Meeting #2 with "Little Guy"

This afternoon we were able to go back to the orphanage. There is another family here with our agency on their third trip. We rode with them. They are adopting twin girls who are about 13 months. Our visit with little guy was a little shorter than the morning visit. We played in a different room with the other family and their girls.

He is such a content little thing. We will be off to dinner at the same cafe in our hotel building. We don't really know what we are eating, but it is pretty good. :-)

We meet our son!

We met little guy this morning. It was incredible! He is the happiest little thing! We spent quite some time with him. I rocked him to sleep in my arms just before we had to leave him. It was amazing. We played. He reached for me close to the end of our visit with him. He is beautiful! He is already crawling. He doesn't have any teeth yet...he's a 'gummy' little thing. They told us his name, but Russian law prohibits us putting that information along with pictures of him on the internet until he is officially ours. Shane and I want to honor that. We will not be changing it, though. Leaving him this morning wasn't too hard simply because he had fallen asleep and it was like I had put him down for a nap...and I also knew we would be back this afternoon.

Day 1 in Russia!

We made it! After the scare the night before our flight with the flight change, we flew out of New York with no problems and it looks like we made it out just ahead of the blizzard. Whew! The flight was fairly uneventful. Teddi slept most of the way which should help with the jet lag.

We landed in Moscow and were met prompltly by our coordinator and our driver. That was a relief. After a 1 hour drive from the airport to our hotel in downtown Moscow, we were exhausted, but thankful that we managed through the traffic alive.

Once at our hotel, we ventured out for a bite to eat. We found a little cafe down the street from the hotel. We had no idea what we were ordering and it turns out we think we ordered the lunch special because when we asked for a menu, the waitress replied, "A menu lunch??" To which, I replied, "Yes, Lunch". And the next thing you know, a big Russian waiter is bringing us soup, salad, and a meat and potato dish to eat.

From there we went to Red Square to do some sight seeing. Below is a picture of Teddi in front of Red Square on the marching pad with St. Basil's Cathedral in the distance and the other is a picture of me in front of Lenin's tomb (I think??). Not so good with the cryllic alphabet yet.

Well, we are going to try to stay up for a little while longer in an attempt to get on Russian time so wish us luck. We meet our driver tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. for our ride to the orphanage to meet our son!!!!

Last Minute Paperwork

I have been under the gun this week completing any last minute paperwork that we need for our trip. We have both been to the Doctor...Again... for more blood work and x-rays. We also applied for and recieved our visas. Yeah! We are hoping that by completing all of this paperwork now it makes the rest of our trips go much easier (and faster).

Thank you to everyone at Beck's (Shane's new employer) for all of their support during this process. Everyone there from the Beck family to the other co-workers in the office have bent over backwards to accomodate our family. A special thanks goes out to his cohorts at the front counter for playing back up next week while we are out. Thank you all!!!!!!

We're going to Russia!!!!!

We got "The Call" today from our adoption agent. We will be leaving Sunday, March 1st to meet our son. We will be traveling to Moscow and from there on to the orphanage. Once there, we will be spending 3 days where we will visit the orphanage a couple times a day. We cannot wait! We will then travel back to Moscow on Friday where we will spend the weekend celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary. We will return to Indianapolis on Sunday, March 8th. This will be the first of three trips to Russia for us.

Teddi's mom will be staying with the girls this week while we are gone. Her moving so close has been a real blessing. Thank you to all of our friends who have offered to help in any way during this experience. We will definitely be calling on more of your help in the future. Our dear friends, the Hyde's and the Kettler's will be handling our chauferring to and from the airport on this trip. Thank You!!!

We hope to be able to keep the blog updated while in Russia with photos of our trip so be sure check back often. We will not, however, be able to post any photos of our son until he is officially ours.

Finally some Good News!

After 14 months of basically no news, last week brought a flurry of activity. Our adoption agent called today to let us know that they had targeted a child who would be coming off of the registry very soon and that he looked very good. She told us that she hopes to have us travel to Russia very soon.

An update - Finally!

Greetings! I know it's been a while (over 2 months) since we have updated our blog. Believe me, if you were frustrated imagine how we felt! (Mark L., I thought you would be especially excited). Ha!
We just found out on Tuesday that our paperwork is officially in Moscow being translated. Once that is finished it will be put into a specific region and we will know where we are going when we travel.
We received our I-171H form from US Immigration on April 22nd. That was exciting just for the fact that we MUST have that approval before we travel and it can take a really long time to get back.
AND, we had a HUGE garage sale on April 25th and 26th (with a bake sale on Saturday) to raise funds for travel expenses. We were so blessed! We received so many donations for the garage sale, donations for the bake sale and you wouldn't believe all of the people that helped selflessly in one way or another! It was incredible! For us, it was more confirmation that we are doing what God has planned for us. We actually raised almost $2100. Amazing! And we still have enough to hold another sale which will be in the next few weeks.
We were even given a beautiful crib and matching dresser for "L.G.'s" room (my mom's group has nicknamed our "little guy" L.G.). Once we paint, I will post pictures.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers, support and encouragement!