Santa Makes A Preliminary Visit

Every year, one of our local fire departments puts Christmas lights all over one of the trucks and has Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph join them for a tour of the town to the joy and amazment of the children.  The first year Pat and I lived in Leesburg, the town was small enough that the firetruck was able to do the whole town in one night and it was always closer to Christmas. . .in fact usually only a day or two before.  But, the town has gotten so large that they now do this 9 nights!  Last night was the night our street was included. . .Aidan and the neighbor girls were sooooo excited!!

We all bundled up and went outside to wait. You can hear them coming for a few blocks as they wind around on the streets before ours. . .then the advance truck comes by and a nice man yelled out to the children, "Santa's Coming!!" The children went wild with excitement!

And then. . .he came!!!!!

Aidan loved it!!!  I don't think he remembered last year because he wanted to know why Santa didn't throw candy to him!!!  LOL. 

We had to explain Santa would be back on Saturday morning, with candy, during the Christmas parade!!

Afterward, we came back inside to warm up and get ready for bed.  What a fun night!!!

In other news:

I have been following the news on the US/Russia Bilateral Adoption Agreement and see that it is all agreed upon and is just awaiting the final signatures.  Or something like that.  There are apparantly 5 points that the Russians wanted the US to agree to.  For the most part, I have not been too concerned about this thing.  Afterall, we are final with our decree in hand; we have followed all the rules were were told to do; and we have completed all of our post placement visits and reports--save for our 3 year, which is coming up--as requested.  We love our son and he loves us.  All is good.

Well, apparantly, I should have been paying closer attention because two of the points do directly concern us:
1) The Russians want Russian children to always have Russian citizenship.  I kind of thought this was already the case.  I am already committed to keeping Aidan's Russian passport, as well as his US passport, current.  I thought it was up to him to renounce either of his citizenships, or not, as he so chose after he came of age. 

2) The Russians want US families to have annual visits by Social Services until the child comes of age, which I presume means 18.  Fine, but who's going to pay for that?  The families?  Russia?

These concern us directly because, and this was the finepoint, the Russians want this to be retroactive to include all adoptions already completed.  Hmmmm. . .Is that really legal?  Well, apparantly, the US has agreed to this so that means we'll have to comply.  But, it is a little upsetting to find out that something you thought was final can be changed. 

Well, whatever.  I'll do whatever we have to do to make sure Aidan continues to grow up in a loving home with his family and all the advantages we can give him!

And now, back to Santa news!!  Stay tuned for Parade pictures. . .