Our Dearest Family and Friends,So much to tell everyone about, I don't even know where to start??? Our last post was back in January. We are sorry about that :( Here is what has been happening to us...
We received word on Wednesday, January 30 that our adoption agency had information on a child they would like us to review. We received this information on Thursday, January 31, conferred with an International Adoption Specialist (a
physician) over the weekend/week, and officially accepted the referral on Thursday,
February 7!!!
Then, we left for Russia on Sunday, March 2, and arrived on Tuesday, March 4...yep we totally lost Monday, March 3 for all those who were wondering "What happened to Monday"?
Heehee :) I will say it bothered me (Jenny) that we totally lost Monday to flying :/ Then again, the part of Russia we were flying to is 15 hours ahead of us...literally around the world :) We flew from JFK to Seoul, Korea then from Seoul, Korea to Vladivostok, Russia. We were only in Vladivostok, Russia for 4 nights/5 days. Seems like such a short time, doesn't it? But we accomplished everything we set out to do and more.
Arriving in Russia was interesting, we flew into the middle of the woods, no joking! With nothing but barbed wire fences around the
perimeter. We were shuttled, via bus, of course after departing from our Korean Airline airplane, to the airport of
Artyom, a suburb of Vladivostok, International Air Terminal. Which if you ask me, we could have walked, b/c it was literally across a big parking lot. We then went
through Passport Control and then through Visa Control. Apparently, my Russian isn't that good and I don't know English either :/ We were pulled aside b/c I answered a question wrong...it was just a misunderstanding, not to mention our facilitator came and rescued us. Our facilitator, Irina, is the BEST!!! Ron adored her!!! She immediately put us at easy and told us not to worry about what just happened, that she took care of
everything. Thank-Goodness!!!!!!!!
We were on our way to the Department of Education, where we would obtain an official invitation to visit our future child. We were asked a few questions at DOE and after Irina brought us to the
Hyundai Hotel and told us to get plenty of rest and a big breakfast b/c tomorrow we would be seeing our son! What an amazing feeling to know that we were not only in our future son's birth country but we were finally going to meet him...just amazing! By the way, Ron was impressed with the "free" breakfast buffet we received every morning at the hotel :)
We met our future son on Wednesday, March 5! I realize we have been through this once
already but to met that little person, who is going to be your child is an extraordinary feeling. I don't know if it's like having a biological child but its beyond words. In fact, as I sit here typing I can feel my eyes welling up with tears. We walked into the Baby Hospital (Orphanage), went to see the director, she was out so we went immediately to see our future son. The Baby Hospital was well taken care of, clean and around lunchtime it spelled great, just ask Ron :) We peeked into several rooms, hoping that one of these children was our future son, as we were lead down a hallway to a bench. We sat in the hallway, just outside of this playroom, due to another group of children having their playtime at the same time. Then this little guy takes 5 steps toward us from down the hallway and we knew it was our future son. He did not like us, as a matter of fact, he turned around and starting walking the other way. Little by little, though he warmed up to us...amazing! We did get a chance to meet the director on Friday, March7, who was a wonderful woman and very endearing. Unfortunately, we can't post any other information due to the adoption not being completed yet.
We enjoyed our time in Vladivostok, Russia, as a matter of fact we were able to walk on the Sea of Japan!!! Yes, it was frozen but still the coolest thing we have done in a while :) Here in Vladivostok, Russia the cars have the steering wheel on the right hand side but are allowed to be driven on the right hand side of the road. We thought that was
interesting. We left on Saturday, March 8, sad to be leaving but happy at the connections we made here. We were overwhelmed at leaving our hearts in Vladivostok, Russia and hoping that the time between the 1st and 2
nd trips would be extremely short. The day we left on was a Holiday, it was International Woman's Day, much like our Mother's Day here.
The day after we returned home was day light saving, and boy were we
jetlagged. I told Ron I don't remember being this
jetlagged when we traveled to Azerbaijan (we adopted Ryan from Azerbaijan in May 2003). I think it's b/c we are getting old :/
Fast forward to Wednesday, April 23 and 46 days after we returned home, we finally got word from our adoption agency that we would have a court date soon. Our agency called us on Friday, April 25 we
finally have our court date!!! Our court date is May 15, 2008 we are SUPER excited!!! This is the news we were waiting 48 days for-
WHOHOO!!! The trip to Vladivostok, Russia will last approximately 3 weeks, from May 12
th to June 4
th. I will be leaving after our court date on Saturday, May 17 to come home and be with Ryan :) Ron will be bringing our
future son home on Wednesday, June 4 :)
Well,
that's about it...for now :) While we are in Russia we will updating on this blog and once I come home Ron will be keeping Family and Friends updated on here also. Till then...
Thank-You to our Family and Friends for the WONDERFUL support you have shown us!!!
Love & HUGS,
Ron, Jenny & Ryan
PS-Later tonight I will uploading some photos to this blog of our 1st trip to Vladivostok, Russia :)
Above our photos of the airport we flew into and out of in Russia.
We must apolgize for our camera. As you will notice on the next few photos our date stamp states 1/1/02-we have no idea what happened to make this happen :/
Above is photo of our hotel from a far.
Ships that were docked into the Zolotoy Rog Bay, which is off of the Sea of Japan.
Above are photos of a statue we saw on a walk we took in Vlad., Russia. What was extremely interesting, is that in order to cross the street you went underground and then reappeared on the other side of the street. Also, underground when crossing the street there were stores. I (Jenny) was in awe, I mean what girl wouldn't be?
This is a traffic jam, that we would watch everynight from our hotel room :)
Ron was extremely excited to see this sight...if you will notice it's a UPS truck :)
These are views of the Zolotoy Roy Bay from our hotel room...we had an amazing view :) The Zolotoy Roy Bay is directly off of the Sea of Japan.