We Have Seen Our Boys!

Well, we have now seen both of our boys! We saw Benjamin yesterday and wow has he grown!! He has put on about 5 or 6 pounds since the end of January. He was also very talkative and he sang a very sweet song about a bear for us. They must sing it all the time in the orphanage. I think it was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. The orphanage staff says he has been eating a lot and I would say so. We watched him eat a whole apple, 3 cookies, and a small individual container of Pringles that we brought in our bag. I showed him pictures of Erin and Sam and I told him only one time who they were and he would tell me every time we came back to the pictures who they were. We didn’t get to stay too long but it was easier to leave this time because we knew we would be back in 10 days. Today we went to see Nathan in Spassk. What a long ride!! The roads were even bumpier than I remember and it took longer than 3 hours to get there. Once we got there Dan was feeling very sick from lack of sleep and allergies. When we got there Nathan was coming in from outside with his group. He wasn’t expecting us and we didn’t say anything to him when he came in. He looked at us and we waved at him. Then he looked back and began to smile the biggest smile I think I have ever seen!! He ran down the hall to wash his hands and then he tore back down the hall and ran to us. I picked him up and gave him a big hug and kiss. He was all smiles. It was time for him to each lunch so we just waited for him. It didn’t take long. He didn’t want to be eating lunch I don’t think. He is still so tiny and I do believe that Benjamin has surpassed him in the growth department. He looks no bigger than the last time we saw him. He is the oldest one of the two but definitely the smallest. I brought a shoe with me from home to get a guess on what size shoes to bring with us next time. His shoe size is very small for his age. I would say I am going to have to go and buy some size 6 shoes for him. The one I brought was a 9 and it swallowed his foot. Mom sent a birthday present for him and he loved it!! It was a police car that made much noise. He played with it the entire time we were there. We spent at least 2 hours with him and then turned around and came home. Again, it was hard to leave but we know we will be back in 10 days. I can’t wait to give him a good bath!! Tomorrow we have court and the judge has changed it from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM. I am so tired. We have been on the run since Friday non-stop. It is only going to get worse for a while. I hope to get lots of rest while we are home before we come back. I am so ready to bring these little guys home!!!!!

We Passed Our Medicals!!!!!

How interesting it has been here today. We woke up and had breakfast here in the hotel. Wow European coffee is soooooo good! The food was very good and very Russian. Not that the food was different, it was all things you would recognize but just the fact that their sausages taste like really good hotdogs and that they serve carrot slaw, tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast. I love that but Dan is more of a traditional man and tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast is just not comparable to bacon and eggs. Funny how we are so different. There was also this bread roll that had kraut in it and I really thought I saw pain on his face when he ate it! I thought it was great!!! After breakfast we walked to the store again (by ourselves and we didn’t get arrested) and bought some more meat and cheese for supper and some water and tea. I even paid with Rubles and managed to speak just a little Russian. It was kind of fun! To get to the store you have to go down some stairs and go through a tunnel under the street and then out the other side. There is this bakery there and it smelled so good but since we had already eaten breakfast we didn’t make ourselves gluttons. Next we met Sasha down stairs and realized we have Wi-Fi in the lobby and got very excited. Now I plan to chat with mom later to see how things are going. After we met he took us to our destination. We walked in this room with 4 other families all with their nice, monster yellow chest x-ray folders in their hands. One couple was from Louisiana, 2 were from Germany and we are not sure where the other family was from since we didn’t really talk with them. The doctors came in a couple at a time and asked us a few questions and one of them took our blood pressure. The others just signed off on the basis of our blood work that we had brought with us. Overall, 8 doctors signed off on our documents and then we handed over the money and they stamped everything with the “official blue seal” of Russia. We are good to go to court now!! I loved talking to all the people in there. The couple from Germany we talked to the most were named Gens and Cornelia. They were from Hamburg Germany. They are adopting a 3 year old boy. The couple from Louisiana were here to adopt the 11 year old brother of a little boy they adopted 6 years ago. They said they had looked for him for 3 years and finally found him. Amazing stories and they all give you chills. God is so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After we got done with all that business which took about 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours we went sight seeing again. Sasha took us to a very old monastery and we saw the graves of many people, some of which died in the 1500’s. He told us that this is the oldest monastery in Moscow and when the Tsar’s were ruling Russia it was common for them to send their wives there when they got tired of them since divorce was not allowed so they could marry someone else. Jokingly Sasha told Dan to remember this place. We all had a nice laugh. I told Sasha that if Dan sent me to the monastery he and the kids would starve to death since he can’t cook!

Then we went to “The Hills” and it was a nice day so we took some pictures and Sasha was right, you really can see almost all of Moscow from there. It was extremely windy. All I could think about was how incredibly cold it must be up there in the dead of winter. We then drove to the middle of downtown so he could show us the house of Peter the Great’s father. We could only see the outside since it was locked but that is ok. It was really neat and it was nestled in right along with new shiny buildings and cars were flying by constantly. Next door to that was a church that was rebuilt in the early 1990’s from a replica of one that sat on the same spot in 1918 which was destroyed in the 1930’s. It is unbelievable how politics work here. Sasha pointed out a building behind the church that Stalin had built to house his top leading officials. It was not uncommon for someone to want someone else’s apartment so he might write a letter to Stalin saying that the person living in that apartment had bad mouthed Stalin and within the next day or two that person writing the letter would have the apartment he wanted because they would kick out the other man. I will leave it at that. Then we came back to the hotel and had our cheese, meat and bread and of course some tomatoes. I am now just waiting until 9:00 PM so I can talk to mom. Tomorrow we leave for Vladivostok at 4:55 PM Moscow time and arrive in Vlad at 8:20 AM Wednesday morning and then we go see Yaroslav. Exciting times ahead I do believe!

We Made It To Moscow!

We made it to Moscow! On time too! Sasha picked us up at the airport around 9:00 AM Moscow time and he took us to our hotel. Here is a great picture of Sasha. Don’t you love the t-shirt? That was a wonderful and humorous thing to see when we got off the plane in Moscow!!! After picking us up Sasha took us to our hotel. It is about a 10 minute walk to the American Embassy and is fairly close to the place where we will do our medicals tomorrow. It is not what you would expect in America but there is hot water and a bed. No air conditioning but right now the weather is just perfect. We checked into our hotel and then headed off to see the Kremlin and Red Square. It is very interesting. Many touristy things mingled in with architecture from the 1600’s. Sasha told us all kinds of stories about different buildings and what used to be there and then what was there now. Most of the time the reason the buildings were torn down was due to political differences. One of my favorites was about a church in the 1930’s that had been there a couple of centuries was torn down by Stalin and then he had a lavatory built on top of where it stood. He said it was to make a statement. I think that goes without saying anything. We visited St. Basil’s Cathedral today and it was a holiday of some sort. I have not been able to look anything up yet so I don’t know what it was. There was a choir singing in there on the bottom floor and it was amazing how the sound carried no matter where you were in the church.

The first meal we ate was at Mc Donald’s which is right across the street from our hotel. It is amazing that you can travel here and have a Filet O’ Fish and it taste exactly the same! You don’t even have to speak the language you can just point to the pictures of what you want!! We had Sasha order for us but a Japanese couple beside us ordered just like that!

Right now I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. We are going to try to stay up a bit more but I am not sure I can do it. Right now it is 6:17 AM in Cape Girardeau which means I have been up for 24 hours straight at this moment because Dan and I woke up at 7:45 AM in New York yesterday and have been up ever since!! I have never been this tired.

You wouldn’t know it but I have had some sleep now so I think I can go on! We wish we had the internet so we could call and talk to the kids. That is always the hardest part of our trips. I am sitting in the hotel in the dark looking at the beautiful lights on the buildings because we are on the 10^th floor and we have windows that go from the middle of the wall all the way to the ceiling. This building is very old and has not been renovated. The walls are 2 shades of very 60’s green and the furniture looks about that old as well. We have tv but it really isn’t worth watching. The Russian’s idea of entertainment is very odd.

So right now it is dark outside but we are downtown so there are many tall buildings, like the one above, and there is a beautiful orange moon in the sky just over the tops of the buildings and you can see the reflection of it in the Moscow river. Very picturesque if my camera would take good night shots. This is a shot from our hotel room window. a Sasha took us

to an awesome little supermarket yesterday and we bought some meat, cheese, bread, tea and fruit. I also had to have some tomatoes. We ate that for supper last night and now that we know where to go we could probably go there ourselves without getting arrested as long as we follow the rules of street crossing. I needed salt for my tomatoes and we didn’t want to pay over $3 for it so I settled for some that had mainly salt in it but also some garlic and rosemary. It was really good on my tomatoes. I am glad I have a lot left over! Today we have our medical exams around 2:30 PM along with 3 other families most of which are from other countries. Sasha said Germany, France and I think UK. It should be very interesting to get to visit with them. Sasha is also going to take us sightseeing a little bit more today. We are going to see a house that was built by Peter the Great’s father. He also wants to take us to see something called “The Hills”. He said on a good day you can see over half of Moscow from there. Maybe today will be a good day.

We took a nice ride on the subway this morning too. That subway system is like nothing I have ever seen before. Those trains were flying and they came every 30 seconds or so. The subway stations are decorated in different themes. One was dedicated to Russian life. Another one was all about Kiev and was supposed to portray the wonderful relationship between Russia and the Ukraine. Wonderful?…… anyway, this particular one that I have a picture here of we don’t remember what it was dedicated to. All we remember is we rounded the corner and there was this picture of Lenin and Sasha said it was symbolic because it was the end of the tunnel and all turns lead to Lenin.

This subway station had the longest escalator I have ever seen! When we got on at the top I could not see the bottom and the same when we got on to go back up. I am not sure this picture does it justice but it was steep and long.

I plan to write more tomorrow after our medicals. Moscow is such an interesting place. I am so glad we finally got to do some sight seeing!

We have a court date!!!

For some of you reading this this is not new news to you but to those who don't know we have received our court date!! Our case worker called us last Monday morning and said, "The good news is we have a court date! The bad news is you have to leave Saturday the 21st!" Wow! so much for having 2 weeks notice!! That is just the way things go sometimes. The important thing is we have a court date of August 27th @ 9:30 AM Vladivostok time. That translates to Thursday August 26th @ 5:30 Cape Girardeau time. After 3 days of being on the phone with the most wonderful travel agent ever (seriously! :) figuring out our travel arrangements we ended up having to leave on Friday for New York and we are now at the Hampton Inn-JFK spending the night. The kids are safe and sound with grandma and I just know that all will be well this time. We will leave for Moscow tomorrow @ 2:20 PM New York time and arrive in Moscow 8:00 AM Sunday morning. Moscow is 8 hours ahead of Cape Girardeau. Now Dan and I are just chilling out deciding our game plan for tomorrow. At least we didn't spend our time running through airports today like the last trip! It was very painless and we even sat right next to a couple from Cape Girardeau that we knew all the way to New York. How funny is that? I had Mexican food before leaving St. Louis so I got my salsa fix before crossing the Atlantic. For those of you who remember the last trip for us you remember about the lack of salsa in Vladivostok! Dan wouldn't let me bring a jar of salsa with me. I was very sad. I did bring some tuna lunch kits and microwavable mac & cheese. I am going to try really hard to blog whenever I can this trip. It becomes harder and harder the closer to Russia we get because we don't always have and internet connection. I can't wait until I can post pictures of the boys!!!

The Judge Wants More

Well, we did hear something by the end of July as we had anticipated but it was not what we wanted to hear. The judge has requested 3 more things. Two of those things our agency will take care of. The other thing is for us. I can't believe I even have to write this. The judge has requested our "marriage certificate" instead of our "marriage license". He or she does not like that it says "license". Frustration of frustrations! Wow, I don't even know what to say. The point here is not to argue over technicalities. The lives of two precious little boys hangs in the balance a little longer because of this request. I think I found (I say this cautiously) what the judge is requesting in my "special box" downstairs. It is a document I have never needed in my 14 years of marriage (our anniversary was yesterday, how ironic) and I will never need it. The Recorder of Deeds has exactly what we need but it just happens to say "Marriage License". This piece of paper I found doesn't say "marriage certificate" but it doesn't say "marriage license" either. Oh I pray that this document will be it! If it is, then we have to figure out how to make certified copies of it because it is the only one in existence. It is not on file anywhere. Oh well, just one more hurdle. Dan and I call it "superior character building". By the end of this we are going to be supreme in the character department!

Blogging is just not my talent

I know I am not the best blogger in the world. It is not that I don't like to blog I just don't have time. Laundry, kids and life seem to take precedence. I just wanted to write a little bit of an update for those of you who have been wondering. It seems like forever since we were last in Russia. We have had so many things happen since returning. Of course in April we weren't even sure if we would ever see our boys again thanks to the woman who thought it was just fine to return her adopted child to Russia. God is faithful in everything and we have learned many things since then. God is sovereign in all things including allowing the woman to return her child. ALL things are held in His hands, good OR bad. He has used that woman's sin to bring Himself many praises and much glory through His believers and my prayer throughout this ordeal has been that many unbelievers would come to know Him as well.

Today is the day our documents go to court. We don't know when we will hear anything about when our court date might be scheduled but hopefully it will be soon. We have done everything we are supposed to do so far. Our documents are finished and we are praying that the judge will not want anything else from us. I am not sure what else we could provide!

We have the boys room ready. I will try to post pictures. We have an amazing story about the beds. On July 2nd I was in the pharmacy waiting for a prescription to be filled (no, I don't fill all my own scripts :) and there was a paper in there. I found the want ads and there was one for wooden twin bunk beds listed for $300. I got excited for some reason. Maybe it was because we really needed the beds and it was getting desperate, but then again, maybe not. Nothing like bringing your children home from Russia with no place to sleep! So I called. This family was so nice. I asked about the beds and whether or not they could come apart and be used as twin beds. They could and so then I began to get really excited. I told her that we were adopting and then she began to get excited. When Dan woke up that evening I asked him about the beds and I told him I thought we should go see them. He wasn't as excited about it as me and I knew he really didn't want to spend that money because we just really didn't have it to spend. He agreed that we would go look at them. We got there and again, this family was just different. You could tell they really loved God and they were just so loving. We decided we would go ahead and take the beds. She then told us that the dresser could go too if it would help us. Wow, would it ever! Then she asked us if we had any sheets. My answer was no. She said we could have all of the bedding that went with the beds if we wanted it. Wow again! So we got everything loaded up (mattresses included which were in perfect condition) and I got out the check book. She and her husband were standing there and said, "When you called this afternoon we knew that you were supposed to have these beds. We have decided that this is our gift to you and we want you to have it all. You don't have to pay us for anything." I just started crying. Wow, wow, wow, wow! What else could we say? God provided again. It was a blessing to both of our families.

I am so thankful that I serve the only true God. The one who loves, provides, shows compassion, is faithful in all things, is just, is righteous, holds all things together but yet cares for His own in the smallest of details as in the case of this bedroom furniture. I hope that someone will read this blog and that this testimony of who God is will speak to them so that God might reveal Himself to them and that they would be changed forever. Once He speaks to you, you will never be the same again.

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.