We're Here

We have arrived in Moscow after a relatively quick flight on American Airlines (8 1/2 hours). They were very nice and I expect them to be far more helpful than their Polish counterparts when we brought Sasha home. The traffic was worse than usual and we were joined by a Puerto Rican family that have court a half hour before us for two super cute little sisters. They will go back home for their ten day wait as they are adopting from Baby Home #3 which doesn't allow you to have possession of the children during the wait.

We arrived at our apartment at 2:30 p.m. and chatted with David the apartment owner until 3 p.m. I had just enough time to dump out some of my items so I could put on a fresh outfit prior to Vlad picking us up to go the baby home. We were almost comatose on the ride over. We know that people do sleep on planes but we're not two of those people unfortunately. Vlad thought that it would be nice to play with Mia outside so we awaited our princess in the play yard. She arrived dressed for a freak blizzard but smiled when she saw us. That's a good sign.

We played with her for over an hour before Vlad scooped her up to take her inside. The car ride home seemed the perfect environment for sleeping. Nathan always gets the back where he can sleep immediately leaving me in the front trying to chat with Vlad (Vlad is a very interesting guy with plenty to talk about, we're just so tired). I was successful for the most part but couldn't help nodding off occasionally. We're just beat. It's been the longest month of our lives.

We also found out that we have to give all the orphanage gifts tomorrow (in Kaluga we didn't do this until we picked Sasha up to take him home). This means that we'll be staying up to put together all the gift bags. Our enthusiasm is waning. Vlad also mentioned that we may not be able to get Mia early. Apparently we're the first adoption from this orphanage in about six months so he isn't sure if there are stricter policies for such things. It would be unfortunate if we can't bring her out early but we'll know more tomorrow.

Tomorrow is court and we'll be picked up at 8:10 a.m. by Vlad. We'll then go and pick up the Chief Doctor for the baby home (we've never met her) and travel to the court house. Our court appointment is at 9:30 a.m. which means that the session will be about 30 minutes (since the Puerto Rican family is at 9 a.m.). Then we'll go straight to the baby home. I'm worn out just thinking about it.

Well ... the gift bags for the orphanage are all packed and ready to go. Nathan was a big help despite his reluctance to do anything with colored tissue paper. We have 10 for our orphanage workers, 1 for the class doctor, 1 for the social worker and 1 for the Chief Doctor. I just have to finish my Thank You cards that we'll attach to each bag. I printed a regular Thank You card with Mia's photo on it via Snapfish.com and will tape on a message in Russian - "Thank you for taking such good care of our daughter". Nathan thinks that I should just leave them in English, sign them and plop them in the bag but that is not my way :)

We were very glad that we had snacks in our room for us since we have little desire to head out for dinner (and the Russians might think we were too much being smelly, looking bad and falling asleep in our plates). We brought some other dinner type items like Ramen and mac & cheese. We were feeling a bit silly when we didn't find a microwave but soon realized that it's a combination toaster oven / microwave. How convenient. We were also give a little tutorial on the washer which I'll post separately on later. Wow ... it's all pictures and none of the pictures are recognizable. Interesting.

I'll post more tomorrow after court. Keep us in your prayers that all goes well.