Ramblings and history lessons

Besides pestering photo listing sites (sorry folks, but some things are important to adoptive moms) I have been getting ready to be a Mama to another sweet daughter. Nesting is hard to do with two very active and destructive kids already here. Still, I have the urge to get everything ready for her before she we travel to welcome her into our family. I can;t wait to meet her and see where she lives. I hear Tallinn is gorgeous, and pictures show this to be so.

I was reading about what kind of souvenirs to buy and what to avoid while in Estonia, of course I wanted to get our girls a doll, especially one for Amanda, so I looked up dolls. They sell Russian matryoshkas, I believe they are Matreshkas in Estonia.

It seems many factories closed down after Estonia won her independence from the USSR. The singing revolution, I have a link to the left, not sure if anyone read about it. We think it is amazing and speaks volumes about the Estonian culture.

There is a movie about Estonia's singing revolution. It has not come to Tucson, but I would love to see it.
http://www.singingrevolution.com/cgi-local/content.cgi

http://www.freemuse.org/sw22342.asp

http://leisi.oesel.ee/~toni/history.html

A single nation, a million voices, the fall of an empire.

Watch the trailer for the movie. http://www.singingrevolution.com/

Both Tom and I felt it was important to know the history of the countries we were adopting from. When we were in Ukraine I got a tour of Kiev and heard the pride Yelena had in her "home town" but what impressed me was how much she knew about her cities history, do I know as much about Tucson? Am I as proud to be a native Arizonan? I was happy I spent many hours on the Internet reading about Ukraine, and I have spent almost as many reading about Estonia. Of course it will never be the same as living your life there. We want our daughters to know we honor where they are from and will make sure they know about their cultures.

I am awaiting reference letters for an adoption grant so that I can send that off! I am prayerfully optimistic that we will get some aid for Amanda's adoption.

And come on blog readers! only 3 people who have bought their raffle tickets; the nesting dolls are really nice! If you would like to mail a donation, please contact me at kkbl7befit@yahoo.com .