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.