Woo-Hoo!!!

We have our travel dates! Yea! We leave on January 19, arrive there on January 20, and have our state department of adoption appointment on the 21st. Will probably have to wait for the following Monday to see Kolya, but that's okay. So exciting! If all goes well, we'll be bringing him home -- for good -- around the third week of February. It would have been nice to have him home for Christmas, or to get over there and get started before that, but at least this way we won't have a conflict with Randi's graduation, and we'll be home for Christmas. It also would have been nice to be able to host him for Christmas, but we just didn't know when we would be going over, and the invitation date could have fallen while he was here. In that case, the whole process would have been delayed.

One of our agency's translators was over there a couple of weeks ago and talked to Kolya. He explained to him about our not hosting him, and assured him that we are coming. He said that Kolya was all smiles and understanding! My heart melts to hear news like this. I thank God that he's okay, and that he's looking forward to coming to his new home. He has no idea how he is already blessing us with his sweet little boy spirit.

It's snowing! It finally started here about 10:00 p.m., so it's been almost an hour, now. There is a possibility of a couple inches of accumulation, but it's not even 32 degrees, yet, so I'm doubtful. It looks so pretty with the Christmas lights on and snow falling. We were almost asleep, but it had been sleeting for a while, so we were watching for it, and then David saw it. Tyler threw on a jacket of David's and a pair of sneakers, and hit the door running! Too cute -- after I put the camcorder away, I looked outside and saw Tyler dancing on the deck and singing James Brown: "I feel good... like I knew that I would...!" ha!

I heard this one on the news today: The New Orleans Saints are eleven and oh, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!

AND STILL WAITING TO HEAR ABOUT OUR TRAVEL DATES...

WOW -- Did you see the Saints take care of the Patriots??? I LOVE Monday Night Football! The Dome was soooo loud -- way too much fun to be had on a school night - ha! I took a 3 hour nap after I took Tyler to school this morning (I NEVER do that). Of course, now it's 1:30 a.m., and I have just now gotten sleepy...

Chance of sleet/snow overnight Friday. Too crazy -- it snowed last year, so it's not supposed to snow again this year - ha! We have brunch reservations for Reindeer Romp at Annadele's Plantation on Saturday. It should be fun, and hopefully the weather will be nice, even if it's cold. They will have reindeer and Santa there, and activities for kids. I'm hoping that Tyler will like the reindeer so much that he won't think it's lame to go do this, especially since Remy will be with us. He's always trying to impress Remy, and since Remy's older, well, you just never know...

Wednesday night the agency called to say that our papers had not yet been signed, so we don't yet have a date to go over. We still could hear something this evening -- waiting...

Our paperwork has been translated and filed with Kolya's country for a week, now. The adoption facilitator was to go today and see whether we have our appointment date! We're just waiting for a phone call from the agency to give us the date! It's getting so close -- sooo exciting!

Randi was accepted to a state school -- yea! She has not yet received her campus assignment, so she doesn't know exactly which campus she will be offered, but this is just so cool -- I mean, probably about a savings of $20k-a-year-cool over a private school.

I took Tyler to play golf yesterday. He quit on me after 9 holes. He has a beautiful golf swing. His practice swings are perfect, then about half the time, when he goes to hit the ball, he leans on his back foot. argh! Basketball games start next week. Busy boy! He is excited about missing school to go out of the country -- he loves traveling and he especially loves missing school - ha!

Pray for Kolya while he waits for us!

DOCUMENT-READY!

WOO-HOO! I Fed-Ex'ed our last documents to the adoption agency today! Our foreign program dossier should be complete, now! We may find out in the next 2-3 weeks when we'll be traveling overseas to try and bring Kolya home. That means I need to make sure I finish all my Christmas shopping in the next couple of weeks, and gather up all the things we'll need while in the other country. There will be some more paperwork that we'll have to do, but none as complicated or time-consuming to gather as the stuff for the other government. In fact, I think I've already gathered most of what we'll need.

Randi has another PT school interview this week! Tyler's finishing up with soccer, and starting basketball. We had soccer practice tonight, we have our first basketball practice tomorrow night, and a soccer game Thursday night. Here's hoping it's our last soccer game 'til spring! We're ready to move on to the next sport.

Go Cowboys! Go Saints! We had a good time at the Saints game Sunday. Since David was out of town Sunday, Tyler and I took a friend of Tyler's with us for the first time. There's a cool place in the Dome where we can go throw the football around before the game and at halftime, so the boys really enjoyed that. By the time we got settled in at home Sunday night, it was 9:00 when I was able to start watching the Cowboys-Eagles game. I fell asleep shortly after the 3rd quarter began. On Monday morning, I tried to avoid the results of the game until I had time to finish watching it. I almost made it, then David sent me a text to say good morning -- and "how 'bout those Cowboys!" ugh! He, of course, could not believe that I didn't stay up for the game. I tried, really I did!

Friday afternoon thoughts...

What a long, tiring week! I have really been looking forward to today to have some time alone at home. I've been in the office since I got home from my workout. Not exactly a relaxing day, but I've gotten some things done that needed to be done. And David called to say that he'd go pick Tyler up for me. That was good news. Then, I remembered that we have Russian class at 5:30 this evening. I do NOT feel like driving to Slidell. Oh, well.

I've been thinking a lot about Kolya, of course, lately. Particularly this week, since his birthday was last week, and I've spent the week taking care of adoption matters. I just keep wondering what he's thinking every day. Is he worrying that he'll end up with another huge disappointment in life? My heart keeps seeing deep wounds from feeling like he isn't loved. Or wanted. I'm wondering what life must be like for him over there with no family to take care of him, or to visit him. When Mama was his age and living in the orphanage, she and her friends played "adoption." (They had all kinds of grandiose ideas about the wonderful families with beautiful mommies that they would be going to live with just any day now.)

Kolya told me he doesn't have many friends, and it didn't take long for him to start asking to come back for the winter program. What a lonely life for a child, living in an orphanage. Adoption of these boys is a lifelong mission for us. This is our small way of going into all the world to spread the gospel to every one of God's children.

I have heard many people (between spats of chewing tobacco) say things like, "I don't see why all these people go to Russia and all these other countries to adopt kids. I say take care of our own, first. There are lots of kids in our own country who don't have families." True, many children in the U.S. need good homes. To the people who foster or adopt those children I say that that is awesome. It is wonderful that you are doing this. Good for you. Good for those kids. To the nay-sayers, however, I say that you have totally missed the point, and I say that you have apparently never been to any other country. Why, exactly, is my son less worthy of having a loving home and family because he was not furtunate enough to have been born here? It comes down to a measure of opportunity. Kids in the U.S. whose parents have problems go into foster homes. Kids in other countries end up in orphanages with hundreds of other kids. Kids in the U.S. in foster care get a college education paid for by the states. Kids from orphanages in Eastern Europe do not, and more times than not end up on the street. Opportunity. Opportunity.

The host kids must have been told to be on extra special good behavior while with their host families this summer. When Kolya was here and became very comfortable with us, he would occasionally catch himself and be very polite for fear that we wouldn't want to have him come stay again at Christmas. One night after he finished eating supper, he told me, "Thank you for the supper. It was delicious." Tyler couldn't stand it - ha! He rolled his eyes repeatedly, screwed up his mouth, and in his best smart-aleck said, "Thank you for the supper, it was delicious..." ha!

It has been a long, busy week. I spent Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. gathering adoption paperwork: signatures, going to doctors' offices, gathering more signatures, and finally going to the Secretary of State's office for apostilles, then FedEx'ing it all to the adoption agency. I even sent Randi on an errand to Austin to get an apostille for us. Whew! Unbelievable the difference in the amount of documentation required as opposed to our Russian adoption, however. This is MUCH better, but still covers all the bases.

Today, I played tennis from 9:30 to 11:30, then had lunch with some girls there. We had a great time. I am thoroughly enjoying learning to really play tennis. I ran a couple of errands, then by the time I got home, it was already almost 2:00! I had 30 minutes to do stuff at home before having to pick Tyler up from school.

Tyler had a soccer game this evening. The score was tied 3-3 at the end, and they decided to play five minutes of overtime. In those five minutes, the other team got TWO goals past our goalie. He had done a pretty good job all night, but he's no Tyler.

We had our ladies Bible study group tonight, and I am just exhausted. I have some stupid sinus thing going on today, and I'm feeling pretty run down.

The decision was made today not to host Kolya for Christmas because there is a small chance that our travel dates would be during the hosting period. I'm relieved that there is a resolution to the quandary of whether to spend the money to host (only one month, or less, before adoption). On the other hand, I sure did want him here with us for Christmas! :o( We are so blessed to have options.