Still Kickin'

Whew. We're still here. We're still planning for a trip in less than two weeks. If the next 12 days go as quickly as the last few have, we'll be climbing on our first flight before we can blink. Now THAT makes me tired. By the way, I found out why I have been so tired for the last couple weeks....bronchitis. Isn't that a most glorious thing to get in the summer?! The niggling cough started about two and a half weeks ago now and has progressively become worse. When it kept me awake for around 2 1/2 hours Thursday night, I gave up and called the doctor. Enter high powered antiobiotic and I am feeling much better. I am still coughing, but the aches and whatnot have disappeared.

Anyway. Thursday morning we received the okay on our itenerary and purchased our tickets. They weren't exactly cheap, but they were cheaper than the last couple times we went to Russia!! We will be leaving around 3:30P September 4th from our area. From our area we head to Chicago where we get to enjoy a nine hour layover. How fun. Our flight to Seoul, South Korea leaves Chicago at 1:00A September 5th. We touch down in Seoul around 5:00A September 6th (their time) and head on to Russia around 9:00A. We should arrive in Russia about 2:15P. (Vlad is 15 hours ahead of us here in Ohio if I remember correctly.) Flight home leaves Russia about 4:00P on Saturday, September 11th, and we should arrive home about 11:30P on Saturday, September 11th. Not a typo. The beauty of a 15 hour time change is on the return flight....as long as we can catch all our connecting flights, that is!!

Last Thursday we also sent in our visa applications. Friday, when Go To Russia received them, the lady processing them called me and said they had a problem. My heart skipped several beats. She informed me that our children are not able to get Russian visas because they are Russian citizens. Lovely. I naively thought that meant that our children simply couldn't go with us and wondered what in the world we were supposed to do now. Apparently she sensed my distress as she quickly told me that it wouldn't cause a problem as long as our children had Russian passports. Whew. They do have those. Turns out that we are taking Russian children with us on this trip!! They will leave the states on their US passports and switch to their Russian passports as soon as we enter Russia. They will leave Russia on their Russian passports and enter the US with their US passports. No big deal. (I guess this means that we should keep their Russian passports up to date until their 18th birthday when they will lose their Russian citizenship.) With that little issue ironed out the applications were sent off to the Consulate in Washington, D.C. to be processed and we will hopefully receive them in time to leave!! (Last time we did this we got the visas back late Friday afternoon and left the next morning. Makes the last minute preparations a little stressful!)

Last Friday Jason's brother, Ivan, purchased a ticket to go with us! That makes our time in Russia a little less stressful as we will have a babysitter with us!!! We aren't sure if our children will be allowed in the government buildings so this will make that "problem" easier to handle.

Now. What am I going to fill my days with for the next twelve days?! It actually looks like a fairly relaxed couple of weeks!! I need to can pears, pack bags, get lots of sleep, convince this cough to disappear, help Jason build a fence, do paperwork so we don't have as much to do when we get home. Really, it doesn't seem like there is that much to do. I'm sure we'll keep busy though, don't you worry.

Thank you all so much for praying for us. I really don't know how this e-mail managed to be sent out to such a large group, but it is wonderful having a host of people praying for us and also for Jack Nikolay and all his little friends halfway around the world. Yes. That will be his name when he reaches American soil. For now, we'll likely continue calling him Nikolay. Until we actually have the paperwork in our hands stating that we are his parents, it's a little hard to imagine. Sure, we do all the proper paperwork to bring him home, but if it's at all like last time around, it still feels a little like kidnapping a child when we take them from their baby home. Guess I've never kidnapped a child, but you surely can understand what I mean!! Knowing that his becoming our son is not a done deal until we have been to court and waited out the ten days after court helps to keep me grounded.

Blessings to you all~