Counting down...

Harry &; Skip, December 2006

Yesterday Skip asked if we could make a calendar so we could count down the days til we leave for Russia. I thought it was a great idea, and so I gave him a marker and a pad of sticky note pages and set him to the task of writing the numbers on the pages.{Hey, I figured I could get some homeschoolin' math in there!) So now we have a constant reminder (not that we needed one 'cuz it's all we can think of, but...) of the date we'll leave on our fouth, and hopefully last visit to Harry. To be noest, even though we have done nothing except eat, drink & sleep this trip, it still seems surreal, but each that we inch closer, it all becomes a little more real!

We did get some encouraging news from a family from France today who adopted from Irkutsk last fall. They told us that the court hearing itself, was easy - getting the court date, was the diffifult part. Let's pray that's true for all the waiting families!

Side note:

We just got an email from our contacts in Russia. Apparently the judge has now sent them (they retain a power of attorney for us) a letter with the date and time of court. No problem there....but...there is a line in there saying we must respond in writing stating our intent to keep this hearing (duh??) and must be notarized & apostilled. Of course it would need to sent DHL at the cost of about $100 of course and sent withn the next few days to get there in time! Our attorney says its a joke, and says she will take care of it when she returns to her office on Thursday. Nonetheless, just another headache! We are asking our contacts in Russia to bring a letter to the court on our behalf saying we'll be there!




The other issue is the visa. Mark Siebel of the Immigrant Visa Unit in Moscow, who has been working with us and other families waiting for a court date, is trying to get us an "adoption visa", though most agencies are no longer requiring them. Some families travel on tourist visas, but this region is so difficult, we want to be sure we get it right the first time! Some say to use a business visa, but timewise, we'll have to file for it within a few days or it will be too late!



Headaches!!