5 days and counting getting closer

Hi everyone another fun day here. Today we went to the US Embassy Jesse,Jason and Alina and Luke and myself. I have to say it felt real good to be on US soil even if it was only a building. This was mainly a refresher for me from when we adopted Ryan like 5 years ago. Sign here and there and date here also don't open the envelope or let anyone open it. When you hit US soil and once the plane tires hit the ground at NY JFK airport Luke will be a US citizen. This was great news to hear since that meant we were that much closer to being home. Well we did have a clear day of rain so we were able to get out for a walk and also on the way back from the embassy stop at the food market and get last food shopping done till we get home.

6 Days and counting

Hey everyone it has been rotten these few days rainy. Everyone here is starting to get cabin fever ,we just want to go out for a walk to get new scenery around us. I have to give a great big hug and thanks to Jesse and Jason and Alina for helping out with these days . The play time with the kids helps me out and i hope helps them out too. We ask each other questions and hopefully get answers back on what we are doing right or wrong lol. Yesterday we got Luke's passport and seen the doctor let me just say the doctor visit seem to be a check and make sure they are breathing and that is all . Nothing like a check up back at home for a child ( a heads up for people adopting in the future). Tomorrow Friday for us here we go to the US consulate to have our interview and the the courior takes the paper work to Mosscow and gets Luke's visa to get into the states. Well Luke is napping and i think it might be my nap time tooo , trying to keep up with him WOW what a handfull well haope to chat soon. I miss everyone back at home esp. Jen and Ryan love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!! Missing everyone but hold up real good here thanks to evryone at home and here. Later

8 Days and counting

Well today we did paperwork with Irina. Passport and vital statistics not one but two and the notary. Thursday we see the doctor and then Friday is the embassy. Jesse and Jason got their daughter today what a cutie Alina both of our 10 days are up and we are doing paper work now. It is so tough to get on here esp being here alone and not with Jen. I give all credit to single parents out there in the world. Well it is late here and got to get some sleep . Thanks everyone for the support.

Ron needs positive thoughts...PLEASE!!!

I received an email from Ron this morning and needless to say he is extremely home sick and misses everyone and everything!!! So, if you can PLEASE send him positive thoughts!!! Thanks everyone :)


Love & HUGS,
Jenny

12 days and counting...

Well, the title states everything :( As you can see I'm home and Ron and Luke are still in Vlad., Russia. I'm currently using my Dad's computer b/c Ron has our only one in Vlad., Russia. Saturday the night I landed was extremely rough, not the flight itself but just not having my other half with me. I hadn't slept except for the plane ride where I only slept a total of 4 hours. Would you like to know why? I was sandwiched between Koreans, thus we flew Korean Air :) The one lady off to my left wasn't so bad she was like a grandma type of person. She couldn't speak English but that didn't stop her from talking to me, yes in Korean :/ I couldn't understand a word she was saying, LOL! I must say it kept it interesting. Then on my right I had a Korean guy...who took up both arm rests the whole way to JFK!!! By the way, long term parking at JFK was $110.00, insane isn't it? Crazy!!!
And oh yes something else happened to me on my way home...the day I left Russia for the States Ron asked me if $300.00 rubles would be enough? I said sure, how much do I need to get home, $300.00 rubles would be plenty! In the Korean Airport, during my lay-over, I exchanged my $300.00 rubles...guess for how much? Only $9.00 US Dollars, I was shocked! I thought to myself, hey I'll be able to make it home, right? WRONG! Apparently, I totally forgot about the tolls to get home. Can we say UGH! So, here I am pulling up to the toll booth in NY, I said to the toll taker "I have $9.00 dollars or my credit card". She was extremely sweet about the whole situation and told oh dear that wasn't enough. She also told me to pull over, that an officer would give me a repayment envelope where I could later send in the $10.00, yep that's right ONLY $10.00 + a $2.00 fee, of course :/ Only ME!!!
Then, I dragged myself home...before I fell over! Oh, also you would be so proud of me...I pushed myself through on several occasions with the "pushy people on the the flights" and in fact I even told this one guy to wait and not push right through me on the plane!!! As many of you know, I don't like confrontations. Ron even told me that our facilitator, Irina, always knew I had it in me :)
On Sunday, I picked Ryan up from his Aunt Re's and Goomba Joe's, where he was sad to leave but extremely happy that I was home :) Then on Tuesday morning, he asked me "where on earth is Daddy"? It was as if it literally had just dawned on him...LOL!
I am currently on my Dad's laptop in Ryan's playroom due to modem issues, which I will not go into! I was chatting with Ron, via email, and all of a sudden I notice that on Ryan's train table there are CARS stickers all over it. I ask Ryan who put these CARS stickers here? Do you want to know what he told me? Mommy, Luke did it! He said this with a straight face too. Well, needless to say I cracked up...I mean wouldn't you? LOL :) It's starting already, isn't it?
Hopefully, Ron will write more about his time at the VMI :)


Love,
Jenny

New at the VMI

A new day here, but one less and Jen is very very missed here by all. Please everyone bare with Jen usually does this and not me so i am going to give it my best. Have to say thanks to our new friends Jason and Jesse, what a god sent they are to me. They make sure i am not just staying in our room and getting out. We go for walks (like there is much to do here anyway lol) take Luke to the brand new play area and go to the little market which keeps us stocked up between food shopping trips. I am keeping this one short cause it is 1 am here and just could not sleep and i stay on here i will only ramble on . Talk to everyone later on and to who can please check in on Jen for me cause i know she is going nuts without Luke and me there(maybe not me lol). Thanks to all and good night.

Now what?

Yesterday as you know we had court and the last blog entry was ALL about our court date. However, we didn't blog anything after that point...

We arrived at Baby Hospital #3 after court at about 11:30 AM, after getting a cake...which is a tradition in Luke's Baby Hospital. It's due to a celebration that a child is being placed into a loving family. Irina told us we would be given a "naked" baby. Ron made a comment about him being re-born to us...cheesy I know but cute at the same time :) Luke came to us in his tights and shirt just waiting to be changed into his "official outfit", you know the one that every baby where's when they leave the hospital? We did wait a bit to change him as he was gearing up to eat lunch at 12 noon. After lunch was when we changed him, but we forgot a hat-UGH! We felt horrible and one of the caregivers gave us an "extra" hat that they had in a drawer full of nothing but hats. In Russia they seem to dress their babies/children as if it's winter outside until it's literally summer, the reason they do this is because this way they can protect them from getting sick or catching a chill when their outside. We felt awful because when Ron was holding Luke his bare little legs showed without any tights on because we put him in a pair of jeans and socks and of course another caregiver gave us that "look" again-another UGH! The caregivers all gathered around Luke and kissed him and hugged him, it was an emotional moment for everyone!

We left the Baby Hospital with Luke and made a pit stop at the baby store...just think of Babies R Us combined with a Toys R Us, there you have it. Ron went inside with Irina and bought Luke a teething ring and some shoes...these are the most adorable shoes we have ever seen! Everyone we see makes a comment about Luke's shoes :) Good job Daddy (with Irina's help) :) Then we headed back to life at the VMI.

It was an interesting night. Luke was extremely clingy and didn't want anyone but his new Mommy or Daddy. I will say it was a tiring night. He doesn't like baths...we found this out when he just screamed and it broke our hearts to put our child through something like this. He did sleep through the night, which was great for Mommy and Daddy because they too were exhausted after Luke decided to test his lungs all day.

Then he woke up this morning, cried til it was breakfast and stopped long enough to eat a good healthy breakfast. We had breakfast this morning with another couple who also had their court date yesterday as well. They too had a favorable outcome at court-WOOHOO!!! After breakfast we decided to play at the playroom that is located at the beginning of the VMI. Finally Luke opened up and started to laugh, run, play, and he was talking today!!! It was amazing! However, we found out he doesn't like change of any kind :/ We did get a chance to take a walk today and check the sights out. As a matter of fact we walked on the beach, believe it or not! It was nearly 70 degrees and yes Ron wore shorts. By the way, Ron walked off the plane wearing shorts and I will say this, it scared Irina because she told him it was not shorts weather out yet :) We love Irina, always looking out for us :)

Tonight, I will say it was better but the bath was just as rough on Luke and us too :( On a good note we have a poop tonight-WOOHOO!!! You are probably asking yourselves why are they so thrilled that Luke pooped tonight? Babies/Children who come out of a Baby Hospital/Orphanage tend not to poop for DAYS-literally days due to the change in environment not to mention the change in food too. We considered ourselves lucky-WOOHOO!!! He has been eating like a champ though, which probably has something to do with the poop so soon :)

Tomorrow I have to leave and as I'm typing I'm crying my eyes out! I don't want to leave when Luke is just starting to open up but I want to get home to my Ryan too! Ron has promised me he will learn Russian, teach Luke the word "Mama" and everything else. I sure will miss my guys!!!

Love & HUGS,

Ron & Jenny

What court was like for us...

We were picked up at the VMI at 8:15 AM by a minivan with a different driver...it wasn't Irina. That was okay because the day before Irina took us to lunch at the Del Mar (an upscale Russian restaurant, which by the way Ron adored because he was served wonderful cream of crab soup) and told us exactly what was going to happen as far as court was concerned and she also told us to expect the minivan and a different driver at 8:15 AM. It was funny because this Russian guy goes past us and says something in Russian looking right at us...at this point you would think we would've learned more Russian than our 4 words but nope we haven't :/ We stated we are Americanos, he just walked past us, then he came back and pointed to the minivan...we guessed he was our driver?!? We were successfully transported to court, however there was a bus on the way to court and we thought we were goners...I think even our driver thought the same thing :)
The driver of the minivan actually saved a space for Irina, Irina worked it out this way because at court is so horrible. Literally I think you have to get there at the crack of dawn to get a good parking spot. Our court was for 9:30 AM. We were told that it would last about 30 to 45 minutes. The court was beautiful, it was much like ours back in the states, just on a smaller scale. The court room we were lead into had pergo flooring, wood-like desks of course with chairs. It was set up like our court system too, where in the states they have the judge come in a separate way and she sits in a different area than everyone else. We were told to stand when the judge entered the room, which we did. Irina was there to translate for us. This seemed like an impossible feat because everyone in the court room was talking a mile a minute and Irina kept up! She is just an amazing woman!!! Our judge was a red-haired woman, Ron told me that she scared him. She was extremely stern looking but we were told by Irina that she was an extremely good woman. The judge was hard to read and didn't crack a smile...again that scared Ron. We also had in court with us the social worker, who was another good woman and extremely caring. The social worker represented Luke in court on his behalf and us. Also, in court was a woman mid-thirties, dressed in what looked like a policeman's uniform but it was her prosecutors uniform. There was the secretary, who was sweet and had killer heels on, absolutely beautiful. Ron asked me if I had a chance to check out her heels, I answered him with a YES...women always check out other women's shoes, no matter what. Her heels were beautiful! Ron stated you could seriously poke an eye out with those heels...LOL!  We were extremely nervous!
The court proceedings start with the reading of our names and the purpose of court. Ron was told to stand and he had to answer questions, such as his full name, address, date of birth. The reason Ron was asked to stand first was because it is a male dominated society. However, it appears as if the country itself is run by women. Then he was asked questions such as what medical conditions does this child have? Are you able to cope with this child's medical conditions? Do you have health insurance? How much time did you spend with this child? Quite honestly most of these questions were straight forward. Then the prosecutor took her turn but didn't have a question for Ron. After Ron's turn in the hot seat it was mine, I was told to stand and answered similar questions, such as full name, etc. We answered with short but precise answers, we didn't babble...actually I'm proud of Ron because when he gets nervous he tends to babble a lot :) The only thing that threw me was the prosecutor, she didn't have any questions for Ron but had several for me. The prosecutor asked me "you will have two adopted children from two different countries, how will you raise them"? I wanted to scream "I DON'T KNOW", but I didn't :) I answered it honestly and straight forward. We were both asked if there was anything else we wanted to say to the court, we said NO. We were told to put together of our time spent with Luke on our first visit to Russia. The judge and the prosecutor looked through the photos, we hoped that it was what they were looking for. We were told by Irina that it was good the day before. Irina said to add some photos of our first child Ryan and our backyard. We made up an album for Luke on the first trip to tell him who our family, friends and places at home were. Well, Irina saw this and liked the idea and this is what she told us to add to our album we made up for our court date, she told us the judge will enjoy them. We automatically added the photos! Then it was the social workers turn to talk on Luke's behalf.
We were asked to leave the court, so the judge could make her decision. It didn't take her long to make this decision, which we were thrilled with!!! Once, Ron and I knew we were Luke's parents we hugged and I cried. I even saw tears in Ron's eye. It was surreal because here is the court telling you that you are the best choice for this little wonderful creature that you will call your son from this day forward...just amazing!!!

We will now wait the 10 day period, as this region does not waive the 10 day waiting period. In 10 days the adoption decree will be final. The Russian Supreme Court has these 10 days to overturn the verdict of the judge. Again, we ask you to PLEASE pray this doesn't happen. We are hoping that this is just a another formality. Irina told us that the courier will fly to Moscow on May 30th and then Ron and Luke will wait a few days for the courier to return. In the meantime Ron will take Luke to the physican for the US Embassy, who needs to see Luke before they can leave for the USA on June 4th :)

"GOTCHA DAY"

He is FINALLY ours!!! We can't believe we are parents once again :) It truly is a surreal feeling. What an incredible journey this has been, absolutely amazing!!! Our heads are spinning right now...we promise to update everyone tomorrow once we get some rest. Luke is asleep in his crib currently and trust me we aren't far behind him. We want to THANK everyone from the bottom of our hearts for their prayers and everything everyone has done to get us to this point...THANK-YOU!!!

Love & HUGS,

Ron & Jenny

PS-Ryan is now a BIG BROTHER-WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a good sign...

Hi Family & Friends,

We are bored here at the VMI...and according to Ron this is not a good sign...LOL :) After all, this is our first full day here. Can you imagine what it's going to be like for Ron on day 10 or even day 22??? We get three channels here at the VMI. They are the National Geographic channel, the Star Movies channel and the Star World channel. The rest are in Russian, however the MTV channels do give you some good music every now and then. Oops, I forgot we also get the Fox News channel but we can't hear it. Yep, that's right no sound.

The highlight of our day was seeing our future son, of course :) He took awhile to warm up to us but after I (Jenny) brought out food all was good :) He looked good and we can't wait to get custody of him on Thursday, after court of course. We will see him again tomorrow. Irina will prep us about our court date on Thursday. PLEASE say a little pray for us, we are sure this is a formality but still we are nervous.

Irina took us food shopping today too. It was interesting, to say the least! Our bill was $2,198.28...rubles that is, which is roughly $95.58 US dollars, an exchange rate of 23.60. We bought a lot, mainly staples such as eggs, chicken, milk, oil (to cook), bread, soda (a must have for Ron), apple juice, butter,laundry & dishwashing detergent, chips, chocolate (a must have for Jenny!), fruits, veggies, frozen foods, apple sauce, pear sauce and baby cereal. Isn't that a lot for $95.58 US dollars? We thought it was pretty good however ask us in a few days what we still think :)



Love & HUGS,

Ron & Jenny



PS-I (Jenny) did not get pulled into a separate room yesterday after entering the Russian airport, like I did when we came for our first visit to Vlad. Luckily, I wasn't asked any questions this time that I could have answered incorrectly. Also, all during our flight from Seoul, Korea to Vlad., Russia Ron was giving me pop quizzes just to make sure I answered all the "visa" type of questions correctly. He loves me so :)

We are here in Vladivostok, Russia :)

Family & Friends,
We have arrived in Vladivostok, Russia safe and sound :) We are extremely drained!!! We have included a few photos of our trip in Seoul, Korea (the airport of course).
Our trip from JFK to Seoul, Korea was good but tiring. This time around we didn't watch as many movies and decided to sleep...we believe this was the right call as we were stressed and exhausted, not a great combo :/ Then we had a 7 hour lay over in Seoul, Korea so what did we do? We walked the airport, had a little snack, then went back to the terminal where we were to catch the flight to Vladivostok, Russia and slept some more. Can you tell we were exhausted??? After all flying for close to 14 hours tends to have that effect on some :) The terminal itself was desolate so we took two whole rows to ourselves and spread out, with our carry-ons and laptop attached to us or should I say we intertwined them to our bodies. I wish I would've gotten a photo of that, it honestly was the highlight of our trip...so far :)
On our trip from Seoul, Korea to Vladivostok, Russia we met another wonderful couple, they too are adopting and we are all staying at the VMI :) VMI=Vlad Motor Inn We have a suite at the VMI with a kitchenette It's huge, which is great! We will have to take some photos. We even checked out our surroundings and the VMI so far looks great. We even checked out the "White Rabbit", which is a rec room where they have a pool table, a bar and photos of hockey players. Of course they have photos of hockey players, the owners are Canadian.
Tomorrow we will go and visit our future son :) On another note...it seemed as if the day we left for Russia was the day for injuries :/ Ryan, our 5 year old, fell and split his chin open! I kid you not. So off we went to the ER at about 11 am on Saturday. The Er Dr. glued (I mean literally glued) Ryan's chin back together and we were out of the ER in about an hour. Then, Saturday night as Ron was loading the car he falls and injures his hip. Only us :/
Well, that's about it for now and we are exhausted!!!

Love & HUGS,
Ron & Jenny