We first met Lauren at the Orphanage in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan on Friday, November 11th around 4:30 in the afternoon after meeting with the director of the orphanage (they call it "The Baby House" here) and with a representative of the Minstry of Education. Lauren started giggling the moment she saw Dawn and readily went into her arms. Dawn ofcourse cried... Lauren held out on me for a little while --- maybe as long as 3 minutes. This photo was taken about 20 minutes into our first meeting. Seems like it has taken us forever to get to this point. We first came to the decision to adopt on November 9th, 2004. It has been a long road to get here. We were not sure until 3PM this afternoon whether or not we were going to get to meet Lauren today. We spent the day mostly pacing around our apartment.