We met "Jenny"

What a special Thanksgiving Day we have had so far.  This morning we were able to meet Jenny.  (We will reveal her new name after court.)  She was as sweet as can be.  She was friendly and playful.  She interacted with both of us really well.  We had brought a couple of toys and she showed a lot of interest in all of them.  We are planning on posting more later.  We need to get out around town a bit to find a church for Sunday, etc.  We hope all of you are having a blessed Thanksgiving.

Another day, another city

We took the late night train to the city nearest to the orphanage last night.

They were out of 2nd class tickets, so we had to travel first class.  Oh darn!  The cabins were very comfortable.

We were not able to visit the orphanage today due to meetings going on.  We took the time to get some groceries and see a few sights near the center of town where we are staying.  Here are day and night shots of the main cathedral in town.

You should have seen us shopping in the local grocery store tonight like old pros.  Matching up Cyrillic words in our travel dictionary with words on packages.  On the way to the store someone from the agency called and said - "Make sure the milk bottle has a word starting with 'M'.  If it has a word starting with 'K' that is a yogurt drink.".  Boy - that info would have come in handy a couple days back.

After a fine dinner of cheese, fruit and a couple tasty mystery meats we found out that we have a concert pianist upstairs from us, right over our bedroom.  The extra entertainment makes up for the fact that there are no English language TV stations available.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We wish all our American friends a happy Thanksgiving.  There may be no turkey for us, but there is a little angel we hope to meet that we are quite thankful for.

And now for an added bonus

Tonight we had the added bonus of a wonderful Italian dinner with two other Reece's Rainbow families that are here adopting children - the Cornishes (Meredith and Mike) and the Parkers (Molly and Aaron).  Both families are working on bringing home two children each.  May God bless their courage and devotion to these children.  As many of you know Meredith is also the genius behind the wonderful adoption handbook and some of the electronic forms processing that makes this process that little bit more doable.  We were really glad and blessed to get to spend the time with these two families.

Through another step - Permission to visit Jenny

We completed our appointment with the adoption authority this morning and now have permission to travel to the region where the orphanage resides and visit Jenny!  It was a quick and pleasant meeting and we got to see a few pictures of our angel we have never seen before.  So cuuute!  Because we have adopted previously from Ethiopia and Guatemala the official asked us if we were trying to keep up with Angelina Jolie.  Thank you but no.  Jenny's description in the official file is "healthy and quiet".

The street where the government office was looks something like this.

From Adoption Trip 1

And this beautiful church was right next door.

From Adoption Trip 1

Last night we got to have dinner out, and stroll down the equivalent of Broadway in good old NY City back home.

From Adoption Trip 1

And now for some stupid American stories.

We have been getting groceries at a little store around the corner to eat some meals in the apartment.  We were interested in breakfast cereal, which our driver told us is just not normally eaten here.  We were so proud when we found a box with the familiar Honey Nut Cheerio bee, so we grabbed the box and marched off to the dairy section to purchase some milk to go with it.  There were some bottles that looked like milk bottles, and had percentages that looked like milk fat (1%, 2%,....).  Most of the label was in the native language, but in English there was a logo that said "Milk Life".  We figured we were golden, and went and paid for our groceries in local currency like real pros.

This morning we dished out our cereal and bananas and opened the milk ready to enjoy a familiar breakfast treat.  As we pour the milk we notice the consistency is something like thick yogurt.  We had bought ourselves a great vanilla yogurt smoothie type drink.  Very good for digestive health.  Not so good for floating your Cheerios.  We enjoyed our cereal and yogurt breakfast nonetheless and marched off to our appointment.  Later this afternoon we went grocery shopping with another couple, and this time we had our dictionary in hand to make sure we checked the label more carefully.  It's still a lot different then our milk at home.  Either it is not homogenized, or we bought coffee creamer.  Either way, it's going on the cereal tomorrow.

That is all for now.  Stay tuned for what happens when you lock two crazy Americans in a train compartment for twelve or so hours.

Things we are thankful for

Here we are, in the capital of an Eastern European country that most of you know by name.  We have much to be thankful for tonight.
a) We arrived safely
b) So did our luggage!
c) The apartment our facilitator arranged for our first few nights here is simply gorgeous
d) The apartment even has Internet connectivity, so we don't have to sit in a McDonald's or Internet cafe to post this.

We are so tired from traveling for a day that we are going to collapse right here.



The place even has a living room:



and kitchen:



So for tonight we are being spoiled and we are grateful. Stay tuned for more stories from adoption trip, part 1.

For those who want to see more of the arrival pictures, see the full album here.   We'll add more pictures here as we take them, and eventually add captions etc. but if you want to see things as they happen, check it out.

A very special date

This may be our last blog post from this side of the Atlantic.  We are doing last minute preparations for departure on Friday.  Grandparents arrive Tuesday to watch the family while we are away.  Thanks, hugs and kisses Dad and Mom!

Wednesday, November 17th is a very special day.  It is, according to the records we have, the 4th birthday of a special little angel that we hope will soon be part of our family.  We plan to go out to dinner and celebrate, even though she is not here with us yet.  She already has lots of presents.  Toys we are bringing to play with her while we are there.  And these cute little girl shoes that will be one of two "first Christmas" tree ornaments we have for her.

Two days later we will be on a plane to her home country.  Two days later our first appointment with the department of adoption  before we can meet her.

We have made leaps of faith in our lives before but never like this.  First of all we don't know exactly who is meeting us when we get there, or where we will stay.  Second of all, there is the issue of an upcoming government vote in the birth country (while we are there) on whether they will be freezing all international adoptions for six months or so (which would invalidate almost all the paperwork we painstakingly prepared).

What reason do we have to believe this will even happen?  Simply our faith in a Saviour that cares for every orphan, widow and person in need, and does not desire this little one to be lost.  There is also the overwhelming testimony of Reece's Rainbow families that have gone before us, which helps to strengthen our faith when it gets weak.  We're in His hands on this 100% and that is a good place to be.  The final outcome will be part of his perfect plan, whatever that ends up being.

Thank you to all who have supported us through prayer, donations and comments throughout the process.  Stay tuned for the upcoming roller coaster ride.  We will post from the road whenever we can get Internet connectivity.

The Great Pumpkin

We had a fun time last night. For a change of pace, we decided to stay home and have a little family party for Halloween. We had a delicious treat of cookies, donut holes and mulled apple cider. Nothing says the holidays are on their way like a cup of hot, mulled apple cider. Yum!

We decided to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". Now I've been watching this special since the mid-60's (oops! I'm giving my age away) and I never noticed this one very funny line that Lucy says. It is the well known scene where she is trying to convince Charlie Brown to kick the football. She assures him that she has a legal document promising that she will not pull the football away. Of course, she pulls it away and sends poor Charlie flying and landing flat on his back. Then Lucy says, "Funny thing about this document it was never notarized." Well, we all got the biggest laugh out of this line. I guess after doing the adoption paper work process three times, even the kids got the humor.

We also watched the new Veggie Tale dvd. This story is called "It's a Meaningful Life". It was really cute and, of course, we enjoyed it even more because adoption is a big part of the story.

I also wanted to thank all of you who have stopped by our blog recently for a visit. Your kind comments mean so much to us.

Wishing all of you a good week. Please know that we are praying for all adoptive families wherever you are in the process, especially those who are waiting to be submitted and those waiting for travel dates.