The Fun Stuff

Ken and I have been told to expect a two month wait between trip one and trip two, so we have been trying to get everything in order before Angelina gets home. We have been working on Angelina's room over the past week, its been fun and very exciting to finally be working on a nursery for our daughter!

I have been taking pictures of the transformation.

Our guest room pre-adoption

Ken annoyed with Adrian: "Why must you take pictures of this?!"

Closet

Door to the hallway

Ken's turn with the camera!

The top is antique white, and the bottom is garden green.

The ladybug and dragonfly border will go between the two colors around the room.

We have still been waiting word from our adoption agency about what other paperwork we need to complete, they say we should know within the next few weeks. Other than that, we have been working on solidifying a pediatrician, getting approval for my maternity leave and shopping!!!

All of this fun stuff is certainly a well-deserved trade off for all of the paperwork we had to complete in the fall!

Preparing Our Home

Its been a week since Ken and I have been home from Russia and meeting Angelina. It has seemed to be a long week, and I hope that the next weeks leading up to our court date does not feel as long! We have not heard anything from our agency about additional paperwork or a potential court date, but, we were not expecting to hear anything this soon, either. So, its just a waiting game at this point!

We have started to get our house ready for our Daughter to come home. We have been making a donation pile for goodwill and have cleared out the room where Angelina's nursery will be. We picked a cute ladybug/dragonfly theme and bought paint to get the room in order. Ken's brother and wife were gracious enough to let us borrow a crib, stroller, toys, clothes, and a whole bunch of other baby-types of items. We are very thankful for this! Ken's planning to paint next weekend. I am so excited to get this room together, its something that I've been dreaming about for two years, and at some points, thought we'd never get here. Perseverance certainly does pay off.

We were told by my sister-in-law that we had to register pretty quickly. So, Ken and I went to town with the scanner on Saturday night. It was surely hard to register for a 16-month old baby, we questioned everything that we scanned, wondering if Angelina was too old or too young for certain things....if anyone has any advice as 16-month old must-haves, I'd love to hear!

Home Sweet Home

It didn't really hit me that we left our daughter in Russia until the plane ride home. I had many breakdown moments. The return is bittersweet, though, as now the anticipation and anxiety is gone. Ken and I know that we have a beautiful, healthy little girl waiting for us that we need to get ready for, and boy, do we have a lot to do! I wanted to give you all some more details about our trip, and some pictures as well!

Angelina is living in the Karachev Baby Home, Karachev is a very small town about 40 minutes from the town of Bryansk which is where we stayed. I can definitely say that our experience there was wonderful. The caregivers and doctors care for the children in this baby home, and we knew that just from watching them interact with the children. This gave us great piece of mind. The baby home was very neat and clean, but also had bare walls. Angelina's play room, and the music/gathering room had toys and gym-type equipment as well. The baby home smelled like boiled cabbage. I'm not sure if I'll be able to ever get that smell out of my memory! Ken and I feel so lucky after seeing the health of our daughter. She can walk and dance on her own, can mimic what Ken and I do (shake head, clap, etc...) and has a healthy weight. She has a smile that could melt ice, and she is very lovable. We will need to work on her speech, as she didn't babble much when we were there, but the doctors assured us that she does indeed babble and talk with one-syllable sounds. Outside of the baby home was this long row of lilac trees. We took this as a great sign as the lilac is the state flower of NH, as well as one of our favorite flowers!

The town of Bryansk was much cuter and more quaint than what I had pictured in my head. We stayed in the one hotel the town has, and they had good accommodations. Across from the hotel, there was a nice park, and behind the hotel, there was the main street. We shopped in a large department store, and had fun just watching the culture. Ken and I definitely struggled with eating out, as Bryansk has very few English speakers. But, our hotel and the wonderful Italian restaurant in town both had English menus, so basically, we would just point to what we wanted. I would have to say that eating out was the most stressful part of the trip for me. I never realized how hard it is to be in a country where you can't communicate! We were in Bryansk for one of Russia's major holidays, Victory Day-May 9th. Victory Day celebrates Russia's defeat over Germany in WW2. All over Russia, there were parades and ceremonies. We got to see a parade in Bryansk. This was a great experience for us.

We left for Moscow on Friday night, rode the 6 hour over night train, and got to Moscow at about 6:15 am on Saturday. Our driver, Vlad, picked us up and took us on a quick city tour before dropping us off at the airport. There is not much I can say about Moscow besides that it is just took my breath away, and it is truly beautiful and awe-inspiring. I'll leave you with a few pictures of our sight-seeing!

This is Ken and I at the 0-KM point in Moscow...Though, you can't see the compass we are standing on!

The Kremlin- I never expected this to be so massive!

Of course, St.Basil's Cathedral which is more beautiful than I imagined.

I've never seen more red and yellow tulips than what I saw in Moscow and Bryansk. They are everywhere and beautiful!

Trip One is Almost Done!

It's 10:00am here in Moscow on Saturday and Ken and I are anxiously waiting for our flight home! Our driver Vladimir showed us the sights today in Moscow, we walked around Red Square and went to a beautiful outlook that had great views of the city! (Pictures to come as soon as we get home!)

We had a great two days in Bryansk, and enjoyed our limited time with our daughter Angelina so much. We can't wait to share her with everyone, and to brag about her when we get home! She is such a wonderful, beautiful baby! And, if what we saw of her will determine her future profession, we think that she is going to either be a soccer player (was kicking balls and blocks everywhere!) or a musician (she went to town on a toy piano!)

Thanks everyone for all of your well wishes and support!

Privet from Bryansk!

Its been quite an exciting and wonderful full few days here in Russia! We left Boston on Tuesday night at 4:00, landed in Frankfurt at 5:00am, then arrived in Moscow at 2:30pm on Wednesday! Our driver, Vladimir, took great care of us for the few hours we were in Moscow. We did not have time to get out of the car and see the sights, but he promised us time on Saturday when we returned to Moscow. From what we saw, though, it is quite a beautiful city with so much culture and History.

At 6:00pm, our driver brought us to the train station, and we had a 6 hour train ride to Bryansk. The train time was our fist time to really relax, and we definitely crashed! We had some funny moments when trying to communicate with the woman who worked on our car, who spoke no English…you were right dad!! But, after she figured out that we were not going to the Ukraine, things settled down.

We met Olga and our driver at midnight in Bryansk, and they brought us to the hotel…it was quite a sleepless night as we knew that in the morning, we would be meeting our child.

Today was just incredible. We received the information on our DAUGHTER (what a shocker that was!), then it was off for the 40 minute drive to her baby home. We had a great time at the baby home, and all of the staff there work so hard to take such good care of all of the children. We met with the doctors and her caregivers, and by the time we left, Ken and I just had a wonderful “gut” feeling! We spent the rest of the day completing paperwork and making our intention to adopt official!

Our doctor in Providence gave our daughter perfect reviews, and even told us that children in this health are hard to find now-a-days. This prognosis fit in perfectly with our guts!

Tomorrow (Friday) we get to go visit our daughter again. We will be able to feed her, and take her outside! And…some more good news…the woman who works for the Ministry of Education says that our court date will most likely be at the end of June!

See you on Saturday!

Paca Paca New Hampshire!

Our first trip countdown is dwindling! Tomorrow at this time we will be in a plane heading to Moscow! We have some last minute packing to do tonight, and then to bed early.

Both Ken and I are experiencing mixed emotions right now, we are definitely excited and happy, and of course very anxious and nervous! This does feel like the "adventure of a lifetime" that those before us have told us it would be.

Bryansk is very rural, and I think that I've located one spot that has Internet access, so we are going to try our hardest to post while in our region!
So...look out for a post Thursday night!
See everyone on Sunday!