Swedish Russian?

I'm back from the internet dead! Long story, but we exceeded our threshold with our satelite internet provider and we have been punished by reducing our speed. We were just holding our head above dial up as it was, and with this restriction, I just haven't been able to muster the patience to hardly get on the computer. Another internet provider just finished putting up a new tower in our area, and a much frustrated Doug contacted them. We are up and running with them and I've been in a kid candy store since last night. For a year now I've had time to shave my legs and make some coffee while just waiting for my email to load, so to have pages instantly load is a huge slice of heaven. Thank you Clear and your 4G network!

Russia and the US have come to an agreement and are just ironing out the legal wording and so forth. The agreement is supposed to be signed in Washington sometime this summer. Adoptions are continuing Russia although some regions have slowed down or are waiting until the agreement is signed to proceed. I have heard of several families getting invited to Krasnoyarsk just this month, so it seems to be proceeding. We're just waiting...waiting...

I still need to get our realtor to do her thing on our house, and we need to still find an accountant to do his thing. We haven't actively pursued either of those in the last two months, but my goal is to get them completed by June 1. We'll see.

My Russian is slow and painful, but I'm ready for CD #3 with Pimsleur. I am actually able to understand what they are saying on the tape, so I'm making progress. I am concerned though in the fact that my Russian seems to be taking on a Swedish accent. I'm rather disappointed in myself with this regard as it's obvious I've picked something up unconsciously from Doug. Whenever he's talking to someone who doesn't know English very well, he just talks louder and gives his English pronunciations a Spanish accent. It's quite comical. Now I'm doing it. My apologies go to Sweden.

I've heard from several people who speak Russian that it is actually a fairly easy language to learn, but I care to differ. I've finally figured out why I'm having trouble though. The Russian language has sounds we don't make in English, and trying to get my Texas twang tongue to form them is like sticking my hand in a meat grinder. I will warn you, if you see me practicing out loud, get away as I spit and salivate trying to get my lips and tongue to form these sounds. Example: z-drahs-tvoy-tyeh That is "hello". You tell me an English word that you use on any regular basis that has a "t" followed by a "v" and neither are silent. I didn't think so...