Paperwork SENT

I know I haven't written since we have been back home, but we have been pretty busy! It was hard going back to work after being off for 1 week, but we were definitely glad to back into a routine for now. The day we returned home, we were already receiving calls from Gladney, our homestudy agency and our dossier preparation agency on what we needed to be doing next for our court dossier. Lots of updating paperwork - medical exams, employer letters, fingerprints and police clearance letters and about 1 pound worth of documents to be notarized. But, we finally finished it all (just waiting for our police letters to come back) and put it in the FedEx yesterday! Luckily all of the people we have had to get signatures, information and notaries from have been really understanding. YAY :) Now, they (Gladney) will look it over and make sure everything is done correctly (they are EXTREMELY specific in their guidelines) and if it's ok, it will be sent off for translation and then to the court. In the meantime, we have been preparing for Alex to come home. We made our first big purchase - the convertible crib. We are not sure if he is ready for a toddler bed, since he has been in a crib his whole life, so decided the convertible bed that he can use forever would be a good investment! We ordered it online, it came on Monday, Dennis put it together Wednesday only to discover that a couple of the pieces didn't fit together. So, we took it apart and are sending it back. We have also enjoyed shopping a little bit - getting some clothes and shoes and toys to take with us when we pick him up. Any suggestions for what to entertain a 2 year old with on a 10 hour plane ride?!?! That should be fun! We have started registering - I think Dennis has picked out a lot of toys that HE will enjoy playing with and have compromised on what his room will be - Dennis wanted sports and I wanted baby animals. So we found a set called "TEAM SAFARI" at Babies'r'Us that is a great mix of the two! Once we get the room set up I will definitely post a picture for all to see :) It's going to be ADORABLE - all it's missing is Alex! Stay tuned to our blog for updated information....love to you all and please keep the prayers and support coming!

Moscow Sites

View of Moscow from Red Square

Historic Museum in Red Square

St. Basil's Cathedral

Where we spent most of our trip - IN THE CAR!!!

In Red Square - it was COLD that day

Back Home

We are finally back home in Hampton and trying to settle back into some sort of normalcy! We landed on Sunday evening with no problems. The Merz's picked us up at the airport and then we went to the King's for dinner and "debriefing" of our trip. We were so exhausted and were asleep by 9pm - and VERY glad to be home. We took off work on Monday and returned to work today. We keep replaying the trip in our heads, looking at his pictures and watching the video we took of him over and over - it's our way of keeping in touch with him while we are apart. We left a teddy bear, blanket, lamb and photo album with him - the caregivers said they will show him the album so he will remember us when we come back. We also left a disposable camera with him, so they could take pictures and we can see how he changed. The next couple of months will be busy - we have to get our 2nd dossier together for court and once we have all of the paperwork for that, we will get it sent off and translated and then hopefully be assigned a court date. They are giving us a 2 month time frame, but we have learned that it can happen whenever - remember we are not in control :). So, we continue to wait, tear down our guest room and turn it into a room for a precious little boy - so if you want a nice bed to sleep in when you stay with us, you need to come visit us soon - or else it's a pull-out couch to rest your head on...ha ha ha. We also want to thank all of you who were thinking about us, praying for us and pulling for us last week - the trip had NO glitches/issues/problems at all and we know it was because we had all of you surrounding us and God leading the way for us! We will never be able to thank you all enough, but know that we feel your prayers and love every day! Now our prayers have changed a little - we pray for patience during the waiting, we give thanks for a safe trip, we pray for a speedy completion of the next set of papers, we ask for safety and protection over Alexander (we say extra prayers to St. Alexander and St. Christopher), we ask for diligence and guidance over our adoption agency and everyone involved in our paperwork that they complete their part in a timely manner and we lastly pray that we become the parents that God needs us to be for this little boy and gift he has given to us. We hope you are all doing well and we will definitely keep you posted things progress! Love, Dennis & Nicole

Trip 1 ALMOST over....

Hello everyone! We are finally getting access to internet and thought we would give you a quick snapshot of our trip. Heads up - we are using our hosts computer and some of the letters might switch to cryllic...but you should still be able to understand. We arrived on Tuesday 3/3 and were greeted by our host, German, at the airport. The flight was smooth and we arrived with no problems. Then we were introduced to Moscow traffic - worse than ANY we have ever seen! NOVA people have NOTHING to complain about compared to here! We were exhausted Tuesday night after a long flight and 6 hours in the car from the airport. We got up early Wednesday morning to drive to Kaluga to meet Alexander. Again, more time in the car, but totally worth it by the end of the day. We arrived at the baby home at 3pm, met with the head doctor and she explained his legal and medical records to us. We had a translator, Anna, with us the entire time - she is wonderful! Then we met him - he had just woken up from his nap, so he was very standoffish at first, but that is to be expected. They fed him lunch and then we got to go downstairs to the gym with him and play together. What an ACTIVE little 2 year old - loves to play with everything (he especially loved the bubbles that we brought). He opened up with us while we were there - smiling and laughing. We spent about 1 1/2 hours together. THen we went to dinner and our hotel. We got to see him again on Thursday for about 45 minutes in the morning and then about 30 minutes in the afternoon. It was so neat to see his face light up when he saw us - he seemed to remember us - he even was giving kisses before the day was over. It was EXTREMELY difficult to leave him, but we know that he is in good hands with the caregivers and the doctors at this baby home - they truly love and care for the children. Then back in the car to Moscow (another 4 hours in the car). We got to sleep in today (FRIDAY). Marina took us to tour a monastery - VERY BEAUTIFUL and then we got to relax the rest of the day. Tomorrow we are touring Moscow and we leave early Sunday morning to head back to the states. We still can't post pictures on our blog, but I'm sure if you see us, we will have some to show you :). Just know, he is a BEAUTIFUL boy - big blue eyes, gorgeous smile, cute laugh - good things come in small packages and he is God's gift to us. We can't wait to come home - after being in a foreign country you begin to realize how blessed we are in America. Love to all and thank you for all of your prayers - please keep them coming.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE!

We landed on Tuesday afternoon and have experienced most of Moscow from the CAR :) We are having a wonderful time. We met Alexander today....what a CUTIE :). We are in an internet cafe now and don't have long to talk, but we have sent pictures and video to our IA pediatrician for evaluation. He is healthy, happy and full of energy. Nicole lost it when we left and he ran up to grab her hand to keep playing...we will definitely share more when we return. Love you all and please continue to keep us in your prayers. We will be back in the states on Sunday 3/8 - not sure if we will have internet access again :)

Ready to Go!

This will probably be our last post for a few days. We aren't quite packed yet, but have almost everything laid out all over our bedroom - quite a mess! But, we will pack it all up tonight.

This past week has been EXTREMELY busy! Since we received the call with our travel dates last Friday, we have been shopping for items to take with us (catching some good sales on winter clothing). The first thing we did Monday was book our flights. We will be flying out Monday 3/2 from Dulles on Lufthansa and return Sunday 3/8. We overnighted our VISA application on Monday and received them on Thursday (which was a relief). The weather forecast while we are there is calling for SNOW :) and in the 30s....should be fun!

We have been corresponding with our Gladney coordinator daily taking care of last minute items. We will be staying with a host family while we are there. From speaking with other people who have "gone before us" they say that family is great - their names are German and Marina and Marina is a great cook. So, we will get to experience some authentic Russian food :) We are so excited to be finally going over to Russia to see our beautiful little boy. We are also excited about meeting all of the people that are taking care of our little one.

We should have internet access while we are over there and will update our blog as we can to keep everyone posted. We won't be able to send out email updates, so if you want to keep track, save the blogsite as one of your favorites and check it when you can.

Thanks to all who continue to pray for us - please keep them coming as we travel, meet our referral and make the best decision we can for us. We know that we are only along for the ride and God has total control of this journey we are on - but we also know he is bringing us to this little boy for a reason!

RUSSIA....HERE WE COME!!

Looks like we will be heading off to COLD COLD Russia on March 2nd. We received the call from Gladney tonight with our travel dates - we will leave March 2nd and return March 8th. This week will be extremely busy for us getting everything ready for our trip - we have to get our visas, book our flights, pack, make a photo album to leave with our referral, get gifts to leave with our host family/facilitators/drivers/orphanage caregivers, make sure we have enough layers of clothing to keep us warm and I'm sure a million other things. While we are in Russia, we will be able to see our referral for the first time, gather more information on him, spend some time with him and maybe even tour Moscow/St Petersburg before we make our decision. We cannot believe that we will actually be in Russia soon. We cannot wait to see him with our own eyes - I'm sure it will be something we will never forget. We will post one more message before we leave and depending on internet access while we are there, we may be able to keep you all updated while we are there. If not, we will definitely be in touch when we return. Please continue to pray for us this week - for organization, patience, focus, positive thoughts, the health of our referral, safe travels and guidance in making our decision. We love each of you and appreciate all you have done for us.

We got THE CALL!!!!

Let me start off by saying we have experienced God's plan for us in so many ways these past couple of weeks. As you all know, our last post wasn't the best of news, but we were still positive that we were getting closer to our child. It turns out we may be closer than we thought!!! Less than a week later (Wednesday Feb 4th), we received a call from Gladney asking us if we would be interested in a child that was out of the age range we had asked for (we originally requested a child no older than 18 months). This was not a call for a referral - just an "are you interested in changing your age range" call. The child they were asking us about was 2 years old - that is all they told us. After talking about it, we figured "sure. why not!". So, we told her yes we would extend our age range and she said she would let them know. On Friday Feb 6th at 3pm, Dennis gets a call from Gladney saying that they have a referral for us. I was actually on my way to his office to meet with him so he asked if we could call her back before she told him anything so we could hear it together. When I got to his office, we called Jennifer and she sent us an email with the referral for a 2 year old little boy. She discussed with us some of the things mentioned in the email and what the next steps are. They sent us about a dozen pictures, which we can't share right now, but we will as soon as we can - I PROMISE!! But, I will tell you he is ADORABLE - he has big blue eyes and light brown hair. So, what we have done so far is sent the pictures and the little bit of information they sent us (mainly his measurements) to a pediatrician out of Minnesota that was recommended to us by our agency and several others, who specializes in international adoptions. He has given us his feedback (as good as he can from a few pictures and a few pieces of information about him) and tomorrow we are talking with another pediatrician to get his evaluation, along with a social worker at Gladney. From there, we are going to let Gladney know that we are interested in traveling to meet this little guy and see how he is for ourselves. Once they tell the orphanage that we are interested in traveling, they will let us know when we can come. It could be in a week or a month from now - they will decide. So, once that is scheduled, we will go over for our first trip (7 days) and make our final decision from that trip. I can't tell you the emotional roller coaster we have been on the past few days - it's a miracle that all of this is happening so fast. We are feeling everything from excitement to being scared - but mostly excitement. We can't believe that we will soon be traveling to Russia to meet our referral. We know our lives will be changing in a dramatic way, especially because it has only been the 2 of us (and Maggie) for so long! The fact that it will soon be the 3 of us is AMAZING!!!!Once we got the referral, the first people we wanted to tell was our parents, so we made a special trip up to NOVA to tell them in person. It was priceless to see their reactions and just share that moment with them - it is something we will never forget. I think they are ready to be grandparents! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we travel and that God will give us the guidance we need to make the best decision possible and that this 2 year old little boy is as healthy as he can be. Even though we started this process in August 2007, we feel that this is the REAL beginning of our journey. We will keep you posted when we know our travel dates. Love ya'll!!!!

We wait, we wait, we wait.....

Hello to all! We hope this long and overdue post has found you all doing well and enjoying 2009. It's been awhile since our last post, frankly because there hasn't been much to say! We are still waiting! And it looks like we will be waiting some more. We had a conference call last week with Gladney on some things that are occurring. First, some of our paperwork has expired during this process, so we are currently updating things like fingerprints, medical work and our homestudy. Not a big deal and it's kind of nice to be doing "something" again. Second, on the conference call Gladney discussed the current situation in Russia and how that is affecting adoptions. We will try to explain it as easy as possible: 1) Two years ago, Russia closed down international adoptions and required all agencies to get re-accredited. Since there were no international adoptions occuring, Russia opened up orphanages within the country and Russian citizens began adopting. So, when agencies began to get reaccredited again, it's not like there was a ton of children waiting because they weren't begin adopted - there was actually less. 2) So, with that being said Gladney is no longer taking any new applicants to the Russia program. 3) They will continue to work with the 40 families who are currently in the process 4) They have told us not to expect to get referrals for children under the age of 2 and probably with more developmental/health issues. So, where does that leave us? We continue to wait, keep our paperwork updated and PRAY PRAY PRAY. We have known from the time we began the process that it was going to be a long and trying one and it was all going to happen in God's time. Even though we may think we have a plan, we know in reality He has THE plan for us. So, we look at it as His way to make sure that we are ready, it is the right time, we are able to save the remainder of the money that we need to complete the adoption (THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE HELPED US WITH YOUR "CONTRIBUTION" - it means more to us than you will EVER know) and we use this time to become the best parents we can for our Russian angel. All we ask from our friends and family is to keep us in your prayers and continue giving us the love and support that you have from the beginning of our journey. As we have said many times, we wouldn't be able to do this without all of you and are so grateful for the love that our child will one day receive from you. We love you all!

Our Russian Angel is from......

the Kaluga region of Russia!!! We just received an email from Gladney today saying that we have been assigned to Kaluga. It is located southwest of Moscow (about a 3 hour drive). We are trying to research more about that region, so as we find out more information, we will keep you posted!!! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we get closer to expanding our family!! Love you all!