Thirteen days !

In thirteen days My daughter Caroline and myself are heading back to Vladivostok to pick up our sweet Analiese (Anya) and Alexander (Xander).Everything is now pretty much ready for their arrival home. Still not sure though whether to start Analiese in a crib or a toddler bed.They were going to transition her group this month from cribs to toddler beds.She seems so tiny not to be in a crib. Both little ones even though they are 10 months apart wear size 12 months. Analiese is very tiny and Baby Alexander is a chunky monkey.Our trip will end up being 14 days long because the 4th of July holiday schedule at the Embassy and weekends will delay our home coming a few days.At this point we are happy to know that in less then 4 weeks we will all be home together !!

They are ours ! Plus A few pics of Vladivostok in Spring !

Well, It is official ! The judge granted our petition to adopt Alexander and Analiese!We will be able to pick them up in 30 days after the manditory wait time.Court was similar to last time and lasted about 1.5 hours. She took a short recess of 2 minutes and had us return to the court room with a positive outcome.We return home tomorrow and will return in a few weeks ! After court we did some more exploring since the weather is SO much better to walk around in now then it was in Winter !We are blessed !!

Russia Update

WOW ! It has been a really busy few days! Not sure what time zone my body is on but, we are back in Russia. We left the United States on Saturday morning and flew to Tokyo. We spent the next day exploring Tokyo which was fast but, really fun.Love the efficiency and organization in Japan.We then had a connecting flight from Tokyo to Seoul to Beijing China to Vladivostok. We had to do this route to get to our medicals on Tuesday afternoon.Everything was going really smoothly until the flight crew on a Russian airline informed us we were not going to be able to land in Vladivostok!We had to fly to another city called Khabarovsk an hour flying time north of Vlad due to weather. We landed in Khabarovsk and sat in the plane for an hour or two and then flew back to Vladivostok. We finally arrived at the hotel in Vlad around 1:pm and headed out to do our medicals at 2:30. A bit too close for comfort but, we made it as well as another couple who was also on our flight from Beijing to Vlad and had medicals the same time as us.The medicals were like last time for our other adoption. Very short and a bit humorous. Yesterday and today we went to visit our little ones! Have I ever said how absolutely adorable they are? Little Missy remembered me.She is the sweetest dainty little thing who melts my heart.I can not wait to get her home so we can get her medical treatment started.Little guy has some major cheeks and has a huge personality and looks really great and healthy ! We have been able to go outside on our visits which has made our visits so much nicer and the kids get to feel the sunshine. Every thing is going well.Tuesday the 29th we will head to court to become the parents of two sweet babes whom we will name Analiese and Alexander !

Back in my Swiss Home Town.

I always enjoy coming home to my roots where it all began for me. In a couple days I will be back in California repacking to head over the pacific to Russia for court and medicals for the babies. Lots and lots of miles over the next month or so and lots of exitement too !!

Court Date !

We have received our court date to adopt baby boy D and little miss D. We have to be in Russia on May 21st so we can do medicals on May 22nd !! Our court date is the beginning of the following week ! The medicals in Vlad however are only done on Tuesdays in the afternoon so that is why we have to be there almost a week before court.We also need a couple visits with each child as well.Our other option is to go through Moscow and do the medicals there but, that's a lot more hours on the plane than going over the pacific through Korea ! We were not really expecting to get a court date until around the middle of May because of the holidays the first couple weeks in Russia but, we did.I am really feeling exited and a bit overwhelmed here since I also have to go back to my homeland of Switzerland on a very unexpected trip this weekend as well !! I will return one week before we are off to Court.It looks like our court trip will be about 10 days long. We will then come home and wait the 30 days before we can go back and pick them up and bring them home !

All our kiddos together on Easter !

A little getaway to Utah /Adoption Update

During our spring break we headed up to Utah to see our daughter who attends BYU.We ended up having somewhat of 3 season getaway from enjoying some spring snow in Salt Lake to enjoying some nice spring weather to down right being hot in Las Vegas on the way home.We had not done a road trip for some time. (we are more the flying type)The little ones actually did really well considering it is 11 hours of driving from our home.They actually like their car seats and soak up watching movies in the car.

On the adoption front.... our documents will be submitted to court this coming Tuesday. We hope to hear something regarding a court date within a couple weeks.We had to wait for the release letter for baby girl to arrive in Vlad before documents could be submitted to court. Our soon to be little girl is having a birthday this week.She is going to be our tiny 2 years old.Our little soon to be little boy is now 13 months.I have a feeling most will think they are twins since they have the same hair and eye color plus are the same size.Most people who do not know us still think Brock and Milana are twins as well. I guess we will have our second set of virtual twins. Sometimes I just want to pinch myself and stand in awe of what we have been called to do.