They're on their way

This morning I took Jolynn and Jennifer to the airport for the last trip to Russia. I'll admit it - I already miss my wife. I'm checking flight tracker to see where they are now. A quick glance here at 8:13pm tells me they're over Newfoundland, Canada. If the airline hasn't refreshed the movie selection, I would bet that Jolynn is watching "Best in Show" because it's one her favorites and she's seen the other movies already. Since Jennifer is new to the international flight scene, she could be watching anything right now. I would guess "Pride and Glory." But chances are just as good that she's listening to her ipod or even my ipod for that matter.

I have the house to myself for the next few days. I'll be working all week and getting things ready around here. I have Tutti and Molly with me. Tutti, the cat doesn't really seem to care about anything and I think Molly might be upset about her new haircut. Here's a before and after.
Her fur is so short now, she feels like a four-legged chamois cloth.

Since Jolynn and Jennifer won't be blogging directly from Russia this time, I'll try and keep posting as much as I can after they call me.

Cool Shoes!

Our bags are packed. Hoping to avoid fees in Russia for over-weight bags. We may have to move some things around to different bags at the other terminal in Moscow. This is going to be a long, long day or two of travel. With all the wonderful gifts and well wishes we have received this last two weeks we are able to take with us everything Jacob might need. Special thank you to Joy, our family in Texas and Michigan and friends who have made this trip so easy to prepare for. When I showed Rich the shoes Joy sent for Jacob he immediately picked out the tenny's with the flames (or is it dinosaurs) "Cool Shoes." Our little one is going to be super stylish.

The last few days there have been a lot of baby animals in the yard. Here are some deer with fawn. Cute and fun to watch. We leave in a few hours. Jennifer, Mom, Jay and Rich are sleeping right now. I would be too but Tutti and Molly are teasing each other, running around the house in circles. Kind of use to not sleeping too much and I know I will be checking on Jacob a lot. Actually we are all looking forward to taking care of our little one. Praying for an easy transition and smooth, seamless journey!

That was quick

Our 10 day waiting period is almost over and soon Jolynn and Jennifer will flying off to Russia again. That was quick. When we got home last week, I stepped off the plane and was back at work the next day. My sister also got married while we were gone so we had a dinner reception for them and my nephew flew off to Spain later that night. Then I worked all weekend. Then I averaged about 12 hours a day for the next three days at work. For those of you who don't know, I work in advertising. And of course this current project will make the world a better place because that's what advertising does. That was sarcasm. Sometimes it's hard to work in an industry that has a foundation of pure bullshit. But I forge on. Oh and to top it off, the SYNC system in my car stopped working. Nice. Thank you Apple, Ford and Microsoft. Way to go.

The strange thing is that I welcome these minor distractions in my life because it keeps me from worrying about Jolynn's trip. I know things will be fine. But still, my wife and my son will be a long way from home in a foreign land. Well foreign to her, not to him - and maybe not so foreign to her now either.

So I'm worried and excited. But I'm okay with it because I know things will be fine. In a couple of weeks everyone will be home.

Happy Father's Day

I thought this picture of Rich and I after the 2nd court hearing would be a good one to share. We are smiling! A week earlier we where in front of the same building, in the same outfits as white as ghosts. Hehehe. Just when I think I can start laughing about the court trip I remember with anxious excitement that I have to return. I am going to pick up Jacob, hooray!!!! Everyone keeps saying that is when the fun begins. That is why I wanna have someone with me to help on this trip. Rich will be staying home to "hold down the fort" and getting things ready. My sister Auntie Jennifer will be coming with me. Here are a couple of pictures of her smiling which she does a lot. She is super cool just like all three of my sisters are! We are so appreciative that she can put her work and life on hold for us. Due to the delay we will be in Moscow for the 4th of July weekend. Truly I do not mind that (nor will I while I am living it) if there are no more delays. Keeping my fingers crossed and Praying!

Happy Father's Day wishes to Rich, my Dad and all the Papas (and soon to be) out there, you guys are awesome!

The Zoo

On Sunday we went to the zoo. It was a cloudy day and there was some sprinkles of rain. At one point we hid under some big trees to keep from getting too wet. Rich made the suggestion and I was so glad that he did. The coordinator said the zoo is more than 100 years old and was built by the Germans. The containment areas and cages where so different from the Detroit Zoo or other places I have been to see animals in the US. We got so much closer to the animals. The big brown bears where playing or fighting. Not sure what they where doing but it was so wild to watch. The cost was about 200 roubles per person. It was so worth it. This really helped us keep our minds off of the 2nd hearing that was coming up. If anyone is going to K-grad check out the zoo and the cafe just right of the entrance. The cafe is sort of a small buffet style. We could go in there and try our limited Russian and point if we had to. The folks that worked there are very nice. The Hotel Moscow was just across the street from the Zoo.

Hopefully, I will be able to figure out the travel changes today or tomorrow. I was a bit anxious about this yesterday. Plus I was so tried. When I re-read my previous post I noticed it was totally whiny. Rich and I have a lot to be thankful for. So I will try and not be "fretting the minutiae" too much.

Home and Missing Jacob!

So we are home and missing Jacob a lot! I want to post pictures of his cute little face but I think we will wait. Just a couple of more weeks. Here he is standing for the first time last week and playing on the floor with his Daddy.

I will need to be back in Kaliningrad on the 29th or the evening of the 28th. So I have to change all the travel plans and rearrange everything. ***edited ...........***edited. We are just trying to focus on the wonderful parts of our journey as much as possible. I know after surviving the last two weeks that we will have our Son home soon and be a little family!

The Judge Gave Her Approval!

We are so happy to say that we are Parents. We both had a hard time sleeping but decided not to call the coordinator this morning until after 10:00 am Kaliningrad time. At 9:30 am she called to say the documents had arrived in Gusev and that we had a hearing with the Judge at 11:30am. She would pick us up to go to the travel agent and buy tickets to St. Petersburg at 11:00 am. We thought this was such a good sign but still we where so nervous. There was another couple who would be having their fourth meeting with the Judge today and she wanted to make sure we got done before she started with them. Also the third couple that was delayed who was supposed to meet Tuesday got postponed again till Thursday at 2:00 pm. We feel so lucky to have been able to get the Judge's approval today. So many Prayers! Thank you all so much! We will be heading home with a stay in St. Petersburg tonight and a stay in Amsterdam tomorrow. The plan is to keep the blog private until we are home with Jacob Ury. There was some difficulty that we thought was not necessary. It caused us to feel we where very alone here. We do not have a specific complaint today because we are Parents and we are so happy! We are so in Love with our little boy and can barely wait for you all to meet him! So Elated, A Great Day!!

Galapicos Islands

Some of you may think this is funny. The only channel we can watch is the BBC News 24 hour cable news. They are right this minute showing a documentary on the Galapicos Islands. Oh, the irony. We have seen Jacob this week and may be able to see him this weekend. The agency wanted us to stay in the Village where he lives but the hotel rooms did not have phones. No one spoke English at all. They would not send a translator with us to set things up so we could not figure out the logistics of staying there. I do feel yucky about it because I wanted to see Jacob as much as possible. For now we are staying at the Hotel Moscow in Kaliningrad. We will post more later.

More Hopeful Today!

We are doing better today. There is a possibility we will be able to stay closer to where "Little Bunny" lives. Not sure yet but it will be more remote. It kind of sounds like fun to live in a small Russian Village. We had a wonderful visit yesterday. Such a joy to see this little one. It makes us hopeful that the outcome will be positive. Thanks everyone for the well wishes, we appreciate them so much!

We had a bad day!

We had a bad day! One or two frisky pieces of paper kept us from moving on in this process. Needless to say we are devastated. Postponed after the hearing kind of thing. Meaning we had a hearing. It seemed to go well on our side or particulars. Rich handled the questioning very well. Then I don't know????? The judge re-scheduled the hearing. Can't get too specific.

In some way we feel we are facing the possibility of being childless. Hopefully our 2nd attempt will be successful but we are not going to lie we are very worried.

Tomorrow we visit the baby home again. I am scared that I will be hurt even more. This is so hard! :( We are pretty homesick right now. I wish I had better news to report!!!

Grammy to the rescue!

Wow, we needed to put on our bat signal in the clouds over the sky of Kaliningrad. It was shaped like my Mommy, Grammy. Yesterday just minutes after arriving back to the hotel from visiting the baby home the phone rang. It was our coordinator and she needed a document from the US. Yikes, I went into complete Kate Gosselin mode. I skyped Mom and said "I am in crisis over here, I need you." We called the agency and the folks who would need to prepare the paperwork. Mom dropped everything and our consultant at the agency helped with the verbiage. All day today all we could think about was did it get done? Well of course it got done. Mom spent hours making sure it was done! We Love You, Mom! Thank you so much.

Now on to a fun subject, "Little Bunny." Check out the hat he was wearing today. I so want to bring that outfit home with us. He has worn this a few times and it really makes his gorgeous blue eyes shine. We stopped on the way to the baby home to buy three packages of diapers. I wanted to give them to the director or assistant. Instead they walked me down to where they dress the little ones. This is the first time we have been anywhere in the baby home other than the playroom or director's office. It was so fantastic to see them at work. They have so much Love for all the little ones. You can tell they are getting the best care that can be provided. Jacob was handed to me and I kissed him on the check. What a visit. Playing for hours. We found out he is ticklish and he put his fingers in my mouth to do strawberries. That might sound yucky but it made us happy to think he may be growing some trust for us.

Hopefully, the hearing will be a positive experience. Rich has to do a lot of talking. We had a meeting with our coordinator today to go over what to expect. She said Rich has to answer questions from memory. No checking your notes. When she said that we thought she was joking. No you really, you have to do this from memory. So we have homework for our hearing. Not sure what will happen but we are hopeful. Lot's of Praying. Monday is the big day! We'll try to post when we can, internet is not 100% .

Nervous and Excited!

I spent the weekend preparing for our trip. One project was a photo album for the Judge. I got the brilliant idea that I would put headings above each photo in both English and Russian. Google translate and a couple of our books where helpful but I am not too sure about what it says. This was somewhat time consuming. So when Rich came into the office when I was nearly done saying "I hope we are not calling the Judge a nasty name inadvertently." I shouted "me too, duh!!!" We'll have to ask our translator to read through and make sure we don't offend anyone. For a picture of the back of our house the caption read "Rear of Home" the word rear did not translate well. It now reads "Back of Home." We laughed pretty hard about that. We are so excited and nervous to be returning to Russia. I believe our time between trips has been rather short in comparison to other journeys. Knowing this did not stop me from being stressed out. Part of the frustration seems to be a compounded feeling of disappointments. This path of building our family has had its road blocks. It is now time to move forward. I mean we already have come so far. We have met a pretty fantastic little boy who I know we will Love unconditionally. Please send positive thoughts and Prayers our way for a wonderful reunion and successful court outcome. We will try and update with news while we are there.

Here is one of the pictures we included to show how we are preparing for our little guy. Most of the clothes are hammy downs from our super smart and cool Nephew Brody who is two years older then Jacob. It will be so much fun to see these two little boys playing together