Finally talked to Gertrude

The kids finally got back from camp and a time was set up for us to call Gertrude on Friday. I was the only one home (Scott out of town and Tena at school). She has already forgotten a lot of her English but she understood a lot of the questions I asked her. Mostly I just asked her how she was, did she go to camp (she said no, I think she thinks I was asking if she was at camp), is she swimming, etc. I told her I missed her and she said "thank you" and I told her I loved her and she said "I love you" in her sweet little accent. I told her Allie misses her and I asked her if she missed Allie and she said yes. Allie is our dog, by the way. She said yes to missing Pop and Tena also.
Then today, Sunday, we called again and we all got to talk to her. She was sounding a bit more animated but still "yes, no" answers and not really any conversation. She asked if I wanted to talk to her sister. I did and her sister speaks fairly good English. I told her we love Gertrude very much and that we miss her and that Gertrude told us about her. I asked her what she does there and she said she plays football, basketball and swimming and she likes horses. I told her horses scare me, I fell off one and she laughed. She seems very sweet. I asked her if she wants to come visit America and she said she did. She answered that she got our letter, her but not Gertrude. We actually wrote Gertrude and wrote a note in there for her (Agense) so I think she might be saying she read the letter, not Gertrude. I told her I bet she is a great big sister and she hesitated then said "yes." I said "sometimes?" and she said "yes. I asked to talk to Gertrude again and she said "yes" but then hung up. Communication still tricky! I'm glad I got to talk to her though. I'm hoping Agnese has gotten some feel for who we are and that we are willing and happy to write and talk to her and include her as much as we can in our family. We want that for her and for Gertrude and it will help when they both have to make a decision of how each of them feels about Gertrude being adopted in another country with us.

We are hoping they will get Skype, Helen said they are working on it, a digital video communication where we can actually see each other. We have it now, when they get it at the orphanage it will be a free call. Communication with another language will be much easier when we can see each other! Tena and Pop both talked to Gertrude a little bit, with much the same conversation of yes and no. So, it was great to talk to her. Once they have Skype it will be much nicer and will help the next several months got by easier before she's ours.