We're HOME!

It's so nice to be back home again. We all made it back here safely except for my luggage. Of all the legs of this journey, THIS was the one to loose luggage. We had it in Atlanta going through customs.

Brian and I are anxious to get the house ready for the boys. We need to decorate the bedrooms and buy clothes. I don't know what sizes to buy or how much of anything, but I do have their height and weights. That should help out.

Lola's been sleeping since we got home. She seems to be as exhausted as we feel. We'll be spending the day regrouping and trying to get organized.

It's so good to be home!!!

Don't Drink The Water

They warned us not to drink the water (or food washed in water). Linda got the ole Montezuma's revenge probably from some lettuce on a sandwich and has been sick. Brian went to the Kremlin and Red Square which is a 40 minute walk from the hotel. Then he got venturesome and went to "Walking Street" which is Old Arbat St. ... and 4 hours later returned to the hotel a little "chilled." We bought a regular size bottle of water for drinking and to use for brushing our teeth ... $11 !!!

It is now Sunday morning and Brian is heading to the hotel gym. Linda is packing. And we are going to head to the airport and wait on standby to see if we can get on the 1 PM plane. With the 9 hour time shift, we should arrive about 8 PM Sunday night.

Linda printed pictures of the boys and is carrying it in her purse and showing them off. We are in the beginning of the very last part of the adoption process and so anxious to bring them home !!

We made it to Moscow

We took the overnight train from Nizhny to Moscow last night. We got a little sleep and are waiting to get checked into our hotel here. It's a VERY COOL AMERICAN hotel (Marriott) with American food and a 30 minute walk from the Kremlin/Red Square. Once we check in, we're taking a REAL shower where we don't have to hold the hose and try and move our body under the smelly/cloudy water. This hotel has a really nice restaurant, however a breakfast buffet for two costs $88. They have a nice Executive floor where we can do as much internet as we want. So far every staff member speaks english.

Ahhhhh, to be creatures of comfort costs money!

Day of Rest?

Thank you for all of your kind comments. As much as some of you have enjoyed coming to look for updates/pics, we've been anxious to read your comments. So, we also feel compelled to say that you've seen the best from this trip. Today we are just going to do some souvenir shopping. Catch an overnite train to Moscow. Go to the Kremlin/Red Square and some other sight seeing tomorrow and some rest. It's getting pretty cold, so sight seeing needs to be quick ... so, we might catch an earlier flight home (Sunday or Monday). We must be about as North as Alaska, because the sun goes down by 4 PM and rises around 9 AM.

We are anxious to show the rest of the pics and video and some VERY interesting stories over the holidays! We'll be home soon!

All our love,

We have been Blessed!!!

Today we accepted our boys and met with a lawyer to fill out the Russian paperwork making this a formal request. Our job here is done until we get the next phone call in a couple of months inviting us back. That's when we can officially bring them into our family.

Our boys are perfect!! We played with them for a couple of hours today and had a lot of fun. We brought pictures of our family and home. They were excited about Lola. We have given them new names. Matthew Vladislav Diven looked at them a few times saying "That's our dog". He seems to be the deep thinker. Timothy Alexander Diven seems to be more graceful and athletic. He's always on the move!

We have one more day in Nizhny and then we go to Moscow for a couple of days.

We Met our Boys!!!

They're adorable, alert and energetic. They played well with us and with each other. We think they're fine but will let the international doctors give us input before we make our decision.

Vladislav was more quiet and thoughtful while Alexander jumped right in playing with the toys we brought. By the way, Vladislav goes by Vladeek and Alexander goes by Sasha. Common Russian nicknames. After a little while both boys were playing together.

They are stealing our hearts!!!

We'll update again tomorrow. The orphanage is about 2 hours outside of the city and we'll be making another visit tomorrow. We should finish everything tomorrow, so we might head to Moscow a day early ... and may actually come home early.

Thanks again for all your comments. We really enjoy reading them!

We're Here!

How do I begin? What a LONG TRIP! We got to our hotel at 10pm last night (12/10) and slept until 5am after 30 hours of travel. We ate and both fell back to sleep for another few hours. Then we toured the Kremlin and a tourist shopping area that was a couple miles long. We had lunch at Broadway Pizza and noone spoke english. We had pepperoni pizza because that was the only picture we understood. We're surprised at how few people speak English and no signs are in English. Brian's Russian classes have come in handy. When we got to our room we took a deep breath and decided that we were "camping".

Tomorrow we'll visit the Ministry of Education to get approval to go to the orphanage. Hopefully we'll see the boys tomorrow and publish some pictures.

Love to all!!! Spaseba (Thank you) for all your kind words, prayers and support.

We're in Atlanta!!!

My new WIFI is soooooo cool! So far so good. We have three hours until our next flight and we're sitting in a lounge area watching the Detroit/Dallas game. I understand the Packers are up 14-0! Yeah!

Brian normally has his PC connected to our cable box, but I disconnected the cable to use with my new PC. We could have been watching the Packer game on our PC! Oh, well. Maybe next trip.

We're Almost Packed!

We have so much stuff and I have no idea where we're going to pack it all. It's 9pm and I just realized I haven't had dinner yet. We're nervous but REALLY excited! What a busy day. We bought a new laptop yesterday so I'm still trying to get used to it.

It's now 5:30am and we're still "almost packed"!

Two More Days!

WOW, I can't believe we're two days away and haven't started packing yet. At least we've bought everything we need (I hope!). Please pray for us. I've never been able to sleep on a plane. I'll need to do that if I'm going to survive this trip. The flight from Atlanta to Moscow is about 11 hours. We'll have our DVD player, IPODs and a few books, but what I'll really need is sleep!

Our Daily Itinerary

Sun 12/9 - 10am Leave Home
Mon 12/10 - 11am (2am cst) Arrive in Moscow
5pm (8am cst) Leave Moscow for Nizhny
10pm (1pm cst) Arrive in Nizhny
Tues 12/11 - In Nizhny
Wed 12/12 - Meet the Boys!!!
Thurs 12/13 - Visit boys
Fri 12/14 - Visit boys
11pm take overnight train back to Moscow
Sat 12/15 - In Moscow
Sun 12/16 - In Moscow
Mon 12/17 - In Moscow
Tues 12/18 - Travel Home

We're on our way!!

On Monday 11/26 we finally got a referral for two boys. We're going to a place called Nizhny Novgorod. It's the fourth largest city in Russia and is a five hour train ride southeast of Moscow. We've been invited to visit our two boys on Wed 12/12 thru Fri 12/14 where we will evaluate them with the help of the International Adoption Clinic at Children's Hospital. We'll then spend a couple days in Moscow before making the long trip home. Pray that all will go well and that we can bring them home in February 2008!