We have a daughter!

Yippee, court is done and it was a success! The hearing was just under 2 hours and not too difficult at all. It helped a lot that we adopted Oscar from Russia too. The judge and the prosecutor kept referencing our son and our experience. With that being said though, it was still very stressful. It feels great to have it over with!
We did visit Olivia this morning but only for an hour. Plus, the whole time we were with her our translator was reviewing everything with us for court. On top of that, poor Olivia has a bad cold. She had this bright red nose and chapped cheeks. She wasn't the same happy little baby from our first visit. Seeing her sick just makes this next wait even more difficult. We don't know the exact date that we can come back yet. We are going to go back to the orphanage this evening before we have to get back on the train. It will be nice to have time with her with no other distractions. So excited to just get her home!

Court tomorrow

Well we made it to Moscow and survived the 8 doctor medical. We got in yesterday and completed the medical today. We are going to see Olivia tomorrow at 8 and then head to court at 10. We can't wait to see her! We are a little nervous about when we will be able to pick her up for trip 3 because of the Russian May holidays. We won't know until tomorrow. Our coordinator has to speak with people tomorrow to find out when they will be closed. Say a prayer for us that we are not waiting until May 9th to come back. They said that is our worst case scenario.
I would like to give one little bit of advice for families thinking about adopting or are starting the process. Get a Marriott credit card!!!!! We will have all of our hotel nights paid for in Moscow (4 total nights) and a possible side trip (while waiting for her passport) in St. Petersburg (3 nights)because of this card. Hotels in Moscow are insanely expensive (500+ a night) so this has been a major cost savings for us. There is no Marriott in Vologda, but at least everything else is free. The Marriott company has been great about scheduling our trips and working with us when we needed early check ins and late check outs too.
Well wish us luck on court tomorrow!

Our Little Man is 4!

Happy 4th Birthday to our Ozzie!!!!
We had a pretty low key birthday with visits from Grandpa, Uncle Slug, and Aunt Jeanne. Oscar loved his new trampoline and the policeman toys from Uncle Slug and Aunt Jeanne.
In two weeks it is birthday time with the cousins and next month will be birthday time with Grammie. That is the joy of not living close to family, birthday's last for much longer. :)

Thank god for kids

This past week has been crazy!!! Our furnace broke, portions of our house lost electricity, Joe's truck needed brakes, our insurance company is fighting with us over our flooded basement from a month ago, and I had to run around to get paperwork done. In the end, I just keep thinking thank god for kids! I am not a really religious person, definitely more spiritual than religious, but thank god for kids. In all of the craziness of this week I just kept thinking thank god we are going to Russia next Sunday and thank god Oscar makes us laugh every day. The thing is that as a teacher, I have always been thankful for kids. I know many people can't fathom the thought of teaching high school students. I however, have very few days where I don't laugh at work. Now of course, the kids can make me crazy angry or disappoint me, but in the end I really do laugh and smile a lot. Now, as a mother, I am just more thankful for children. They always put things into perspective. We are now down to 11 more days before our court date! I can't wait to see baby o again! :)

Now Arizona?

So when our court date got moved back two weeks it was because the judge wanted a little more information on our employment letters. Mine was no issue. I emailed the school district's HR secretary and she had it done in a day. Joe's on the other hand was a whole different story. Joe's company has a form letter for employment letters so adding additional info is not allowed. Joe typed up the form letter and added the one line of additional information and his boss could not sign it because it did not come from HR. So thankfully his boss got involved and called the corporate HR department to request this new letter. The really entertaining part is that the letter is now coming from Arizona. We live in IL. So naturally we had a day of panicking trying to figure out how we are going to get an apostille from Arizona and get the document to our agency in Indiana by this Thursday. So here is the crazy luck that we have- one of my good friend's in-laws live in Phoenix. Her sister-in-law is going to get the apostille for us and fedex the letter to our agency. So in the end we are getting the letter today, overnighting it to AZ, and it should be in IN by Tuesday or Wednesday. Please pray that this all works out! Two weeks from today we will be heading back to Russia. :)

Confirmation

Well our court date is April 12th. We were tentatively scheduled for March 31st but the judge wanted two more documents. Thankfully, they shouldn't be anything too difficult to get together. We will be leaving on the 9th, so we have 3 more weeks of waiting. Looks like baby sister will be coming home around Mother's Day. :)

Hoping for Confirmation Soon!!!

We got a message on Monday that our agency is trying to confirm our court date. I was hoping I would hear today, but no luck. Maybe tomorrow, but I'm just hoping we hear this week. Tomorrow I will be shopping for gifts and trying not to buy too much cute little girl stuff when I hit the outlet malls!