HOME!

We are home. All the flights were on schedule yesterday and the trip was uneventful. Max did really well on the flights. Better than we could have hoped. He got restless a couple times but did not cry once. He was really excited to meet all of his family when we got home. Now we just have to get him adjusted to the 9 hour time change!

Thank you to our families who cleaned the house, bought some groceries, prepared some meals and provided such a warm welcome at the airport!!! You are all amazing and we are really blessed to have such great families and friends!

Heading home!

Tomorrow is the big day. We have been out of the country now for 25 days and tomorrow we get to come home. We are spending the day today packing everything up and trying to get ready to go. Our first flight is at 7:00 AM so the driver is coming at 4:00 AM. That means we have 24 hours of travel tomorrow. We are praying for safety and that baby Max does well with all the travel.

We are all very excited and ready to come home!!!!

One more pic of Max - all bundled up today in his Hawkeye snowsuit. We took him out in Moscow for a bit this morning.

Embassy interview and pictures

Today we went to the US Embassy for our interview and to get Max's passport and US Visa. Everything went as planned. Upon arrival we had to pay the application fee. Paying the application fee was strange because we were told (in our documentation) not to wait in line but there was a very long line. Shortly someone from the Embassy came out and explained that we (US Citizens) were to cut in line. Needless to say this didn't make the others in line very happy as we were all waiting in a very hot room to get to one window to make a payment. Would be nice if they had two windows. Maybe they want to make us look like rude Americans?

After all the families were checked in an embassy representative gave a talk to everyone on the citizenship specifics. Max really likes to hear himself talk so throughout this Max was shouting (not crying) louder and louder while everyone else's kids seemed to be quiet. Overall he was really good - just likes to talk! Our 'interview' was very short and easy and we recieved the documentation we needed to get him into the US. The only thing left for us is the registration with Russia and our agency is taking care of that and dropping off the paperwork tomorrow. Then, we leave at 4:00 AM for home on Thursday!

I have attached some more pictures. A couple of them are Max reading a book - guess he really liked it (Greg also says that puts him one book ahead of him) The others are of him playing with his new favorite toy - Greg's IPOD.

More pictures

Hello everyone. We are doing good but at this point counting down the days until we head home. We have only 3 days left until we start the long trip home. The duration of the trip is about 24 hours. Tomorrow we go to the US Embassy to take care of the documentation to get Max into the USA.

Max is eating really well. He is trying all sorts of new foods. So far, bananas and yougurt are his favorites. We do need some work on sleeping though. He is awake quite a bit at night. Not sure why - could be a lot of things but our best guess is it is just all the newness.

I put up some more pictures. We took Max out for a stroller ride around the apartment complex yesterday. Not sure if he liked it or not but he didn't fuss at all so I think he liked to take everything in. Also put one of him playing it up with Greg - he loves it when we play with his feet. He plays with everything - as you can see - even diet Coke bottles!

Hello

Hello everyone. We have a couple more pictures of Max to show. He did NOT like his bath at all (as you can see) we have no idea how he took baths before so it is hard to tell if this is something new or not. The other pictures are some of Max's favorite activities. He loves peek-a-boo and he really loves to stand (with help) and shuffle around. We think he will be walking soon. He loves to pull himself up.

Things are getting better for all of us. Max doesn't like to be held but sat with Steph for about an hour this morning. We have been spending our time feeding him and playing with him and we think he is starting to realize that these people aren't going anywhere so I might as well make the best of it!

Yesterday we bundled him up and took him out for a walk and to grab some food and go to the store. I don't think he blinked one time as he took in all the new sights, smells and sounds. It was really nice here yesterday - almost 40 degrees and sunny. Sad when that is considered nice but it felt like Spring to us!

We are really excited to get him home. We only have three days left before we start the long trip home. Looking forward to introducing Max to all the friends and family!

The first 48 hours with Max

It has been an eventful first couple days and nights for all of us. The first day and night was spent in a very tight motel room and Max did not sleep well at all (and his parents didn't sleep at all) Hard to blame him as everything is new and he was probably scared. Plus he has some teeth coming in and is still fighting off an infection in his chest. After a restless night and a mistake by Mom and Dad of giving him a nap too early we were on our way from Yaroslavl to Moscow (normally a 4 hour car ride). Max did ok the first couple hours but then started screaming. He had a full belly and a clean diaper but we think he was just very tired. The looooong trip took even longer though when we were in minor fender bender on about a 5 lane road in Moscow (that the Russians make 7 lanes). Needless to say Max was not a happy baby after being in the car for 5.5 hours to try to get to Moscow. After we got here last night he went to sleep and had a much better night 2. We think he is starting to adjust to us some. It is difficult because Max is not used to the attention that we want to give him. He is used to getting a couple bottles a day and a couple diaper changes a day. He is not used to two people fussing after him although he does seem to appreciate having a full belly and a clean diaper. It is going to be a tough adjustment - he doesn't really like to be held or rocked to sleep - he has grown used to figuring out ways to comfort and calm himself. He is not used to playing with others and with toys so we are trying to help him adjust as smoothly as possible to all the newness in his life. He is crawling and with help loves to stand up and take a couple steps. We are still trying to find that magic routine for him. Overall it is going well - maybe a little more difficult than we expected but we are confident we will all adjust to each other in time.

I attached a few pictures of Max. One of them is when we got him back to the motel the first time in his brand new coat (that is a little big!). Another is of his favorite activity which is standing up and checking things out and the other one is just him saying hi to everyone.

This morning we had a visit from a doctor who prepares immigration medical documentation for the adoption. He made a much appreciated house call. He doesn't see anything wrong with Max that won't heal with a little tlc. The rest of our time will be spent at the apartment in Moscow. We meet with our agency at 12:00 on Sunday to prepare documentation for the US Embassy. On Monday we all go there for an interview and to get Max's citizenship documentation in order. That takes a couple days to process and we pick it all up on Wednesday before heading home on Thursday.

We hope all is well with everyone. We are really looking forward to being home. It has been a long trip and we are looking forward to Thursday.

Made it back to Moscow

Hi everyone - just wanted to write a quick note to say we made it back to Moscow. We are back in the apartment which is sooooooo much better than the hotel we were at in Yaroslavl. It was an eventful day and we are beat - Max is sleeping already and we are heading to bed. We will update with details and pictures tomorrow.

Welcome baby Max!

Today we welcomed baby Max into our family. We went to pick him up this afternoon and he was crying when they brought him into us. It was his naptime (they may have woke him up to bring him in) and he is teething. Steph did a great job of rocking him and getting him calmed down and to sleep on the way back to the motel. After that we had some good play time and Max had his first meal with us. He has just gone to sleep for the night so I guess we survived day 1! We will update with some pictures and more info tomorrow when we get back to Moscow.

tomorrow's the day!!

Our agency representative is picking us up tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM to go pick up Max! After we pick him up we have some stops to make to start the citizenship and registration process. We will update the blog tomorrow as soon as we get the chance. We are looking forward to it!

Gypsies and Record Snow!

Yesterday we rode to Yaroslavl from Moscow during a large snowstorm. We were kind of nervous riding as they really have no place to put the snow so the roads were not great. The snowstorm started when we got back to Moscow from Rome (on Friday) and it snowed pretty much straight through Monday. According to this report Moscow recieved almost 25 inches of snow over the few days and it is a new record snowfall. Sure glad we could be here for it!(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8529506.stm)

We made it safe and are all checked into our motel in Yaroslavl. We spend today (Tuesday) here then tomorrow we get to go visit Max. On Thursday we pick up Max and bring him back to the motel before heading back to Moscow on Friday. We are really looking forward to visiting him tomorrow but more looking forward to taking him with us on Thursday!

It also seems that we have new experiences almost everyday on this trip. Yesterday when we got into Yaroslavl our driver stopped at McDonald's so we could grab some lunch. We got our food to go only to be surrounded by a pack of Gypsies on the way back to the car!!! Our driver shouted at them (in Russian) and we kept walking. He told us to never talk to Gypsies!!

Everything is going very well - we can't wait to pick up and visit Max over the next couple days. We will try to update tomorrow sometime after visiting him.

Moscow tour

This morning we went on a tour of the Moscow city center. We went to the Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin and Kremlin Cathedrals and Lenin's Mausoleum. I'm not sure how to describe the Mausoleum...he is on display despite being dead for more than 80 years but curiosity got the best of us so we checked it out. We did cut the tour a bit shorter then we probably would have liked because it is very cold. We also got to experience the "Metro" which is the subway system here in Moscow. It got us very close to the city center and cut some time out of walking outside.

Back in Moscow

Hello everyone - We are back in Moscow and all moved back into the apartment. We spent a portion of the day traveling back from Rome and were greeted by a pretty big snowstorm and traffic mess when we got back to Moscow. Checking the forecast it looks like the city is expecting snow clear through to Sunday. Luckily for us we are staying put until we go to Yaroslavl on Monday.

We haven't updated the blog in a couple days so I will try to update. On Wednesday we went to the Vatican to hear the Pope speak. We were inside and I would guess there was about 25,00o people in attendance. They did some readings (in 6 languages) and the Pope spoke (also in 6 languages) and they recognized some of the larger groups that had traveled to be there, none farther than us as far as we could tell! We spent the rest of the day exploring Rome as it was very nice outside! Thursday was more of the same and we ate at a favorite restaurant from the week. Rome was awesome and we are so glad we got to go.

We are supposed to go tour the Red Square, Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral tomorrow. We will have to see how much snow and how cold it is. We will probably go regardless as we are running out of days in Moscow before we get Max and we don't want to drag him outside any more than we have to.

We stay here in Moscow until Monday then we go to Yaroslavl. We pick up Max on Thursday. Then on Friday we come back to Moscow before coming home the following Thursday - March 4. After we get Max we will be very busy taking care of his medicals and citizenship documents but until then we are not too busy.

Hope everyone is doing well - we will post some pictures if we make it to the Red Square tomorrow!

Rome part 2

Rome has been a lot of fun so far. The rain has made it a little challenging to be outside for long periods of time, but we have seen everything we set out to see atleast once. Yesterday we set out to go to the Vatican(a 40 minute walk) to get our tickets to see the pope but learned they weren't handing them out until today. We also went to see the Pantheon, Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps(I will inclued pictures). When we got back to the room we discovered a couple of problems. Greg went to put the key in the door and the key broke in two.(the keys in this hotel aren't like credit cards they are actual keys like we have to unlock our house). The front desk then had to somehow take the broken key out of the lock and find us a new key. We then went to take our cash and video camera out of the safe and realized it was no longer working. How do we our valueables out of the safe? The front desk had to jimmy the safe open some how. Not really secure!! The front desk is getting to know us on a first name basis. This all happened after Greg raised a fuss as they overbooked our room and made us stay in a completely diffrent hotel the first night.

Today we went back to the Vatican. We got smart and took the bus. We had to wait in line for security but once we got thru we went to St. Peter's Basilica and climbed the steps to the top of the domb. We went thru the grottoes and saw some of the tombs where past Popes lay to rest. Very interesting to know that their bodies lay an arm distance away. We then went to the Vatican Museum to see Michelangelo's artwork in the Sistine Chapel.

Tomorrow we are headed back to the Vatican, on the bus, to actually see the Pope speak. We have tickets to hear him speak at 10:30 am. Kind of cool that we are going on Ash Wednesday.

Rome

Rome has been amazing so far. We have only been here one full day but we have seen a lot and had a great time.

This morning we went to the Colosseum and did the ancient Rome tour that include such things as the Romun Forum, Arch of Constantine and a number of Temples. It was pretty amazing and hard to believe that many of these structures have been in place for more than 2000 years.

The weather is really nice. It is in the 50s and coming from Des Moines and Moscow that feels really good. Greg wasn't wearing a jacket or anything. They do have some rain in the forecast this week but hopefully it doesn't get in the way too much. We have a number of sites yet to see including the Vatican.

The food has been great. Tonight we had some lasagna (thanks for the pointer Ryan and Amy) and some gelato. With our lunch we each had a coke that was a tad on the spendy side...5 Euros each!!! (That is like $7.50) I guess that is one of the reasons everyone drinks wine here!?

I know some (most) people only want pictures of Max but here are a few of our day today.

Rome

Hi everyone - thought we would let you know we made it to Rome. It is almost 1:00 in the morning here and we just got checked into the motel - are planning on getting some sleep tonight then hitting some of the tourist spots tomorrow. Talk to you soon!

We had a big day.

Today was a big day. We got up early this morning to get ready to go to court. Neither of us really knew what to expect - although we have talked to others that have gone through this process the court experience can be unique based on the region of the country, the current views on adoption and seemingly the overall mood of the judge!

We went into the courtroom with our social worker, a translator, a lawyer from the state, a secretary and the judge. It was kind of strange because there was a small jail cell in the courtroom as evidently the room is used for civil and crimimal cases. Anyway, the judge had a number of questions for us over about 20 minutes. We were a little nervous as the questions started but evidently we answered them all ok because after it was done he granted the request so at this point everything is finalized after the 10 day waiting period. It is good news and we are really happy to have this step behind us! Our social worker did say that he asked us more questions than he does many couples - she said this is likely because we are young :) Some of the questions he asked were regarding our home, what we have done to child proof the home, will Max have his own bedroom, our health insurance, why we chose to adopt from Russia, did we know the health history of the child, who will care for Max, etc. The questions were pretty simple but want to make sure we said the 'right things'.

After court we got to go visit Max for about an hour or two. He was happy to see us and play for a while. He is now sitting up much better and we got him to crawl and even stand up (with some help). He does have some wheezing sometimes when he breathes and seemed to grab at his ears - we suspect he has developed a chest infection and maybe an infection in his ears. This shouldn't be a big deal we just want to get him home and get him some treatment! The shirt he had on today was a 3-6 month size so he is really little for his age - once again we just want to get him home so we can help him to get all caught up!

We are now back in Moscow at the apartment. It is very comfortable. We have tomorrow off to do some exploring and we head to Rome on Saturday.

We have also included some pictures of our visit with Max today. Everything has gone very well this trip and we are so appreciative of the support from family and friends. We will continue to update the blog as we continue our travels!

Court time set

Today we rode to Yaroslavl and met with our agency representative. She gave us the details on court tomorrow. Our court time is set for 9:30 AM. After that we are going to go meet with Max for a while and then head back to Moscow where we will spend Friday before heading to Rome for a short trip leaving on Saturday. Everything is going very well so far and hopefully it continues with court and our visit tomorrow!

We made a good choice!!

We just checked DSM airport and the flight to Chicago that we were supposed to be on Tuesday got cancelled. Had Greg not changed our flight we would not have been able to bring Max home as planned,our visas would have expired again, and we would not have made our flight to Rome.

How much snow did Des Moines actually get? Thanks Rachel and Scott for Shoveling.
Tomorrow we get to travel the 5 hrs to Yaroslavl and wait to go to the orphange and court on Thursday morning.
We will update late Thursday night once we are done with court and make the 5hr drive back to Moscow.

We are here

Due to a last minute change in schedule we are here in Moscow a day early. We decided to change around our flight after seeing the forecast for Des Moines and Chicago. Anyway, we are here and all checked into the motel. Our luggage made it this time so the trip is off to a great start! Tomorrow we head to Yaroslavl then on Thursday we have court. We are both really tired from the trip (and the late night schedule change before we came) so we are going to grab some food and get some sleep. Hope everyone is hanging in there with the next round of snow - talk to you soon. Greg and Steph

Heading back!

We have some official dates and plans for when we head back to Russia. We are flying out on February 9, arriving in Moscow on February 10. We will then have court on February 11 and be visiting Max on that day. Then we have a 10 day waiting period where we cannot visit Max and don't have anything official that we have to do. We have decided to tour Moscow some during this time and we have also decided to catch a flight to Rome and tour there as well. We are flying to Rome from Feb 13 - Feb 19. The adoption will be finalized on Feb 25 so we will be back to pick up Max on that date. After that, we need to finalize his citizenship, medicals and official registrations before we finally come home on March 4. We will try to update the blog frequently. Thanks everyone for following along and pray for safe travels! Talk to you all soon - Greg and Stephanie

Getting ready to head back!

Our agency contacted us today and told us to get our Visas ordered and that our court date would be either February 9, 10 or 11. The date will be finalized later this week or early next week but either way we will likely be leaving for Russia again very soon! We will update when we have a final date set!

finally home

Just wanted to let everyone know we got home about 10:30 last night. Now our luggage is another story. Anyway, the next step is wait for a court date. The Russian courts have 21 days to issue us a court date. Once we have the court date we go back to Russia,see Max one more time, go to court and then wait 12-14 days before we can take Max out of the orphange. Once we have Max we have to spend about a week in Moscow finalizing everything. Then we get to come home. We will post the court date here on the blog once we know when it will be.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We also wanted to thank you for all your comments on the blog.

Classic Russian souviner?

So, Steph and I were walking only about a 1/2 mile from Red Square yesterday when we decided to do some souviner shopping. As many of you know the traditional and most popular of the Russian souviner is the "matroshka" or Nesting dolls. These are hand crafted wooden pieces that fit inside one another. Well, I found the best ones I could imagine in one paticular store proving that not only is it a Hawkeye nation it is a Hawkeye world!! It didn't take me too long to decide to make the purchase!

Long day getting longer....

United is on a roll with us so far this trip!

We got to the airport this morning at about 9:00 for our flight leaving at 12:20PM. We had to get here early because we still didn't have our luggage and because our Visa was expired by one day and we had to take care of that. We paid a small fee for a Visa extension of one day and the airline told us our luggage was en route to Moscow (a lot of good that does us) and they would transfer it to our flight home. We found our gate and the plane was late coming in...then we found out it is having problems with the de-icing system so after a 3 hour delay our flight was cancelled AND our Visas expire today. United put everyone up in a Motel tonight except us as we have expired Visas and will not be able to leave the airport so we get to spend the night at the "business center" for United. It is pretty nice and has Wi-Fi, food, drinks but only chairs so we are here all night probably with very little sleep again before starting the 24 hour trip home tomorrow....

We have also been booked on different flights. We leave at 7:05 AM and go to Frankfurt then to Chicago then home arriving about 10:00 PM tomorrow night.

It has been a long journey already and we haven't even really started.

Overall we will make it home and be fine and not complain too much - the trip has been a success no matter how painful the traveling is.

Talk to you all soon -

Greg and Stephanie

Day 3

Today Greg and I over slept (we are still on Iowa time!) so we didn't have a lot of time to do any site seeing. We did a little shopping in the morning, went to lunch at McDonalds and then met a lady to take us to do our Medicals.

We met her at 12:30 at just got home at 5:30. We had to go to a private clinic where only government employees and retirees have privliges. We first stopped to have blood drawn, then had to have chest x-rays redone because they were in our checked luggage. Thanks again United..another $100.00. We then had to see a psychiatrist where they asked us few questions signed a sheet and were on our way. We then saw A Nurologist, pulmonologist,general doctor, infectionist, skin doctor, therapist and oncologist. Some just asked questions and some did actual physical exams. In the end we got all the signitures we needed to complete the adoption.

It has been a long day so we think we are going to grab some dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and somehow figure out how we are going to wake up on time in the morning to catch our flight(No alarm clock and our cell phones don't have signal). Hopefully we meet all our connections this time,without problem, like on the way here. And we hope our luggage somehow finds it way home.

It has been a very good and very successful trip - we are looking forward to being home.

Talk to everyone soon!

Greg and Stephanie

PS - We can't get the spell check to work so this is probably not good...fogive me!

Day 2

Hi Everyone,

Today was a much better day. We got up this morning and had breakfast at the hotel. When we got back we got a call saying it was time to go to the ophanage. We got to the ophange and the doctor came in and told us all of Maxim's medical history and as much info they had on the birthmom. Surprisingly nothing shocking jumped out at us. All the doctors evaluations came back great with the exception that Max can't sit up on his own yet(completely expected due to the lack of interaction). He is a very happy baby and loved us being there. He took to us the minute he was handed over. All giggles and smiles except when we tried to take his picture.

After the hour and a half we spent with him we went to the Notary's office and signed the letter of intent to adopt. We have to finish up court documents and wait for a court date.

As for the orphanage, we did not get to see a lot of it. There was a nice but small room inside the entry way which they directed us to and shortly after they brought Max in. The room was painted very nice, had nice couches, and lots of toys for the children to play with. We did not get any further so we have no idea what the living conditions are actually like.

We will attach a couple of pictures but keep in mind I have no make up or curling iron...Thanks United airlines. Tonight we are back to Moscow - staying in a NICE apartment near the Kremlin. Tomorrow we have medical evaluations and will try to update again.

Hope everyone is doing well - talk to you soon!

Good Start

Today is off to a much better start then yesterday...just checked ESPN to see that Green Bay got bounced from the play offs! Go Vikings - OK will be back on later
Greg

Day 1 -- Moscow/Yaroslavl

Hi Everyone - We are here! We boarded our first flight about 27 hours ago but we are now checked into our Hotel in Yaroslavl. The airline lost our luggage so that is bad...our driver did take us to a Wal-Mart type store to pick up some essentials. The chances of them locating our bag and getting it to us are pretty slim at this point so we will have to make do.

No big plans tonight - we are both exhausted. There is a restaurant at the motel so we are going to head down and grab some food and then get some much needed sleep.

Tomorrow is the big day - in the afternoon we get to go to the orphanage for a visit. After that is done we head back to Moscow (about a 4 hour car ride) for our Medicals on Tuesday.

We will make every effort to post some updates and pictures tomorrow. We are staying at an apartment that that the agency maintains so we are not sure on internet availability but we will try our best.

Thanks everyone for the encouranging words, thoughts and prayers.

Talk to you soon!

Greg and Stephanie