Fourteen years and one day ago, can you believe it.

It’s been fourteen years and a few days, Teri and I adopted the girls. It passed without notice,until I noticed. I texted the girls and Teri. My lackluster response from them was a ho-hm, ‘Oh nice’ with a smiley face and a quick addendum saying to ignore the emoji. So much for celebrating life changing events. I spent the holiday lounging in the chair in the living room, watching reruns of The Blacklist. Between rain storms, I did a little yard work, and shoveled a little more of the expansion of the driveway on the northside. All the time wondering what I’d do if I ever retired. I had things that needed to be done, but I lacked ambition. Fourteen years ago Teri worked at United Water. They treated her very well, giving her time off to handle our new children. That job was three jobs ago. I worked for Marcus Dairy and that is also three jobs ago. I always enjoyed sending in my resume for job interviews, later in life and all my previous jobs were out of business. Teri’s jobs just got tired of the area and moved away. One moved back to Canada, the other moved to Georgia, paying the new person in her job $10,000 more, real classy. Oh and he is a guy. The fun part is he didn’t know what he was getting into. This past summer was very hot and the units the company sells aren't made for high heat states. It must have been fun. Teri was glad she wasn’t there. Back to the past. I used to talk about this time in Russia often and it might be well known to some. I reread the blog from the time we first arrived in Birobidzhan to the time Fran and CJ made dinner in their apartment for the four of us, before we moved out of the apartments to the Hotel. Alot of it I’d forgotten. The girls had excessive energy during those days. Nastia would con people out of a few kopeks to ride a kiddie ride in the Pit Stop, a cafeteria style restaurant where we spent most of our time. We were there so often, I think they gave us a discount card. I remember ending most nights in Birobidzhan drinking beer and eating good food at the restaurants. I don’t remember most of what we ate.

I think about that plane ride back from Birobidzhan, first to Moscow and then to America. We didn’t have four seats together flying into Moscow. Nastia and Elena wanted to sit together and we were dumb enough to try it, you know it was one of those moves I’d shake my head about before I had kids wondering why they’d do something so obviously bound to fail and it did. Nastia went back to hang out with the stewardesses conning them out of a bunch of headsets. There to this day in an orange Aeroflot bag with other memories I’ve collected. We ended up separating them, but not before I had to chase Nastia up one aisle and down another thinking that every Russian on that plane was waiting, along with myself for me to lose my temper with her and do something really stupid, like hit her and make a scene. Elena sat with Teri and I sat with Nastia, both not very happy. We spent time in Moscow getting their American citizenship arranged, spending time in a McDonald’s where I learned to ask for coffee in Russian (It’s coffee, pozhaluysta) and on top of that the guy who served me spoke english. I was so wrapped up in ordering coffee for Teri, that I didn’t order anything except the coffee. I went back later and didn’t get him. We arrived home tired to a surprise welcome home party. A very nice end to a long trip.

It’s been 14+ years now and a lot has changed. The girls are now women with individual personalities you have to treat differently. One is working in a tire shop changing tires and doing brake jobs.learning about car repair. Her sister is working caring for children with developmental handicaps. Both are in relationships that may last forever. Time passes so quickly. I’m 65. I started this blog at 51 with the idea it would stop the day we set foot back on US soil. The adventures and the stories just continued and except for a time about eight years ago when I tried to stop the blog. I don’t see an end to it anytime soon.