It's In My Hands

Our 171H FINALLY arrived in the mail today. I'm sure my neighbors were wondering why I was saying, "Thank you God" and crying at the mailbox today. Happy tears of course! I scanned a copy of it and emailed it to our agency so they can get it to Russia ASAP and get it translated. I drove to Austin today to get it apostilled but they are closed today for Easter and I will not be able to get it to the Craven's in time for them to hand carry it to Russia for us. The Cravens did have a physical address to mail it to the agency in Moscow so Monday morning I will take the morning off from work and drive to Austin, get it apostilled and then Fed Ex it to Moscow myself. Can you say "by the skin of our teeth?" Our 171H did state that a copy was sent from USCIS to the embassy in Moscow on the 14th. We are hopeful we can get everything to the judge in time and we'll also be hand carrying our original 171H with us to court and we can beg and plead for the judge to allow us to present it at that time. Hopefully they had a good vacation and will be well rested and in a good mood for court. I just feel so much better knowing this piece of paper is finally in our hands.

My trip to Austin was not a complete waste of time. I did stop at Babies R Us and buy 30 tubes of Desitin for the baby home donation. That is what they specifically asked for. BRU had a special on Desitin, buy 3 and get a pack of 128 wipes for free so we now have 1,280 wipes. How long do you think it will take us to go through those? ;-)

I stopped on my way back home at Taco Cabana, my favorite, and enjoyed the outdoor patio dining and beautiful 78 degree weather. It was so nice out today! On my way home I opened the sunroof, put in a CD and thought about how good life is and thought about all the things I am thankful for:

*A God that listens to my prayers and answers them.

*A husband that loves me and has a secure job especially during this adoption and economic recession this country is going through.

*A Buddha bellied little man waiting for us in Moscow.

*A baby home that loves my son and takes care of him while I'm not able to do it.

*Friends and family that are always willing to help out during this adoption any way they can.

*Sunroofs, kicking Bose car stereo system and Best of the 80's CDs!!!!

Life is good!

I did crack myself up on the way home from Austin. I was traveling the back roads home and I had the windows down, the sunroof open and a Linkin Park CD blaring!! I saw a sign that said, "Seismic Crew Ahead". I've never seen one of those before and when I drove by they were working with all their equipment and all of them gave me the look of death like I was throwing off their seismic study with my loud music. I just laughed and gave them a little "toot toot" as I passed them.

I'll leave you with a few photos of Artem's nursery. We still don't have the bedding yet, as work is throwing me a shower this week and I didn't want to buy it if someone at work might be purchasing it for us. But I did get the Corsair picture up, the prop up and the lettering up, and the bookcase painted. Just waiting now for bedding and window valance, oh, and little man!