Last day in Russia

Today is our last day in Russia for the next 4 months. We arrived in Moscow yesterday afternoon (Saturday, March 6^th) and spent the night at the Park Inn right next to the airport. It is a nice hotel and we got a complimentary breakfast this morning which was very tasty. The food is very good here and very fresh. This morning I had broiled tomatoes with cheese, a bread pudding with peach compote, small sausages which were more like mini hotdogs but were better than any American hotdog I have ever had. I also had some fruit and the most awesome coffee EVER!!!! Chad, you would love it! It tasted like the coffee I make at home with my machine that Dan got me for Christmas so now I know that my machine really does make coffee like it is supposed to. MMMMMMMMMM…………………….. Dan is getting ready right now and I am just catching up on some writing. We are leaving the hotel at 9:00 AM and our flight leaves today at 12:00 PM. We will be arriving in New York at 3:00 PM. Did somebody say this is going to be the longest day I have ever had in my life? Literally? Our flight is about 11 hours long so to leave only 3 hours before your arrival time at destination is, well, very thought provoking. We should be arriving in St. Louis around 9:30 PM Sunday. I am ready. I miss Diet Pepsi and my salsa. Don’t get me started again. Yesterday’s flight from Vladivostok was good. The plane was really nice and each seat had it’s own tv screen. I watched a couple of movies which helped to pass the time. There were several babies on the plane and they were a bit restless but what do you expect on a 9 hour flight? Dan and I were both pondering in our mind what it will be like to travel such a long distance with two 3&1/2 year old boys in a few months. I am not too worried about Ben but Nate? I am not so sure. We may have to bring the Dramamine. The only problem with giving children medicine like that is sometimes it has the opposite reaction that it is supposed to have. Wow, I don’t even want to think about that!! It will be fine. Most people are very kind I have noticed. It has been a great trip. I am looking forward to coming back. I just wish it wasn’t so far! If we could just go the opposite direction instead of going through Moscow It would take half the time. However, there are things that have to be done here in Moscow at the embassy that can only be done by coming this way. Maybe next time we will be able to sight see a bit here in Moscow. At least it will be summer time and hopefully no snow storms will block our paths the next time. I am looking forward to seeing Vladivostok in summer. Winter we were told was the most ugly season and I would have to agree. I have never seen snow on the side of the road that was 4 feet deep and totally black. Very dirty. Summer, have been told, is very nice. You know it is harsh when the Sea of Japan’s coast is frozen solid. Well, I am going to sign off. I am looking forward to those precious boys being apart of us. They already are of course but until they are in our house it will be very hard. We love you Nate and Ben. Kisses and hugs and mommy and daddy will be back for you very soon. Sweet dreams until then.

Last day in Vladivostok

It has been snowing all day today. Right now the flakes are so big and it is beautiful. We have had a good day today. We started the day off by going to see Ben today. He really likes Thomas the Train. Him and Dan played in the floor for a long while. The room we were in was so small that was hard to move around to play really good. After we said goodbye to him for the last time we made our way downtown in major traffic to go to the notary's office. Evidently notaries are very few and far between here and it takes a long time to get in. Since our adoption coordinators know them well we were able to get in quickly. We still had to wait for a couple of hours so we had to leave our passports there and we headed back the way we came to go to the mall for souvenirs. We bought the funniest things for Mom, Erin and Sam. They are the same as the picture I posted yesterday of the flower thing in the car cup holder. So many cars have them and they run on solar energy. The sun makes them bounce up and down. They have every thing you can imagine. We also ate lunch there with Lana and Irina. They had a cafe on the top floor that was like a cafeteria. It served Russian food which was very good. There was nothing American about it except for the Coke fountain machine. It was such a strange thing to find in a mall! I am sure the food was much healthier than in our malls though and much tastier too if you like Russian food. Sorry Mr. Mike, Russian food does not involve many fruits and veggies! After we left the mall we drove back toward downtown and found another souvenir shop that sold all kinds of nesting dolls. They were much more reasonably priced than at the mall. The shop was down this narrow little alley that only a native Vladivostokian(?) would know about. We finished up our shopping there and headed to the notary. It took about 15 minutes and we were done. Our trip here is basically over now. We just have to make it home and fill out much more paperwork and wait for our court date to be scheduled. That will take at least 3 months. It will go fast. I have much peace about leaving. I know God is in control and all will be well. I am so very thankful for that knowledge. Without it I would go insane! Now I am waiting for laundry to dry so we can have some clean clothes to wear home. Our plane leaves tomorrow at 2:15 PM and we will spend the night in Moscow and then head the rest of the way home. I miss the kids but not as badly as I thought I would. I think I have been too busy to think about it. I have thought about Diet Pepsi and salsa though. I have really taken these things for granted!! Ha Ha. I have had I bottle of Diet Pepsi the whole time we have been here and it is almost gone. Salsa can't be found anywhere! Ughhhh! Only 2 more days, 2 more days!

What a great day!

Today has been a good day. We woke up and called home. Sam and Erin are doing well. I think Grandma is doing well. Not quite sure. Erin and Sam were picking on each other during the entire video chat. Everything seems to still be the same at home! :) We left with Lana and Irina and went to the baby home here in Vladivostok. Our sweet little boy is so little!! He is really cute and is the total opposite of the other one. He is very smart and opened up much more today. We will go see him again tomorrow and then we will officially sign the papers to say we will adopt them. Yesterday when we got ready to leave Spassk City orphanage Nate began to pucker up. It just about broke my heart. We know he has not had individual attention like that before and so much of it at one time. He loved it. He was expecting us to come yesterday and when we got there it was nap time. He saw us coming down the hall and was already out of bed with just his shoes and his underwear on getting ready to go with his nanny to get his clothes on. As he was walking down the hall he had such a happy, confident little stride and it just melted my heart. Anyway, as we got ready to leave he began to get upset so Lana our interpreter called him over and sat down with the scrapbook we brought for him and explained who everyone was and that it was his to keep along with the lion puppet and the truck toy we brought. She told him that we would be back to get him when the grass turned green outside. He left us with a smile and with that same little walk as when we got there. Three and a half years is such a hard age because they do know what is going on and they do understand when they are not wanted and that makes it hard to leave and reassure them that it is not going to be forever. After we got back today from the baby home here in Vladivostok we ate lunch in the Vlad Inn Restaurant and then we went for a walk down to the water. Our hotel is very close to the water which is the Sea of Japan. There were people way out on the frozen water ice fishing. I was afraid to go very far. I had visions of breaking through and Vladivostok is not a place I want to be when I pass on! Tonight we will just hang out here in our room. It is the first time we have been able to do that since we got here and we will be leaving day after tomorrow. Wow, what a whirlwind trip. We were expecting that though. We wish we could just take them home right now. Russia is such an interesting place. The things I am most intrigued by is the way people drive and the way the Russian people are in general. They are very quite people. The women really like shiny things, high heels (even on 2 inches of ice) and they walk all over the place. They have some of the most beautiful buildings interspersed with drab Soviet Style buildings. Most houses I have seen are very run down and are painted very bright colors. It is like they are trying to make something that can never be beautiful into something that they think is beautiful. They also like little things in their cars that bob up and down that are activated by the sun. It is the most bizzare thing I have ever seen. We are so close to the Chinese border so we have seen a lot of Chinese people as well. More than I thought we would see. I asked our interpreter about the Chinese and she said they are to the Russians like the Mexican’s are to the Americans. That pretty well summed it up I believe. Well, guess I will go rest a bit. Hopefully I can write a little more tomorrow before we leave.

Finally we are here!

Well, we are here! What an experience. Let me start at the beginning. Saturday we began at 5:30 AM from Cape Girardeau. We drove to St. Louis to catch our plane and then it began. We arrived and waited. Because of the day before, there were delays everywhere, especially with Delta. I began to really wonder if we were going to make it. So finally our flight took off but it took off 40 minutes late. This of course put us a few minutes late in Detroit and we only initially had 35 minutes to catch our flight to New York any way and now we only had 15 minutes. We got off the plane and started running. We got to the gate and there was no plane. We turned around and found a flight board and the plane had been redirected to another terminal. We started running the other direction. When all was said and done we had run 35 very long gates and got to gate 57 and the plane was there but everyone had boarded and the door was shut. I almost broke down from sheer exhaustion and disappointment right then. The flight lady was still there and I ran up to her barely able to talk and managed to get out something like, “Oh please can we get on this plane we have boarding passes?!!!?” She gave me and Dan a not-so-sympathetic look and started typing on the computer as we were standing there trying to recover. She made a call and we were allowed to board the plane! We were sweating like crazy and my face was red from running half way across the airport. Totally embarrassing! Anyway, we got on the plane and then we waited, and waited……and waited……and WAITED! The captain couldn’t figure it out. He initially said we were waiting on some baggage which in retrospect was probably ours (funny but not funny) so in essence we probably made the plane late. Finally we were allowed to take off after 1 hour and 20 minutes of waiting. Guess what? That put us in New York 15 minutes before our scheduled take off for Moscow. What next? Well it came while we were on the plane to New York, somewhere over the Great Lakes. Dan says, “Where is the camera bag?” “I don’t know, you had it didn’t you?” “Yes, I did. It was strapped to my bag and I took it off when we got to the Delta gate in Detroit after running.” We immediately realized the camera was still sitting at gate 57 on the check in counter. Panic ensued once again. The flight attendant came by and we told him what had happened. He was such a nice man and knew what happened to us before hand when we boarded. He took our information and said he would call it in and we would probably get it back. It might just take a while. It wouldn’t have been so bad but Mom’s camera was in there too. If we don’t get it back we will just have to get her a new one. Ok, by now I was not having such a great day. We get to New York, FINALLY, and pull up to the farthest gate away from the terminal we need to be to catch our next flight of course, and the terminal hookup would not work. We were trapped on that plane for 30 minutes AFTER landing. The captain was very angry and frustrated. His comments kept getting more and more sarcastic each announcement. It was funny. What could you do but laugh? It was more of a hysterical laugh though. Anyway, while we were sitting there, computer guru Dan whips out the cell and pulls up Delta flight schedules and Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, our flight to Moscow had been delayed for 1 hour. We finally made it off the plane after actually having sat on that plane before take off and after landing a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes which was longer than the actual flight itself, and made our way like a herd of cattle to a shuttle that drove us around to terminal 3. It must have been a new driver because he passed terminal 3 and the security agent on the shuttle banged on the glass and started yelling at him and he backs up. What else? We were really laughing now! We got off, ran up a never ending terminal ramp and Delta people kept motioning us this way or that way. It felt and looked like a marathon, I’m not kidding! We finally made it to gate 13 just 15 minutes before the plane boarded for Moscow. We got on and totally crashed. Emotion, panic, excitement and all of those emotions were rolled up together into one. I was exhausted. Our flight was very cramped for the 9 hours and 35 minutes but hey, we were on that plane! Whoo hoo!!! The flight went well and we landed in Moscow, made it through boarder patrol and amazingly enough we went to the baggage area and like a shining ray of light our bags came sailing out of the back and then all was well. We couldn’t believe after all of that our bags actually made it. God is so awesome. We walked out and Alexander was there. What a great sight he was to see! He was so excited we were there. We told him about our camera dilemma and we bought one in the airport. Not a bad price. Same as in the States. Then we went over to the hotel and instead of sight seeing we checked in for the afternoon for a nap and a shower. That was so very nice. About 5:30 we caught the shuttle bus to Terminal D at the hotel. It is very strange to be in a place where hardly anyone speaks English. So we got there and no running this time. The plane to Vladivostok was on time and went off without a hitch. I couldn’t believe how quiet it was in the Moscow airport. The terminals were full of people but you could almost hear a pin drop it was so quiet. I guess Americans are just really loud people. The flight was the same way. We and another woman who is here adopting as well were the only Americans on the plane. The stewardess kept forgetting to ask us in English what we would like but by half way through she would remember and smile at us. Funny. We arrived and got off the plane. Dan stopped to take a picture of the plane and a guard came over and scolded him. I guess in some ways Russia will always be in the past. Our coordinator and interpreter Irina and Lana were waiting for us. We found our bags and amazing as it sounds, our journey began. We hit the ground running again but in a little bit different way. We checked into our hotel (Vlad Motor Inn) and got to stay for 30 minutes before leaving for the Dept. of Education to sign an official document to see the boys. We then went to the baby hospital to see Ben. They told us he wasn’t feeling good and had a cold. They went to get him and brought him in. He was soooooo little! He looks just like his picture. He had on a Christmas sweater with Santa Claus buttons on it, beige pants with flower designs on them, a blue & white checkered shirt underneath the sweater, pink socks and white sandals. He was adorable. He is very smart. They tell us he is very sociable with the other kids and is very curious about things. They laughed and said, “He is like a monkey! A little trouble maker!” Ahhhhh, just like Sam, no? He reminded us a bit of Sam as he sat there and played. His little hands were everywhere. He said the names of things and organized blocks. His fine motor skills are excellent. I took a picture of him and showed it to him and he smiled really big and said his name So he recognizes himself in a picture which is good. We gave him some crackers, a little toy truck and a tiger puppet. He pretended to feed the tiger and the cow toy sitting on the table. That was good too. We found out his mother and father had lost parental rights for many reasons. He will flourish in a loving environment I am sure. Yesterday and today both we made the long 3 hour trip to Spassk City orphanage to see Natel. He is an amazing kid! Very smart, eager and loving. We will definitely need some boundaries! We made our official decision on Nate today and the papers have been drawn up. We spent 3 hours with him today and 2 hours yesterday. We have lots of pictures and videos. There is so much to tell and I am always so very tired at the end of the day. Tomorrow we got see Ben again and then the next day we will probably make our decision. I will write more as I have time and energy. It has been and awesome but extremely tiring trip. One funny thing I must say is that we called Dr. Hoffman's office today and asked if we could send him some video of Ben for him to give us his opinion. The nurse told us he was in Mexico on a mission trip. Dan whips out his phone and tracks him down because if he was in Mexico he had to be with Jeff Smith and sure enough, he was. What are the odds of finding your pediatrician in Mexico when you are in Russia? God is on our side is all I have to say! That is so AWESOME! Thank you, thank you, thank you Dr. Hoffman! You are a good man!!!!