Day 2- Monday

So today we woke early at about 530am, Caleb went to run in the gym and I skyped with my mom.  We just missed Hannah, as she had just gone down for the night.  We messed around for awhile in the hotel room, then decided to get ready for the day.  Around 830 we ventured out of the hotel.  It was chilly, but not bad, but the snow was really coming down on us, so we didn't stay out too long.  The architecture is incredible here! I can't wait to get out further.  We will have all Tuesday and most likely Wednesday to be tourists.  Our meeting with the MOE went well.  We will meet with them again on Thursday morning and then we will head directly to the baby home! We can not wait! We got back to our hotel room around 3:30 and quickly fell asleep...unitl 9! We messaged a couple people and Facetime'd with Hannah. Enjoy the pics!

Outside our hotel

Yep that a mercedes, 2 land rovers, and an audi I think...these people drive crazy nice cars here!

So pretty

I just love this sign...so appropriate

Love love this red building, it could almost fit in on The Strand in Galveston

Bells in the church

Ironwork is beatiful here

Gorgeous!

Yep hub's is in his western jeans and boots...and yep we got lots of stares ;)

Our hotel

Another beautiful church right across the street from the hotel

Day 1-Sunday

We made it finally! Flights weren't that bad. Connected in DC, then straight to Moscow. We slept very little on the plane so we are TIRED! We made it through passport control, baggage claim, and customs pretty quickly. As we came out of customs, this is where the families/friends meet. The way it was set up was odd. Imagine the red carpet walk for the stars....i seriously thought a celebrity was pop out somewhere! The people were packed on like sardines waiting on their loved ones! We spotted our name card held by our designated driver, then we were off! Very strange getting into a car with someone who you do not know, who speaks very little English. We are definitely out of our comfort zone! We checked in at the hotel we are staying, ran into our flight attendants from our flight, took a few pointers from them, then Caleb went out venturing a bit while I napped, then he came back to join me. We got up to Skype with Hannah (which, btw, we were just interrupting her morning dose of Mickey Mouse...stinker!) and now I'm trying to stay awake while Caleb snoozes next to me. We spoke with our coordinator a moment ago and she said our MOE appointment is in the afternoon on Monday. So we meet with her around noon then take the very short walk down to the MOE building.
Russia is an interesting and pretty country! I love seeing all the Cyrillic everywhere. I did spot a McDonald's, Starbucks, Sparro pizza, and a KFC! Those signs are pretty universal! Everything I've heard is true...the traffic here is nuts (you thought road rage is bad in the states? Lol come to Moscow!) the women are all wearing 4 inch stiletto boots walking everywhere, ice or no ice, I'd be on my booty if I attempted that! We can't wait to go explore. Our hotel is very close to the touristy attractions. Ok that's all for now! Time to rest up for our busy week!

2 DAYS until we leave!

Eek!! It's came so fast, yet so slow!  We are so ready to get to Moscow and swoop up our son and tell him how much he is loved and wanted.  Hannah will be in good hands with the grandparents and aunts and luckily she will be able to continue her normal daily routine at home.  We are mostly packed and ready to head out Saturday morning! Camera's are charges, paperwork is organized, and we have every medicine imaginable for any ailment possible!  We have our appointment on Monday sometime with the MOE to recieve our 'official' referral.  The bummer part is, we may not get to see him until Wednesday or Thursday.  This sucks, but it is what it is.  We'll get to love on him no matter what! : )
I'll try to update as much as possible from Russia, but we'll see how well that goes. We should have internet, just not sure how reliable.

Paka paka (bye-bye) for now!

Baby J's cross

Wanted to share a pic of this AMAZING cross hand made by a friend of a friend of my aunt. It is stunning and hard to believe that someone can do this with such detail! Love love it!! And yes after all the stress of picking out a wall color and actually buying a different green paint....we kept what was already there. ; ) it is a very bright green but his furniture is a dark brown(so that tones it down a bit, and its actually a pretty contrast) and once we get all the decor up it'll look great! I'll put up pics once its finished. Lots of Little things to do! In adoption business news, we received our visa's today so we are set to go now! We are so excited and nervous and sad about being away from Hannah but it'll be great! She'll be in good hands and we'll be FaceTime-ing and using Skype a lot. Eek! 10 days to go!!

The REFERRAL post!!!!!!!!

Wow these last three days have been awesome, crazy, busy, blessed! So I'll start from the beginning....

On Monday, Hannah and I went to run some morning errands and came back home around 10, she was chowing on a snack and I was folding laundry when I heard my voicemail go off.  I thought to myself that it was weird...because my phone didn't ring. Well it was a voicemail from my agency, saying call back!! I called back and she went on telling me about a young boy who will come off the database early March and wanted to know if we'd consider him! Of course we said YES and we got a few small details about him.  We learned his name, birth date, and region. She said she'd send the medical and video overnight  and chat on Tuesday after we receive it. Well I HAD to see a pic, so yes I did find him on the d*tabase. OMGosh so cute!  We fell in love then!  Haha we were just hoping it was actually him!  We were pretty sure but you never know...I hear the d*tabase can be wrong at times and/or the baby may not even be on there. SO I had to work that evening. It was hard and I cried on my way home.  It finally hit that we got our referral, that I was about to see a video of our son in the morning...how do you sleep!?!

Tuesday morning I got Hannah up and ready for MDO, JUST before we were about to leave the doorbell rang..FedEx!! Our package arrived before 9! Omgosh I had to go drop off Hannah then head to Caleb's office.  We put the video in then Caleb, his parents, my mom (via Facetime!), and I watched it. He is the cutest baby boy ever!! We were head over heels in love with his almond shaped eyes, chubby little hands, beautiful smile, and kissable lips! After watching it a few times I had to go see about getting the info to the International Adoption doctor to review.  Now I am not a tech-y person at all.  I tried for about 5 minutes to do something with the dvd with no luck...luckily my BIL and SIL are computer people! Hence the phone call(s) to Heather.  She got to mi casa at noon and by 2 the IA doc had our little man's medical and video in her email! Then last night we had everyone over and watched the video over and over and over again. ; )

So today we got the news back from the IA doc that he's perfect! ; )  We formally accepted to move forward, got confirmed travel dates, and I got busy looking for flights! I got them booked after hours of searching and comparing.  NOT fun, but we did manage to get great seats on all fights!! We leave March 17th!! So soon and yet soooo far away!!  Next is booking the hotel and obtaining our visa's!  Not to mention going through the travel packet I was sent. My head is spinning, but it's the only way I'd rather it to be!

So your wondering 'where's the pic!'.... Well if you aren't familiar with the adoption world, we can not post any pics on blogs, public sites, etc until after we actually have him in our custody....so on the third trip or 'Gotcha day'...the day we break him out of the orphanage forever!

And now your saying 'three trips!?!'....yep there was a possibility of only doing two at one point, but the law was just changed on January 1 that the former 10 day waiting period is now a 30 day waiting period. Too long to stay in country.  So this is how it will play out.....

Trip#1 we leave March 17th and probably get to meet the little guy on the 19th.  Spend the week visiting him and doing paperwork in which we will sign our intent to adopt.  Then we fly home and wait on our court date...

Trip#2 is about an average of 2 months later, give or take.  We fly out for a shorter trip of about 5 days.  we go to court, where we will hopefully be stated as his forever mommy and daddy, visit little man, then come back home without him, again. : ( 

Trip#3 is about 30 days after court..not sure if it's 30 business days, or just 30 days, but after that we fly back over there, have our 'Gotcha day', and finalize the adoption with the US embassy.  This trip is about 10 days, but may be shorter since we will already be in Moscow.

Exhausted yet? Well it's an emotional ride.  There are so many unknowns that could happen.  For instance, please pray for my blogger friends, one did not get a favorable word in court.  Meaning that they had to come home and do some more things and then they will have to go back to court again.  Another lost their referral to a Russian family before they were able to travel on trip 1.  And yes this can happen at any time.  Russians have preference over the foreigners until the court date and maybe even until the 30 day waiting period is up.  Very rare, but it does happen. : (

So I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but my head is spinning!  Please pray that he is loved and well cared for by his orphanage caregivers and that our travel dates go as planned.

To be continued!!!

USCIS approval!

We received our I-171H today! This means we are now approved through the US government to bring home a child! Now we're just waiting on that referral!!

Take 2 on the nursery colors!!

So as much as I LOVED the 'two by two' wallpaper border...we decided its too 'baby'. Since the little one will come home a toddler we decided to just go with the wallpaper border that matches the crib set. If you remember the pics for our home study, the room is currently a neon green. Not bad, but a little much. After painting about 20 different colors on the wall, we decided to repaint with a prettier green that matches the bedding much better, but is as equally fun! Its almost the same color, but a little easier on the eyes : ) We're painting this week and getting the furniture this weekend! So excited to see it all together!! It's getting real y'all!!

Busy, Exciting Week!

On this week's Agenda:

• Today we have our Biometrics Appt!!  Whoohoo!!
• I think our Dossier is being sent to Russia this week!!! : ) : )
• Today I start my second Advocare 24 Day Challenge!  I LOVE Advocare. I have been a MNS and Spark lovin girl for over 10 years now.  I did the 24 day challenge a few months back after I was finished nursing Hannah and lost 12 lbs!  I've kept it off and I'm doing it again starting in one hour with my oh so yummy fiber drink. ; ) Since I'm running now, I'm hoping to lose a more than I did last time...which would put me very close to my pre-prego weight.  Determination people!!
• Wednesday night I start my first women's bible study!  I'm so excited and can't wait to meet some new God-loving women and learn more about our amazing Lord!  I started reading the 'One Year Bible for Women' on January 1...And it's awesome!  I'm excited to get in to this group so I can learn on a more indepth, personal level.
• Also this week I will get to see a sweet friend of mine that I haven't seen in some time...delivering her Spark to her ; )
• I will be visiting another very dear friend who just gave birth to her first baby, after many years of praying for him.  And BOY was he worth the wait!  You should see how precious he is!! I can't wait to snuggle up with him!
• And then this weekend Hannah, my mom, my Aunt J, and I are loading up in the burb and heading south to San Antonio to visit my cousin Rhonda.  So excited!  We haven't seen her much lately and it'll be Ryan's (her son) first time meeting Hannah! Rachael (her daughter) was able to make it up for Hannah's 1st birthday. So excited to get to spend a few days with all of them!

Busy busy week!  And apparently an exciting week, as I think I've typed that word 10 times now.  I've been up for almost 24 hours now...that's my excuse.

I hope you all have and exciting week ahead! : )

Just for fun, here's Hannah in my shoes before church with her Texas-sized bow ; ) LOVE her!