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