Here we come again!!!

We are shortly to be on our way to see you Kat. Step 2 is here and soon you will be home! We can't wait to see you Wednesday.

Moscow Trip 2 Coming Quick

We are just a few days away from traveling back to Moscow for our Court date. Hopefully we will be able to see Katerina after the court hearing because it is her first birthday and that would be sweet. We will get to spend time with her the day before her birthday. But with the Court date being on her birthday, I do not know if we will have time to see her on her birthday.

This time we are taking a direct flight from JFK to Moscow. There will be no stops in the country that I shall not name (Ukraine :) ). Just take off from NY and land in Moscow.

Still a few things we have to do prior to leaving but we will take care of those things this weekend and be ready to go for Monday.

For the second time, Katerina here we come.

Katerina's Room

So this one is the glider, bureau/changing table and her crib to the right.

I had to post this one because it is the stuffed animal we got while in Munich during our horrible trip home from Moscow on the first trip.

This is one of our baby shower gifts. I think you have to be a civil engineer to put it together correctly on the first try. Although it might have helped if my wing woman (kelly) read the instructions a bit better :) . Hopefully this will not scare Kat because there is so much going on. It is quite cool though.

For those of you who have seen Rush live, this is like Neil Peart's drum set. Everything spins. The whole thing spins. The seat spins. I want to give Kat a pair of drum sticks and just let her go to town. (I would also like to state that that last statement in no way means any family member should consider buying Kat drums. Thank you).

Another noise making toy which we hope she loves.

Baby Shower

Kelly had a family baby shower yesterday. We received an amazing amount of gifts including toys, car seats, stroller, a ton of clothes, and a bunch of other things. She has another one scheduled for this coming weekend for hospital friends.

All I can say is Thank you. For my family members who gave us more than we could have expected, I say wow and thank you. It was kind of weird being in the room taking photos while Kelly opened the gifts. Every one in the room, besides Kelly and I and my niece, had kids. "Oh that is a good thing" or "definitely good to have that" made me feel good about the gifts we received. So once again thank you to all and especially Sonya, my mother, Kelly's mother and my step-mother who put the shower on. THANK YOU!

Visa & Travel

We have sent out our applications for Russian Visas today. This time we will be able to get a double entry because the two trips are within 30 days. Saves us a little money but more importantly just saves us from having to fill out the application again.

We also have our flights booked and a hotel for the first trip. Have not booked the hotel for the second trip yet because we need to confirm a crib and that we can be in the same type of room. When I searched for rooms they nearly doubled in price by adding an infant to the search. Seems crazy but we shall see.

AND NOW WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!

Kudos to our agency who corrected the small problem from yesterday with speed and precision. And most of all, with minimal delay. Instead of the 19th our court date is now the 25th, Katerina's birthday. I think a great present for her and us. As important, and in some ways much more important, we were given our dates for trip 3 which is the last trip: March 13 - 20. This means on the 20th of March, Katerina will fly for the first time and land on American soil with us. She will have come home to her new home and new life here in Connecticut and the United States. We are quite thrilled. But now, lots of work to do because of the visa applications.

We Almost Had A Date

Well we got world from our agency that we had a court date scheduled for a few weeks from now. Unfortunately they forgot the fact that we had told them we were unavailable from February 16-23 because Kelly's partner is on vacation. We had told multiple people about this and apparently it slipped their collective minds before they called and told us that our court date was smack dab int he middle of February 16-23. This is a major let down for us because it means bringing Katerina home will be delayed at least a week and possibly 3 or 4 weeks. Also because our agency knew this and should not have even called with the date but rather just addressed and corrected the issue. At least then we would have just thought that we were waiting a little longer rather than they screwed up.

I will add as an attorney I understand Courts give out dates but they are always flexible when people cannot be present for certain reasons.

So, in a nutshell, we are disappointed but know it is coming. She will be home soon.