Our last day in Novosibirsk

Hi everyone! Today we did the usual...visited the orphanage. We only went one time today. When we got there, there were 2 new families visiting little boys. They both spoke Spanish. I'm not sure where the one family was from, but the other couple were from an island close to Spain. They had adopted a liitle girl from Russia about 6 yrs. ago, and now were getting a son. Spain is where the majority of the kids get adopted to from this orphanage. So with us that makes 7 families who came to meet their children this week. Seven more kids that get good homes!! We had fun with Angelina today. She is more comfortable with us, and her little personality is starting to emerge. She has here own schedule, and when she gets focused on something, you can't get he to do anything else. She sets her mouth in this determined way, and sticks to what she wants to do. We finally gave her one last kiss and squeeze, and left. How we wanted to take her with us! We came home this afternoon, and Aleksey prepared documents for us to sign. We will tell you her name when we get home. Got to keep you in suspense. Later on this afternoon, we walked with Aleksey to his church an went to a store. Then Olga and the girls joined us, and we walked to see some more sights. Tomorrow morning we leave Novosibirsk at 7am. That would be 7pm on Sat. night for you in NC. We wil arrive in Raliegh at 9:50 pm on Sun. night, 26 hrs. later. Anyone jealous? We leave on Sun., and get home on Sun. Say a prayer for our safe travels!

Friday's Story

Hello! It's ten at night here...and you all are busy starting your Friday. Today it was more of the same. We went to the orphanage, played with Angelina a bit, and then watched her speech pathologist, as they call her, work with her. This lady was what we would call a therapist kind of. She used toys to teach her how to follow instructions and improve her motor skills. A woman came also to talk a bit to us, and see how we interacted with Angelina. This lady will also be present at our court hearing to give her impression to the judge. In the late aft. we went back again. Everytime we see her, we have to play a bit to get her to warm up to us again. She definitely has a different temperament then Adam. There is a couple and a woman adopting from Sapain here visiting their children also. We all hang out on the floor of this big playroom. It would be very funny to an observer because we all are doing everything we can think of to win our kids over. These poor little children only understand Russian, and we chatter away in English, the others in Spanish, and on the sidelines are the people from our adoption agencies speaking Russian. Tonight for supper, Aleksey's took us to a restaurant, kind of like a cafeteria. We have ate lots of good food since we got here, but Kevin told me about 10 times today that he would give ANYTHING for a cold DR. Pepper and a hamburger!! We have not had iced drinks since we were on the plane. When we pull a bottle of CocaCola aut of the fridge, Aleksey shakes his head and says,"these crazy Americans!" Adam, it was neat to talk to you this morning. We love and miss you!

We said yes!

Hi! This morning we went to the orphanage again. We played with Angelina for while. Found out that they call her Gyala. She paid no attention to her name, so we knew they didn't call her that. She warmed up to us pretty much. When we left, her caregiver reached for her, and she turned to Kevin instead. He was pretty pleased with that! :-) We came home, had lunch, and went back at 4:30. In the aft., we played with her for about 2 hrs. She is a very busy little thing. She gets focused on something, and does it over and over, like stacking cups, or picking up balls. One of us will pick her up, and then the other one holds out our hands. She goes back and forth, thinks it is a game. If you could have seen her yest. morning and then tonight, you would believe in miracles! And best of all we got her to laugh!! No small accomplishment with an orphanage child. By the time we left tonight, we knew we could not say no to her. Thanks for all your prayers... I know that is what helped us to make our decision and fell good about it.

Going to the orphanage

Hi! It's Wed. eve. here. Kevin is feeling a bit under the weather...hope it is nothing serious. Wow, let me tell you, the good ole USA will be looking mighty geat to two Russian travelers come Sun. night.We are staying with Aleksey and Olga and their two little girls, Sonja(4) and Diana(1 1/2). They live in what they call a flat on the 9th floor of an apartment building. They have a nice house, and are taking very good care of us. This morning, the driver picked Aleksey and us up, and we went to meet the Ministry of ED. official. A translater by the name of Xana, met us there too. After officially excepting the referral, Aleksey called the orphanage and got permission to visit Angelina. We were shown into a music room, and after a while a caregiver came in with her. she looked exactly like in the pictures...scared out of her wits. After talking a bit, the lady plopped her down on the couch beside me and left. We talked to her and tried to play with her, and absolutely no response, except to stare. She thawed out a bit, but not much in the half hour we were with her. Then we visited the chief DR. of the orhanage, to find out her history. After going home for lunch and resting we went back for another couple of hours. After trying our best to charm her, she started to show us signs of her personality. And yes, we got her to smile, finally! We will go back tomorrow again. I've read over and over again that bells won't ring or angels sing when you meet your child for the first time. That is very true! Of course they want us to decide for sure if she is ours. Please continue to pray...we are feeling very in need of your support at this point.

Traveling to Russia

Hello everyone! Well, first of all, we arrrived safely in Novosibirsk this morning at about 6:oo. Now for a rundown of what happened before that. We actually got to Raleigh in plenty of time. Amazing for us! :-p There were problems in NYC, so our plane was late leaving out of Raliegh. We had plenty of time, so it was OK. We were dissapointed that we didn't really get ot see much of NYC...just the skyline off in the distance from the airport window. As soon as we boarded the plane in Raliegh, you could tell we were headed for a different place. The plane was full of many types of people speaking many languages. JFK airport is like being in a foreign country already. We felt like real NC country folks trying to find our way around. We finally located the Aeroflot check-in desk, where everyone was chattering away in Russian. As soon as we walked on the plane, the greeting was "Zdras-tvoy-tyeh". (hello) All the announcements were in Russian, then in English. It's a strange feeling to be the minority. Kevin has developed a new understanding for his Mexicans. We sat on the runway 2 hrs. before we took off for Moscow. We were expecting to get supper on the plane, so hadn't eaten yet. Were we ever starved! We finally ate around 11:00 that night. One neat thing about the Russians is they love hot tea. So after the meal is done, the stewardess' bring around hot tea for everyone. On your meal tray is plastic tea cup. After eating, we got as comfortable as you can on a plane, and slept. We got into Moscow about 2pm on Mon. After fumbling our way through passport control, we got to the baggage area, and no luggage. So after wondering around awhile, we went out through customs. There was Alex with our names on a sign. He finally found a lady to help, and she all at once said to come with her. She took us to our suitcases. Answer to prayer. We spent about 4 hrs. in a food court in the airport before we went to the other terminal to board our flight to Novosibirsk. Quite something to be left in a place where hardly any signs are English, and all we heard was Russian. We boarded our flight at 10:30pm. It was an absolutely huge plane--it could seat 350 people. We arrived in Novo at 5:30am. While we waited for Aleksey, a man came up and tried to tell Kevin we were to go with him. I was very skeptical about him, and all at once Aleksey aappeared and was introducing himself. The first man still was insisting we were to go with him. Who knows what would have happened to us! He brought us back to their flat, and we sacked out. Today has been really weird... hungry and sleepy at strange times. We'll be glad when we can go to bed and wake up properly. We haven't been able to access our e-mail, so if you've posted we haven't read them. But we can still send to the blog. Remember us tomorrow as it will be the BIG day.

The countdown...

I can't believe we are finally this far in our adoption journey. Tomorrow, Sept. 24, we fly out of Raliegh at 1:45 pm. We fly to NYC and then at 7:40 we start out over the ocean! Our flying time will be 9 and half hours to Moscow. We will be in Moscow for 9 hours, then leave for Novosibirsk, Siberia where our little girl is. When we get there it will be 5:30 am on Tues. That would be 5:30 pm for you in EST. Lots of you have said that you will be thinking and praying for us. Thanks... that means so much. We will hopefully be able to update this on Tues.

Getting ready for first trip

Got our visas back today so we can actually leave. Two more days to get packed and ready to go

We have got our referral. Yeah!!! We are traveling Sunday the 24th.