiated with him to wear blue jeans for the three hour drive and if Diana said he needed to change, then he would change before we walked in to the courtroom. Lucky for all of us, it was not a big deal to keep on the jeans and tennis shoes…The drive was really very similar to the countryside of Michigan. There were little patches of farmhouses and fields all along the way. As we drove closer to Liepajas, there was a very large area of windmills. It was amazing; they were gigantic. Aleks took lots of pictures to show the girls. As we arrive in town, Aleks started to talk about all the things we needed to see through our visit. We arrive a few minutes after 10 and walked into small building on the corner. We headed up a few flights of cement stairs and into a very hot room. The room, looked like an old school room from when I was a kid, but just had a long table in the center of it. Four ladies were there and Ginta from the orphanage. We said our hellos and sat in a few chairs facing the long table. The order was Ginta, Diana, me, Kevin and Aleks. They all started talking and Kevin and I just listened. As the court director spoke Diana translated to us. She asked us why we would want to adopt Aleks. Kevin spoke with compassion and love as he described what we feel and how we have connected with him over the past six weeks. It was everything in me not to cry right there in front of all of them. She then read us our rights…which I don’t remember…then it was Ginta’s turn to give her input on what is in the best interest of the child. She said they feel it would be good to have Aleks live in our loving home. The one thing, that was hard to hear, well, one of many, was the little bit of detail given on how he arrived at the orphanage…there are so many questions, that just don’t have answers…but again I am reminded of why Aleks will have the middle name – Zackary, the Lord knows. We were granted guardianship of Aleks to stay with us for two weeks in the apartment in town. There will be two visits from what we call social workers and Ginta. So, that is how it played out…pretty simple.
We then headed to the apartment. It is a very small apartment on the fifth floor of an really old building. It has one bedroom, a very small bathroom, the kitchen is what I would call a “one-butt” kitchen and a living room. It is the apartment of the former orphanage director. And it is perfect for the three of us. When we got everything into the place, they surprised us with a birthday celebration. They sang Happy Birthday to me, with a very thick Latvian accent…it was wonderful. They even gave me a bouquet of colorful Gerber daisies…daisies are my favorite flowers!!!
After all had gone, it was just the three of us…Kevin worked on sitting up our computers and Aleks and I found the connect four game…more details of the evening in next post.
