Follow-up from trip #1

Before we left Bulgaria, we learned that Sarah had accidentally erased all of the music on her MP3 player. We were able to find a thumb drive in Bulgaria and we loaded the music onto it. We mailed the thumb drive plus 10 LV to Sarah. One of the things that we had purchased for her when we were visiting with her was a jar of strawberry jam - as strawberries are her favorite fruit. Since she and the other kids had consumed the entire jar of jam in 4 days (!), we sent 10 LV to her so she could buy some more. We received the following news from her orphanage director:

The director also shared that they bought 4 jars of strawberry jam with the money the Pierce family sent and Temenuzhka has been sharing her strawberry jam with the other kids.

We were able to Skype with Sarah for the first time yesterday morning! We have a schedule to Skype with Sarah every two weeks. She was able to see us and to hear us, but we couldn't hear her at all and the quality was very blurry for us to see her. But she seemed to enjoy seeing all of us, as we sang to her, did sign language, and we read from google translate! We are excited to Skype with her again soon!

Update on John from our agency: While discussing another case with the director of his orphanage, we used the opportunity to ask how John was doing and the director was excited to share that John is always eagerly awaiting the arrival of the English tutor, he is working hard to learn as much English as possible and be able to communicate with his family and he is greatly motivated about that. 

We are excited to Skype with John on Friday for the first time! He is allowed to have weekly Skype visits. 

Update on Michael from our agency: We heard from Rozalina (Michael's social worker from the local social services, who was present during the family's meetings with him). She was excited to share her joy in relation with the following - When the Pierce family left Dobrich, Michael read the letters they left with him, he got very emotional and started crying, he said "I love them and I miss them already". She finds there is a huge positive change in him following the Pierce family's visits and he is excited about learning some English so as to be able to talk with them himself. 

This is both sad and wonderful news! Michael didn't really show us very much emotion during our trip. I wish that I could have been there to comfort him when he was crying. We are still in the process of setting up English lessons and his Skype sessions. 

We have been home for a couple of days now and seem to be struggling much more with jet lag than we did when we arrived in Bulgaria. On the docket today is to get some fingerprints taken so we can do the FBI Fingerprints (again) and the I800 is already sent off. We also need to get new physicals done. Hopefully everything will progress quickly and smoothly. 

I am eager to do some major nesting in preparation to bringing home our three precious children. I have quilts to make and bedrooms to organize and clothing to get - it will be interesting to outfit three teenagers! Can't wait to bring them home!

Apostille

I drove 13 hours and drank way too much Dr pepper to get 17 of the following:

We are officially done with paperwork prior to trip #1. Hooray. Sorry, that's all the excitement that I can exhibit at the moment. I am exhausted. We leave in 2 days.

Supplies

Some supplies are coming in the mail. Don't you just love getting packages? I know that I do. I have some money holders (to carry under clothing), a power adapter for our electronics, and a microphone for our laptop so we can chat via Skype while on the trip.

We're less than a month away from our trip. I recently bought myself a coat online. I live in FL. I don't own a coat, but it's 21 degrees in Nizhny Novgorod, so I figured that I should at least buy a medium warmth jacket. So I did. It's black, even. Wouldn't want to stand out more than I already will in a country where everyone wears black and gray. :)

I need to pick out some small toys to take with me to play with our new children. It's hard to know what to take. Any suggestions?

The home study is now being reevaluated by our facilitator in Russia, then it will be notarized and THEN Tyler & I can have a hayday getting everything apostilled.

Counting down the days

We are about one month away from our trip to Russia. I remember wanting to go in February or March, but I am grateful that we have time to prepare for this trip. I like the idea of having the suitcases packed a couple of weeks in advance, instead of the night before - like our trip to Ukraine. I feel more relaxed and able to think about what items to bring (and not bring) for our #1 trip.

I spoke with Victoria at AAC today. There were two other families scheduled to travel in March to Nizhny Novgorod. I have been eager to follow their experiences to prepare for my trip. Unfortunately, both of those families are no longer to adopt from Nizhny Novgorod, thanks to the issue with the Alaskan mom and hot sauce. The two families were looking to adopt healthy children only and that is no longer allowed in Nizhny - for the time being - due to the hot sauce fiasco. HOWEVER, we have been told that since we are adopting at least one child with specials needs that it will not affect us. Let's hope that this IS the case. :)

More than one month away from our first trip to Russia, I'm already thinking about trip #2. Tyler & I will travel back to Russia to have a physical done in Moscow, then attend the court in Nizhny Novgorod. Then Tyler will travel back home and I'll be there for the 10 day waiting period. Then somone will come out to help me bring the children back. We haven't determined who that person will be. We are willing to pay for the plane ticket. We have asked a few people, family members and friends, but we haven't heard a positive response (yet). If you are interested in doing this, please contact me @ jilldpierce at yahoo dot com

April 11th

That is when we're planning to leave for Russia. Would I like to go sooner? Yes. But this is when we're going. And I'm trying to be at peace about it. I'm a planner and this just means that I have more time to agonize over plan every detail of the trip. It means we don't have to rush in getting our visas. It means that I can spend more time finding a great price on 6 round-trip tickets to Russia. It means that I can focus on fundraising for the adoption. It means that it'll be warmer in Russia in April than it is right now (28 degrees and snowing). There are two families traveling to Nizhny Novgorod in March through AAC, so I will be very interested to see how their processes go.

In other news, Tyler and I currently feel comfortable with the idea of adopting 2 children: one with special needs and one "normal". So that is our plan for now. Of course, whomever God asks us to adopt at the MOE, we will adopt them. We want to do His will above our own.