Construction Underway!

The guys started on the house this week, FINALLY!! We are looking forward to this beginning and can't wait for it to be finished, though that will be a few months away. Took a few snap shots today, check it out!

Adoption Update!

I don't remember where I last left off, I think that it was our dossier had been sent to Russia for translation, well here's what has happened. As our paperwork was over in Russia we started talking about adopting 2 children. We thought, why not, we want more than one child and are so lucky to have this opportunity to give a child a great life why wait to become a family of 4. We also do not know what the future will hold for us as far as being able to conceive with fertility treatment, after our last failed IVF, our chances are much lower than we anticipated. So just as we were sending our agency an e-mail to ask questions about the process of adopting 2 children vs one, our coordinator told us she had a wonderful sibling group she would love to talk to us about, 2 biological brothers! At that moment, we new that this is a sign and these 2 boys are meant for us. They are 18 & 27 months and cute as can be. We are still waiting on their exact birth dates. Our coordinator was great and explained the process to us. So we have now signed some new paperwork and our dossier is now being sent back to Russia to be translated for us to be able to adopt these 2 wonderful boys. The region they are in is Smolensk, which is about a 4 hour drive from Moscow, which is great b/c we can get there by car and not have to take another flight, but we would of if that is what we had to do. Hopefully the region will not require any more additional paperwork and things will go smoothly. Our dossier should take about 2 weeks to be translated and then we should get our travel dates. SOOOOOOO we could be going over there as soon as the end of June, beginning of July to meet our boys and officially sign the paperwork in Russia, stating we accept the boys and want to adopt them. We know this is a huge step going from 0 to 2, but know we are up for it and can not even begin to put in to words what a dream come true this is for us. If all goes well we could have our boys home by the end of summer! Just in time for football season and getting them into their gator gear!! We will keep you posted as things progress.

The Great Beantown Blowout!

So this happened in Logan Airport in Boston, during the security check, on our way back home early Monday morning. Once we got through the check and we were putting our belts and shoes back on, all of a sudden I hear a "Riiiiiipppp". I'm like "Noo this did not just happen to me, Bubby I need a snuggy now"!! Snuggy, is a warm something, like a sweatshirt, etc., and Bubby is one of Michaels many nicknames. Thank goodness we had one in our backpack, otherwise I have no idea what we would have done. These pictures are after Michael went into the bathroom and took off his boxers and gave them to me to put on. Once the blowout occurred, my cheeks were flapping in the wind, as I was wearing g-string undies, and we all know they do not cover very much! We thought this was hilarious and I'm sure you all will too.

OUR TRIP TO BOSTON!!

Where to begin! I will start with our Boston weekend and then do a separate page for other news. We went to Boston over memorial day weekend, for a fun getaway and my b-day! It was great and we had a blast. Would of loved to stay longer, but we will definitely go back. We stayed at the Westin Boston Waterfront, and toured the city on Saturday and went to MIT, Harvard and Boston College on Sunday. We did the duck tours and Fenway Park Tour, which was awesome! You can pretty much walk the city of Boston and that's what we did. Walk and walk and walk. Great weather, great food, great people. We had dinner with friends of ours who were staying at the same hotel as us on Saturday night, and met with with Jeanne, a friend who lives in Boston, on Sunday and had lunch in South Boston at Sullivans, good, cheap food and beautiful scenery.

House Update

Yippy!! We came home from work yesterday to find a message on our machine letting us know our permit was ready for pick up at the building department! Gee we have only been waiting for 6 plus weeks! Michael will go by today and pick it up and then we will send it to our contractors with hopes to getting this rolling sometime next week! We are also heading off to Boston Friday night for Memorial Day weekend, suppose to be nice, cool, sunny skies! Looking forward to it!

Russia Update

Our Dossier (paperwork) has offically arrived in RUSSIA!! We could not be happier. What this means is that it has to be translated into Russian which takes about 2 to 3 weeks. After that we should start getting referrals of kiddos and then get a travel date.
We hope to be making our first trip sometime in July but we are not sure, things have to go smoothly and hopefully they wont require any additional paperwork.
We will keep you posted when we know more!

Weather in Moscow & Happy B-day Bubbers!

Current Conditions in Moscow
72°F / 22°C
Wind:
S at 4 mph / 6 kh
Humidity:
57%
Pressure:
29.29 inches / 992 mb
Sunrise:
5:13 AM
Sunset:
9:39 PM
Conditions updated at Sun, 18 May 2008 4:00 pm MSD
Today's forecast
Showers Late Hi: 73°F / 23°C Lo: 60°F / 16°C

Tomorrow's forecast
Scattered Thunderstorms Hi: 77°F / 25°C Lo: 60°F / 16°C

Fun Pictures

Denise, Michael, Kona, Madison, Luca, Cade and Kylee!!

Here are a few pictures of the past few weeks of the doggies and our niece and nephew. Kylee had her 4th b-day party, she is growing so fast. I am teaching Madison to shake what her mama gave her! Cade is 19 months now, and fast as ever, gets into everything. We are enjoying ourselves and can't wait to have our own addition to our family soon!

Mini Update

Hi all,

I know in the last blog entry I thought our paperwork was getting sent to Tallahassee last week but it will be sent out today, and should be back by the end of this week. When you have to rely on others it becomes very frustrating, so this slowed things down a bit but since I am on top of our stuff, I kept at them and got what I needed so I could give it to our agency. We HOPE that by next week our documents will be sent to Russia for translation, I will just blog when stuff is happening and try to stop assuming. Other than that we are busy working and trying to get our permit for our house, which again, there is always something.

Michael and Aaron's b-day is coming up on Sunday, so we will celebrate that, and then the following week is my birthday and we are going to Boston for a quick getaway and birthday, so we have things to keep us preoccupied while we continue to wait on our paperwork! We need to get working on that KOI pond again, we only had one survivor, the big guy Babatopae, he's lonely and needs some friends. Hope everyone had a great mothers day. Talk to you all later!!

Adoption/ House Update

I have been bad about updating the blog, I get so busy and forget. I have been running around these past few days trying to gather more documents for our adoption. It becomes quite frustrating when I have to rely on others to get me what I need. We have our region now which is Moscow and next week our paperwork should be getting sent to Tallahassee for authentication and then from there it will get sent to Russia for translation. So we hope to have news in the next month or so about when are travel dates will be. We are so excited and can't wait to finally go to Russia to meet our new addition. I am trying to maintain myself but it's hard, Michael is the calm one and I'm the bug. We are still waiting on the permit for our house addition, which is also frustrating, again, relying on others to help us make something happen, hopefully soon we will get the green light with the permit. Our Koi pond is doing a little better, we had a disaster a few weeks ago and lost all of our Koi except for the big guy Babatopae, we are working on it with hopes to add more friends for him in the future. Stay tuned!