Food Arts and Crafts

How to occupy 2 boys for 2 hours on a very cold day when they can't go outside? Well I cleaned out the cupboard of old candy, put it on a plate with some toothpicks... And they became very intent on their tasks of creating snowmen, fireplaces, people, etc... Who would have thought they'd be into it for 2 hours...

This was A.'s favorite masterpiece!

Deep Cold

We've been trapped in a really cold weather pattern. Temp is currently -25 at our house, the wind is blowing and gusting to 75 mph. Needless to say the wind chill is impossibly bitter cold. Coldest temp so far this winter. It's going to be another week before it warms up above zero again. We like zero ;) I put weather links on the right hand side of the page. It's warmer in Khabarovsk right now.

I send the boys outside to run around the house 5 times and they come in with red faces. (They have full gear on so don't worry). It's good exercise right now until they go back to school next week!

Little Hands

Dec 29th...A new update! Our letter arrived from Moscow! WOW!! So our agency will file all our paperwork to the court on January 12th.

Just an update.. that we have no update on the adoption front. We are hopeful that the "magic" paper made it back from Moscow before the holidays. Once our agency rep in Khabarovsk has this approval from Moscow, she can file our big packet of paperwork to the judge. We haven't heard if it arrived, so it probably didn't, but we can hope.

Right now we are in the holiday closures in Russia, the courts will be closed until Jan 12th (Russian Christmas is Jan 7th). So when our agency opens the week of the 12th we should have an update. The paperwork can then sit on the judge's desk until she has time to put us in her court calendar. So we're still looking at end of Feb/Beg of March, but in reality it's all up to the judge. Of course, April looks good too, as the lady judge is on vacation and the male judge comes in to cover, he's really nice.... :-)


@ 27 months old this little gal measured 31 inches tall and weighed 21 pounds... 2% on the scale for height and weight, but her measurements are identical to our youngest son when we got his referral and he's now taller than most of his class and just a growing weed.

She's been in the orphanage since birth so it is home to her. She is loved by the caregivers and truly seems to love being there. The sooner we can get her home, the better, but she's in a good place right now until we can get there.

I have more stories from Khab, that I'll get posted soon...

Blizzard

We've had a blizzard the past 2 days wtih high winds and over a foot of snow. Needless to say it's made driving interesting. Here's a few pics. We will try to get out and about this weekend to get you some real Alaska shots!
The trees next to our house (above) and the roof of our house (below)...

And this would be our poor camper, dreaming of summer time, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Belated Merry Christmas

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas! It was a great Christmas around here. Special thanks to a last minute mystery package that saved the day. As A whispered, maybe next year Santa will bring us some toys :) Then they opened the mystery box and wow! A received his dream football outfit and S was just in a green mode all day with his Hulk outfit. Thanks Lola!

Moose Sighting

We interrupt the gingerbread cookie making for a snapshot of our afternoon visitors. They were pretty skittish and took off as soon as I snapped a picture from the deck. The mama really resembles a horse, but it is definately the moose that's been living in our neck of the woods.

Visit with Santa

We don't have a mall in Wasilla. The nearest mall is an hour away in Anchorage. So the local stores often play host to Santa. He was visiting Home Depot today, so we dropped in. The boys were quick to point out how much better he looked this year. He looked fatter but cleaner they said ;) A. kept craning his head looking for the reindeer. They must have been parked around back.

First Photo

Here's another photo of the boys. This is the referral photo we got, Oct 2004. I believe S. was recovering from Chicken Pox. Keep in mind there was 5 months between trips for us on this adoption and the boys grew a lot.

For those adopting. Here were the boys' russian Main Medical diagnosis. Our little girl referral was very similar in terminology. Keep in mind it sounds worse than it turned out to be. I can't underline enough that you have to actually meet the children before you judge their medicals. That's why we liked adopting toddlers as you could see what their capabilities were.

A. tempo development delay; abnormally located chorda in the left ventricle, severe hypermetropia, red dye allergy (translation: mentally delayed from orphanage, heart murmur (he's outgrown), severe vision (no real issues); still gets cold sores if he eats red sauce, but that's it for the allergy)

S. tempo development delay; mild hypermetropic astigmatism; functional cardiopathy (translation: mentally delayed from orphanage, eye issues, possible heart issues (No real health problems in reality).

How they have grown!

I've been thinking a lot lately at how much the boys have grown since they came home in June 2005. They are healthy, bright, athletic boys and my how they have grown. It seems like we were just in Russia yesterday for them.

In 2005, A was 3.5 years old. He was outgoing, had a fairly good russian vocabulary, was barely able to run, had no fear, stubborn, and had lots of smiles.

In 2008, A is just shy of 7 years old .He is still outgoing, very social at school and well liked, academically on target, very athletic, a tad more serious, a thinker, still stubborn, but a sweetheart who is already chasing girls away.
In 2005, S was 2.5 years old. He was shy, very non-verbal, barely able to run, more reserved, but quicker to love and cling.

In 2008, S just turned 6 years old. He has come out of his shell and is no longer shy, or quiet (he talks up a storm), a fountain of knowledge, just a sponge absorbing any and every piece of information, he's very bright, loves to draw and write and is a very sensitive, old soul.

Random facts about Khabarovsk

1) Children go to school for ½ a day, they either have morning school or afternoon school. (We had to ask as we saw so many kids with backpacks on throughout the day).


2) The orphanage caregivers work in 12 hour shifts. There were 3 care givers on the day shift in V’s groupa (about 15 kids).


3) Little V’s orphanage diet consists of beets, carrots, and onions. I offered to buy green vegetables, but was denied they said it would mess up the little guys’ diets.


4) The red lights all have timers on them. It counts down how many seconds until the light changes. And believe me, when it gets to one that light changes fast, there is no delay like the US.


5) Traffic jams are very common, the streets don’t seem laid out very well (just our opinion)


6) Hmm.. The driver was actually wearing a seatbelt this time. Of course the back seat doesn’t have them, but progress.


7) They do clear the roads very quickly after snowstorms. We saw this in action. After they plowed, truckloads of men had shovels, brooms and other interesting looking tools and were cleaning off the side of the roads. Irina said the roads are often dry within 24 hours of a storm. Wow! They could teach Alaska a few things!


8) They have studded tires. However, they are starting to fine folks who use them, as they cause more accidents! How about that! Irina said if the car in front of her stops with studded tires and she slides she will hit them. So it’s better if all the cars slide! Only Alaskans would appreciate this one, with the hours and hours wait to get those studs on up here!


9) Hamburg Risola is their translation of a real hamburger. It tastes pretty good. If you want bread, ketchup, cheese. It’s all a separate item you have to order though.


10) If you order coffee, it’s served at the end of the meal.


11) Coke and Sprite are the only soda products.


12) The Amur river was frozen in November; however the winds blew every day to chill the air.



13) Women seem to be very well educated here. All the officials we met with were women and 5 of the 6 doctors were women. I asked what the men do, and Irina said other things. Hmm.. Alcohol is very prevelant here as well. Med school is expensive, but Dentistry is the most expensive school of all.

Trip 1 Packing

I've been asked by 2 different folks what we packed that we were able to take just carryons. We had 2 small rolling suitcases and 2 backpacks.

We had 1 suitcase full of educational toys for little V (stacking blocks, learning doll, food, musical toy, another block game, a blanket for her to sleep with, and a camera to leave). The rest of that suitcase was full of Alaska gifts for our agency representatives.

The other suitcase had our clothes in them. You don't need much. You only need 1 set of travel clothes, you can wash them while there or for 3 dollars have them laundered by the hotel. We each had 1 long sleeved shirt/sweater, if we got cold. We didn't. The hotel and orphanage is always HOT. So we typically wore short sleeves. They don't take much room at all.. They are not concerned about you washing and wearing the same clothes.

I will say the laptop was our saving grace. We watched movies on it, uploaded our pics and movies of little V and I had our DVD movie of her complete before we even got home. That was nice to come home and show to the boys, because they were eager to see it.

Remember travelling internationally you constantly have to go through security in each new country and recheck your luggage if you have it. We have found it much easier to not have the suitcases. We were able to jump on 2 earlier flights standby, because we didn't have luggage checked. We had hoped to catch the Seoul to Seattle flight but didn't make it into Seoul in time, so we still had to do the trek from LAX... Not the easiest airport to navigate, a lot of walking and much longer lines than Seattle... But that's another story :)

Shelly

Status Report

We arrived home early Thursday morning. It was a really long day of flying on Dec 3rd. We didn't have any down time in airports just ran from connection to connection. The good news is the Seoul to LAX flight was only 10 1/2 hours, the first one was 13 1/2 hours, so 10 1/2 seemed quick :) We celebrated S's 6th birthday yesterday. Whew it's been busy!

We submitted all our US paperwork to our agency yesterday so we are officially DONE with paperwork (pending no delays or problems, but we won't think about that!). Now it is just a waiting game. Our paperwork acceptance of Little V, left the Ministry of Education in Khabarovsk on Dec 3rd, it has to go to Moscow for approval from the "official" people. Then it gets mailed back to Khab. (probably take a month). Then our agency will take that and all other 32 documents and file to the judge asking for a court hearing. The judge (same one we had with the boys) then finds room for us in her court schedule. We're anticipating having a March court date, but it's really in her hands once she has all the paperwork.

I'll write more this weekend on some of our experiences from our first trip...

So Long to Khab

It's December 3rd! Happy 6th Birthday S!! S if you read this you can open the box sitting by the fishtank!

We're heading out of Khab today to make the long journey home. One last trip to the orphanage this morning and then we leave this afternoon. It will be sad to leave little V but we're ready to head home and see the boys again. Irina is hopefully we'll be back in Feb/March for court...

Out and About in Khab

We saw a pizza parlor when we drove by Lenin Square on the way back to the hotel today, so we set out on foot to find it. It’s not hard as it has “pizza” written in English on the outside. Pizza is really good and cheap, about 300 rubles for a medium sized pie. Warning though, pepperoni, actually has hot peppers and pepperoni. Even though our mouths were on fire, it tasted pretty good after a few days of Russian food.

The weather has warmed up and it’s been endlessly sunny. There is little snow on the ground. It was averaging about -13 Celsius in the mornings. Today Irina was remarking that it was over zero Celsius. Very nice weather for the two of us being from Alaska.

Hair Bows

So raising 2 boys has been pretty easy, I mean take a look at these hair bows… Someone is going to need to give me lessons. Each day, the little gals in the groupa have their hair done up in these little bows. The hair is somehow wrapped around inside the bow to keep it up as well…

8 Doctor Medical

In order to adopt in Khabarovsk, you need to have a physical performed in Khabarovsk. Now our agency likes us to have the blood work and an updated physical in the US right before we travel on trip 1. As this clears the way into all the doctors and eliminates the need for needles over here. There are no general practitioners in Russia, so it literally is what is says, you visit 8 different doctors (okay we did 6 but I think some had multipurpose). The ones we actually knew their titles were: Neurology, psychology, drug specialist, surgeon and the other 2 we couldn’t decipher. It took us about 2 hours to run to 2 different clinics to see these doctors. It was pretty painless, so don’t panic. Most just asked a few questions and signed off. A few performed minor examinations.

Total cost was 3216 rubles for 2 of us. The exchange rate is currently 27.10. So it was about 120 dollars for 2 of us.

"Oy!"

This cute little girl climbed stairs with an adorable pink dress and 2 little pigtails and a book (hmm.. she’s heading for the right family!) and then she saw strangers and started to cry. Then she saw the food. The tears stopped and she grabbed a bag of food and climbed up on the couch.

She’s a super organized little gal as every toy had to have it’s place, if we moved it she put it back. She laid the book about dolls, next to the doll we brought and was able to compare the eyes of each, nose, and the pigtails that the book, doll and she had.

Her favorite word is “oy”. If she’s climbing the steps, it’s “oy”, if she drops a toy, it’s “oy”, if she wants something opened it’s “oy”… Her personality really shined through as she was so interactive with us after the first few minutes. After about 15 minutes, Irina wanted to take her to go bathroom, I asked if I could go along. Irina told me no, to just wait. Well this little gal had other ideas she wouldn’t go down the steps unless I went along. (I know Irina was surprised, she said what a bight girl she was). The whole way to the bathroom, she had both our hands and was jumping and trying to swing her way down the hall. She pointed to the animals on the walls and pots and would say the animal name and sound.

We met with the doctor today as well and there were no more surprises in her medical history. During the doctor’s conversation, this little gal kept Mark busy and laughing. The boys took quite a bit to warm up to a man, but having very little experience with men, didn’t bother her. She would just keep going up and patting his hands to get him to do things for her.

Nana will love her as she is obsessed with cleaning. She found the pack of wet ones and proceeded to open them and wash her face and hands. She loved the water bottle, too and spent a lot of time opening it and closing it to take a drink.

Khab Baby Home #2 is a very nice orphanage, very child friendly. She is in the 2/3 year old groupa and it’s a very bright room with caregivers that obviously love her. When we left she was tucking her dolly into bed.

We head back to the orphanage tomorrow for 2 hours and then will at least start on our medicals.

Arrived in Khab ;)

Yes we are in Khabarovsk. We arrived yesterday. We travelled with just Carryons so we were the first out of the airport. Of course our ride wasn't here yet, so we had to wait about 15 minutes and dodge the Russian taxi drivers asking if we needed help.

It's hovering in the low teens temperature wise. Very similar to what we left in Alaska, but they have less snow. When the wind picks up the windchill makes it a bit colder.

We're staying at the Amethyst Hotel. Very similar to the last time we were here. It's a nice small hotel. They have internet connection (wi-fi) for laptops at the cost of about 5 dollars an hour. It's hot inside, so we have our window propped open all night.

We're heading to the orphanage today at 3 pm to have our conversation with the orphanage doctor and finally meet this little gal.

More later!

Shelly

Arrived in Seoul Korea

Arrived in Seoul after a long day of flying. Beautiful Sunrise over Mt Rainer in Seattle, LAX is not an organized airport a lot of walking!! Seoul airport is wonderful. We're checked into the hotel and will leave here in the morning.

A&S ... We saw the Fishy AK Airlines Plane and the Mickey Mouse plane!! Listen to Nana and Pappy and hug the dogs!

Love Momma

Heading to Russia

We leave tonight for our first trip! We will arrive in Russia on Saturday pm (Russia time). We'll be overnighting Friday in Seoul Korea. We're hoping to post as we go, so stay turned! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Khab Baby Home #2 Pictures

Here are the some pics of the orphanage. Thanks to Catherine for sharing her pics from her visit last spring.

Yes the children go bathroom on these pots and empty them. Diapers are expensive. The boys still remember doing this over 3 years later..

Snow

Just for Uncle Wes in Texas. Here's some shots of our fresh snow. 4-5 inches new overnight. It's warmed up so it will be a snowy week...And Here's pictures of the family enjoying the snow. A&S are playing reindeer and Santa Clause. They play this every year, inside and outside. A is always the reindeer and S has the Santa job!

Heading for Siberia

We just finalized our tickets to travel to Khabarovsk next Wed!!

Here's the route...

Nov 26th (midnight) leave Alaska (3.5 hours in air)
Nov 27th Arrive and Leave Seattle (1 hour layover) (2 hours in air)
Nov 27th Arrive and Leave LA (2.5 hour layover, 13.5 hours in air)
Nov 28th Arrive in Seoul Korea (17.5 hour layover, 3 hours in air)
Nov 29th Arrive in Khabarovsk Russia

We'll spend 3 full days in Russia before heading back the reverse of this route. Our return trip will all take place on a very long Dec 3rd, as we live the day twice (once on each side of the International Dateline).

We had a medical scare with this little gal this week, but after talking to several specialists, we are hopeful that all will be okay once we get her to the USA.

I should note that this is just our first trip, as we get to meet her, do Our own Physicals in Russia (we've already done 2 in the US!) and file for court to officially adopt. Then the judge will appoint a court date within 90 days and we will head back for court and to bring her home.

Green Light!

On the adoption front, we are cleared to book the tickets for our first trip to meet this little gal! They'd like us in Khabarovsk last week in November/First week in December... I should have all the details in a few days...

She is still in the hospital (week 5) for her medical check! We've been given some preliminary information, no major medical concerns, so we are content to start moving without the complete profile. It's very ironic that most of the medical info we received is identical to S.'s when we got his, he was about the same age!

Snowboarding

We had an early snowfall back in October that has stuck around on the ground. It's just enough for some winter activities. The boys often go sledding on the small hill behind our house. It shows how big they are when I send them out by themselves to get started and I join them in a few minutes. I sent the boys out and looked out the window. There was A. standing on the sled. Wouldn't you know he made it the whole way down that hill on the sled. He wanted to snowboard and he made his own. I'm very shocked he's had no broken bones yet. He's just so athletic and takes to things quickly. Needless to say he has no fear :) He hasn't sledded down the hill since, now he just "snowboards" down...

The Presidents

I am always amazed at how much the boys pick up on what is going around them. Today I found them playing President... A. was determined that he was John McCain then he changed to Barrack Obama then he decided he'd just be George Bush. Here's his photo with his toy microphone... Note the head tilt that he says George Bush does.

S. just wanted to be Andrew Jackson. Because he's the pic on the big money! :) Notice the official president pose...

Alaska Moose

We've had a very active fall with moose. There is a mama and her 2 babies that have been hanging around our house. They ate our Jack-O-Lanterns, trimmed most of our trees and hopefully left some roots to my day lillies. They seem to cycle back to our house about every 2 weeks. They hang out a week or so and then move on. Yes they are cute, but they are also a pain. We have to watch the kids and the dogs outside constantly. You also have to be sure you don't back into them laying down. Of course it's a tourist dream, any one want to come visit? We had a car parked in the road for about 15 minutes the other day. The lady probably took 100 pictures of the moose bedded down in the cul-de-sac ;)

Adoptions in Russia

International Adoptions are a complicated pile of paperwork, paperwork and paperwork. Your life is at the whim of government officials all over the world. One wrong signature, miss checked box, and it gets sent back to be redone…

We started the process this time in January 2008. It’s a complex and spendy process of paperwork (including the home study, USCIS approval, background checks, physicals and more information than you can imagine). It was much easier the second time around, as we had the paperwork from the previous adoption to copy off of! However the US government fees for the various applications did take a huge increase in costs.

The world of international adoptions in Russia have changed. In 2005, the orphanages were full of children looking for a home. Now Russia has implemented a foster care type system, encouraging it’s residents to host children in their home. Some of these children get adopted by Russians, others remain foster children or are returned to the orphanages later. I should also point out that not all children in Orphanages are available for adoption, it is a complicated system, but the statistics vary and 10-20% in the orphanages are available for adoption.

All of this has led to a decrease in children available for international adoption, especially girls. Many agencies are not accepting applications specifically for girls and we are one of just a few couples our agency took on for a girl referral. We knew it would be a wait, but we submitted our application for a girl up to age 6.

We received a referral in early October and are awaiting a little more information before the region clears us to travel. Once we are cleared to travel, we will head to Khabarovsk, Russia for a 3-7 day trip. During this trip we will head to the orphanage several times to meet and spend time with her. We will undergo our 8 doctor medical clearance in Russia. Then we will sign the official paperwork to adopt. Once we sign, our agency, can file to the Russian court for us to formally adopt her. We then travel back home and wait, wait, wait. Hopefully within 90 days we will head back to Russia for our 2nd trip. This trip will take 20-30 days. It will include a trip to court, the waiting period if our adoption is approved, a trip to Moscow for the US Embassy to clear us to bring her home and then finally back to the states.

Moving Forward

Welcome to our blog world! This is a way for us to communicate with our friends and family, as we prepare to travel for our second adoption to Russia... (yes we're going back)!


A little about us... We currently live in Alaska and adopted 2 wonderful boys from Khabarovsk, Russia in 2004/5 through Alaska International Adoptions. The boys were toddlers when we met them and have blossomed into big boys now, as they approach their 6th and 7th birthdays! Wow! Time goes by fast!


This picture is a little dated as it was early October. It was taken before the moose ate our pumpkins and before our winter snow began. We do have snow on the ground and it's been a colder than normal fall. But that's another story and another picture later!

Here's the big news, we've been keeping quiet. We started the adoption process again last winter and are very hopeful to head to Russia again (very soon) to meet an adorable little girl to add to our family. If all the medical clearances line up, we'll be hoping to travel this month! We are limited with what information we can share until the adoption is complete (hopefully by spring), but we think she will make a great addition to our family.