Let's Get This Started

Court is only a week away and we are thanking God over and over that we were able to get such a quick court date. We were told while we were in Moscow on trip one that court wouldn't be until mid to late September. One of the great things about the Moscow Region is the relatively fast turn around between trip one and trip two. I was so upset to know we had to leave Andrik in the terrible heat wave that Moscow was experiencing and then for the situation to be made worse by all the forest fires that covered the city for days with smoke. I prayed every night for a fast court date and every so many days I was told by our agency not to expect anything to happen until mid September at the earliest. But I still prayed, "Please Lord, please give us a quick court date so we can get Andrik home." And again I was told, "no court until the second half of September" and then I got an email two days later, "You have a court date...September 6th" and I just smiled and said, "Thank you God."

We have three days until we board a 6:35 a.m. flight (what was I thinking?) to Moscow! Artem and I are flying out on Tuesday and will arrive in Moscow on Wednesday to meet Randy. We are hoping to go to the orphanage on Thursday and see Andrik. I am so excited to see him again I'm like a giddy little schoolgirl.

We have court on Monday and found out we have the same judge that we had for Artem's adoption. We had already planned on bringing Artem with us to court and have him wait in the lobby with our translator and now we are even more excited to bring him and show the judge what a wonderful little boy he has become. I bought him a white dress shirt, a tie, and some brown dress shoes to wear with a pair of khakis. I can barely handle seeing such a big boy outfit layed out on his bed; I'm not sure how I'm going to breath when I see him dressed in it.

Speaking of clothes for the trip, I have one more entry for my "You Know You Are In the Middle of An International Adoption When..." You know you are in the middle of an international adoption when...you pause for a moment of silence before putting your suitcase on the bathroom scale, praying to the suitcase gods that if this bag can make it under the weight limit, you promise to never over stuff a suitcase again as long as you shall live, amen.

After court, we'll have our mandatory ten business day wait until we can get Andrik from the baby home and the three of us are taking an easy five hour flight to Abu Dhabi and wait out our time there. Randy can continue to work without using extra vacation days and it's on the same time zone as Moscow so it will easier on Artem to travel. After that time is up, we'll head back to Moscow and get Andrik on September 17th, spend a week in Moscow processing his visa and passport, take him to the doctor for his Embassy medical, and then finally do our exit interview at the US Embassy before being given our walking papers. We fly home to Texas as a family of four on the 25th of September. Whew!