It's Here!

Our Mortgage letter finally showed up early this morning on our door step. I have to tell you that this past week has been a killer on my nerves. I knew that it would show up deep in the recesses of my mind but many things went wrong this week and it took two extra days to get here. I know that does not seem like a big deal but since we are getting on a plane Thursday morning and with Labor Day - we only had two more bussiness days to take care of things and that is cutting it too close for me. For those of you who are not familiar with Apostilled Papers here is a picture. There is nothing much to it but it is critical that you have it.

Anyway, we now officially have all our paperwork, plane tickets, hotel reservations and visas. Technically we are ready to go but my "TO DO" list is still very long. With all the things that are going on I think I forgot to tell you all about our travel dates. The top of the blog has the countdown until court but we actually leave in "5 DAYS". I can not believe it. We are going to fly out on 9/4, have court on 9/8 and be back in Ohio on 9/10. When then leave again on 9/15 and return to the US with our new son on October 1st. I know you must be thinking that we are crazy to be traveling back and forth but we have our reasons. My heart is aching that we have to leave him again but I keep telling myself that it is just one more time(the last time) and the fact that we know exactly when we will see him next, helps. Someone else wrote that with each day they were are away from your child , they would fall more in love with them and the time away got worse - I agree 110%. It is hard to imagine unless you experience it, how you could fall in love with a child that you have only spent 12 hours with but it happens - it is wonderful!

So now that we have 5 days left, I am off to the races - I should post again before we leave. Our Court date is September 8th at 10am(2 am EST). So I ask those of you who have been praying for us to start praying now for our preparedness and wisdom in our answers, that the judge looks kindly on us and grants us to be parents of Little M and that most of all God will be glorified in this adoption.

God Bless you all

Progress

Well, I have been very busy over the last week and have realized that I should do a little update(ok not so little).  Because we did not have exact travel dates right away, we decided to do shopping last weekend. Little M now has a nice new wardrobe, even Russ was enjoying looking at cloths. We got the basics along with a few toys, new safety latches, sippy cups and so on. It was a fun start to a very stressful week. The main goal was to get the visas off (done by Wednesday), contact the Mortgage company regarding our letter, and booking plane and hotel. Since we are making a second and third trip it took longer to get the details of our travel dates so I did not actual finalize the plane and hotel reservations until today. It is amazing how much money I can spend on plane and hotel rooms in just a couple of hours( 7 nights stay in Moscow and 4 different plane flights). Thankfully we have been able to collect many Marriott points over the past year plus and are able to really reduce our bills at Moscow hotels.

The main drama of the week is getting the Mortgage letter. I fully expected to receive the letter this week but thankfully I received several responses to my plea in the last post and I was able to get a phone number of a helpful person in the US. Actually our letter had not even been written but the people were very helpful and were able to get it out right away. However, there was and error in the first letter so another one had to be done and sent(I did not handle this very well and thankfully Russ realized - after a tearful phone call - that I was at the end of my rope and took over from there. We finally got the letter and then began the amazing coordination of how to get it to Frederick county Maryland for verification and then to Annapolis Maryland to receive the apostille. Well, it is off and my prayer(Yes I am still praying fervently for papers) is that it will be back in our hands safe and sound(and correct) by Wednesday.

Thankfully through this anxiety filled week, my bible study had some focus on anxiety. The one that struck me was Matthew 6:25-34. This talks about not to worry about food and clothing because God takes care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and He will take care of you. Specifically verse 32 says"... for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." God has lead us into the wonderful journey and carried us through many trials and tears, He knows we need this paper for our little boy, why would He not provide it for us? Me of little faith.

So we have 11 days until we leave, it seems so far away but at the same time, I don't know how I will get everything done. Besides all the prep for the trip and court and his homecoming, I have to organize things for my parents and their crazy schedule with the kids. I also find myself working on things that don't have to be done for awhile but I know that once we return with little M that I won't be able to do - or won't want to do - like getting the oil changed in the car, cleaning the carpets, and the list could go on and on...

One thing that I never fail to remember is how much I miss him. I look at his pictures constantly and think about how things will be when he is here - in fact last week with our trip to King's Island, we all were making comments like, M would like this ride next year. I told Russ that once I pick him up to take him out of the orphanage, I am going to want to hold him forever and never let him go.

Before I leave I want to congratulate Kyley and Greg on their Court Date(just a few days after ours) and for Craig and Phyllis who will be on their way home from trip one after meeting their three boys. It is so heart warming to see all these children being adopted and getting their forever families.

May God bless you all!

COURT DATE!

YEAH!!!! I have been waiting so long to type that title for a post. In fact I was thinking today that I needed to post again and I was going to title it "21" being the number of days that it has been since we have seen little M but I like this title MUCH better.

You know how they say that when you go away that is when everything happens - well we went to Kings Island today with the kids - the last outing before school starts. We had a great time - no news, no Olympics, no emails, blogs phone calls or even a cell phone. So no one could get in touch with us even if they wanted to. In fact only my parents and Russ' work even knew where we were. Aren't we glad that we checked our email before we went to bed! - Of course now I can't sleep because I have a million things running through my head about all the things that I thought I would have more time to do - I am not complaining though!

Oh - by the way court is September 8th - no travel dates yet but we are thinking that we will leave September 4th - that only leaves 3 weeks!

ONE THING TO ASK: If anyone has a way that I can contact Citimortgage by phone in the US(specifically account Inquiries in Maryland). Let me know. That is the one document that we are waiting on for court and we are now running out of time. Just post or email me.

I will leave you all with pictures of our 3D glasses from Kings Island.

Little L is left out here because of his pouty face.

But it didn't take long for him to be back to his normal self!

God Bless

Paper-itis?

Ok, it has been awhile since I have sent off all the papers 

to the necessary people but they are finally starting to trickle back in to us. This is wonderful news because I can finalize them by getting them apostilled and then send them off to Russia. However, this week, I have realized that I have come down with an acute attack of paper-itis! Yes, I know that is just made up by my symptoms are real. When I start thinking about having to read and re-read papers check dates and signitures; make sure the right papers are stapled together; yada, yada  - literally, I start to get agitated, my heart rate goes up, I get very nervous and my stomach gets tied in knots and I am snippy with everyone. There might not be an official diagnosis in the medical books but I know that it is real and that I have it. What has made it worse is that on top of all the adoption paperwork, I have had 3 large piles of paperwork to fill out for school!

So how do I get through this problem that I have? Well, prayer is the first thing. In prayer, God has allowed me to step back and trust in Him on getting things done and done right! Next, I just keep looking at the wonderful picture of our new little boy. A little boy who probably does not even understand that those fun people who spent time with me will be back to not just play for a few hours but for a lifetime!

SO, I am battling my paper-itis and I feel much more in control of myself. And with the  end of the paper trail coming to an end(for now), excitement is started to take over me again. We are hoping to get our papers back from the CPA on Tuesday. I will then get everything apostilled and off to CHI in St Louis and then on to Russia. I will only be waiting for our Mortgage letter which I hope I will get in the next week.

For those of you who are not familiar with the term apostilled, it is just a verification of the notary. There are usually two steps: 1) you have to got to the county that the notary is registered in and get them to verify that the notary is registered with them. Then you take that to the Secretary of State to verify the county information. 

One more pray request to send out is for the conflict between Russia and Georgia. It is horrible that people are dying and the ugliness of people is really coming out. All of us that are in the process of adopting are also very fearful how this could effect bringing these wonderful children home. 

Now to leave you with a picture of our first cloths purchase for little M. 

GO BUCKS!