A year ago today . . .

Our Train Awaits - Moscow, Russia
Originally uploaded by TimS

Hubby and I were more tired than we'd ever been in our whole lives.

About this time of day (Russian time), we were sleeping on a train in the middle of Russia after doing something we will never do again!

We had traveled from Dallas to Atlanta on an early morning flight. 5 hour layover in Atlanta. Atlanta to Moscow. Killed 5 hours in Moscow then straight to the train. By the time we got on the train we both had emotional meltdowns. It was too much for a body to handle, especially with all the other emotions of knowing we were on our way to visit Viktoria only to have to leave her again. Never knowing that when we left her that time, we would never see her again.

It was the closest we ever came to wanting to quit. It was too hard. It is too hard. But for our child, we will do anything. And we still will..

I was looking at the only picture we have displayed anymore of Viktoria. She is my daughter. My goodness, she looks just like me! I think that fact will always haunt me. Anyhow, I got to thinking, I feel somewhat how a birthmother must feel knowing that she is my daughter, but another family has now adopted her and is raising her. No, I didn't carry her in my belly for nine months. More! I carried her in my heart for over 17 months. I held her in my arms many times and heard her laughter. I smelled her little girl orphanage smell. I feel as if I am like a birthmother who is forced to place her child for adoption. It isn't what she wants. It isn't what I want. But now the child is gone. She is my second daughter - she always will be.

The day the judge said "Da"

Infirmary & Church of the Virgin of Smolensk
Originally uploaded by Linda & Anthony Ang

We have been talking this week about today being our family day - the day the judge said "Da."

D has known her adoption story since the day she came home, but I think she is really starting to understand. I think losing Viktoria has helped her understand the process a little more and that she is thankful to have her family more because of it.

She asked last night, as we were snuggling before bedtime, if she could wear her Russia Dress to school today since it is the day the judge said "Da" and we celebrate this day. I was afraid it would get messed up, but said I would ask Daddy. He said, "Well, if it gets messed up, it gets messed up. If she wants to wear it I think we should say yes." Of course he is right. The dress can be replaced, but her "owning" her story is priceless and a wonderful step as she grows.

So, here's our beautiful girl - six years later!

Spasiba, judge Alexander Petrovich Kachanov.

Spasiba Bolshoi!

Final Drawings!

Woo Hoo! We got our final drawings this morning and they're on the builder's desk as I write! Now this party can finally get started :O)

I tell you, I was a little nervous and shaky looking at them! See, we have to try and get every detail in that drawing because if we go adding things after the fact, it costs extra. For example, if you add a recessed can light after the fact it's $50 for each one. So we had to look it over VERY carefully to make sure every electrical outlet, light fixture, tv and computer hook-up were listed.

I'm so ready to see some action begin on "the land!"

**Added 7:00 p.m.**

We drove by "the Land" after dance this afternoon and the electric company had been there and installed the two new poles and the underground electricity box! Only thing is they didn't remove the old pole that will be right in front of D's bedroom window?? Maybe that takes a different truck or something - 0h well, we will stay on top of it. But Yay! More progress!!

A light at the end of this tunnel??

Birdcage Walk in November Fog
Originally uploaded by Andy100

We received an email from our agency's director of International Adoption today. She directed us to read the blogs of the Executive President and President of our adoption agency who have been in Russia over the last several days.

I don't feel comfortable posting the full article here, but suffice it to say this is THE BEST NEWS WE'VE HEARD IN A LONG, LONG TIME! It's not accreditation, yet, but by the way things sound, it's the closest we've been in ages!

Here is just a snippet of what he writes, ".... we pronounced greetings, blessings, and words of kindness. This was a moving time for me.

Of utmost concern to us during this visit is the re-accreditation of Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services with authority to process adoptions in Russia. We had several very positive conversations that resulted in advancing the re-accreditation process. Dr. H and I committed to continued investment in this country and a willingness to develop Buckner Russia as a national entity with services and programs designed to bless children throughout the country.

I will never forget the expressions on the faces of children who are waiting to be adopted. They had glimpses of hope and eagerness. My heart was broken as I spent time with them. All they want is a mom and dad who will love them and raise them, a dad who will pray with them, and a mom who will tuck them into bed at night and who will see to their daily needs. Jesus loves the little children and so do we. Will you pray for Re-accreditation for Buckner in Russia so children waiting to be added to 29 families will have much to give thanks for at Thanksgiving?"

Monday, Monday

Hey y'all. It's Monday again. I just want to go back and crawl in my bed. Yawn.

Thanks to Debbie, I finished reading The Right Fit (click on the title to read her review). It was really a good, quick, fun read. I read it in a little over two days, which is fast for me now that I'm a Mommy. If anyone wants me to send it on to them, I'd be glad to.

No news right now on the adoption front. Hopefully we'll get this dossier question hammered out today and send this stuff on to Austin. I do want to clarify that our dossier is NOT going to be submitted to Smolensk until after accreditation comes. It's just going to Moscow for translation, then to sit (& sit?) until the time comes that it can be submitted to the MOE. I sure hope we hear some good accreditation news this week. It sounds like it could be close according to some PAPs on FRUA.

On the house front, I think I'm going to get to keep my big, corner, soaking tub. The architect re-configured the bathroom and I think it's going to be better than ever! It gives Hubby and me two seperate vanity/sink areas on opposite sides of the bathroom. Hubby is loving this idea. His vanity area will be about 6 inches taller than mine so he won't have to bend down so far shaving. That was my idea, by the way :O) I hope we learn something else on the house this week so things can get started.

Nothing else much is new. I'll probably be pretty scattered until this Women's Retreat is over. How do these things grow so much? I thought this one was going to be so simple - uh - NO!

So, I'll be here and there, but mostly there.

**Edited on October 23 to add, no one has requested "The Right Fit" so if you're reading this after the fact and are still interested, let me know and I'll send it out to you.

One of those days

Shanty Road
Originally uploaded by elzaelms

It's been one of those days where I feel more urgency. I go back and forth, though. At one moment I feel like I need to hurry up and get this paperwork off to Austin and in the next moment I figure, why hurry?

That's why I chose this picture today. It's a road in Novgorod, Russia lined with shanty houses. But see the little trail off to the side? That represents my little bits of urgency and optimism. Just a little trail of it on this long, winding road.

No, we're not going to Novgorod. Our region will actually be Smolensk. Maybe I'm being foolish, but I don't feel the need to be as secretive about our new region. Our old region (which I still won't name until after we bring our daughter home) was very rigid, strict and anti-International adoption. Smolensk is a much friendlier region toward IA and I keep having little jolts of hope when I think about it.

The dossier itself is just so skinny for this region! Our old region just kept asking for everything but the kitchen sink to no avail. Vika's last dossier was about 2 1/2 inches thick. No lie.

Our casemanager was out of the office at the end of last week, so I hope to hear from her Monday so we can make sure everything is in order with these documents so I can send them off to Austin.

We went to Sam's Club this afternoon and there was a precious little girl in a cart. I looked at her wondering if our daughter will look like her. Will she have blonde hair (like this baby) or brown (like Vika). I'm slowly starting to picture another child. Slowly but surely.

17 pound baby girl born in Russia

schoolgirls in costume
Originally uploaded by wetbaloney

In case you haven't seen this story. Click here to read about baby Nadia. It shows a picture of a normal sized newborn lying beside her. Unbelievable!

Speaking of the photo, I also found it very interesting how the umbellical cord was done. Different than in the US, definitely.

Pix and a video of the Tree Removal; Next Steps in Building

Some of the trees after cutting. You can see the big oak's trunk

in the upper left part of the clearing.

All clean! Bring on the dirt and let's build a pad!

The video below is of the big pine coming down. It would have been right outside my kitchen window. As you can see, there are plenty left. We have no shortage of trees in East Texas, I promise! To fully understand how large this tree was, notice how tiny the guys look at the base of it.

The next steps, as far as we understand, will be:

• The electric company will come and reset the pole so that it won't be right in front of our living room window.
• The architect finishes the final drawings. It's looking like I won't have room for my corner soaking tub :o( so he's redrawing and trying to re-configure the master bath. That's pretty much all that's holding up the drawings - my bathtub :O)
• The bank is doing title research to check and recheck that the title is clear on the property all the way back to the history of the city. That's what happens when you live in oil and gas country! Yep, there's a gas pipeline going up the side of our property, but no we don't have mineral rights to it.
• Once the bank's research is done (they're nearly finished) we sign the final papers.
• The builder begins his part of the project.
• We haven't decided if we'll have dirt work done seperately from the builder or not. We may just let them do it all. It would save a little money to have it done ourselves, but we're not sure it would be worth it. What if they didn't get the pad level???!! We'll most likely wait on the builder for that. So, we may have a couple weeks of nothing.

Timmmmmmberrrrrrrr!

The White House at the end of the road
Originally uploaded by sjakkmatt

The trees are coming down!

I'm so excited because this is the first real physical change to "the Land" that means the house building is about to begin!

The tree service people called this morning about 6:55 and they were already out there!

I'm going out there in a bit and of course will take some pix!

Busy Day

Busier
Originally uploaded by Merodema

Wow, this has been a busy day.

It didn't really start out that way, but definitely ended up being one.

I finally got that adoption paperwork going.

It was hard to get with it, I don't really understand why. Just emotional, I guess. I do know that when I went to the file box to get Viktoria's 1st dossier out I nearly cried. See, we ended up doing 3 full dossiers for Viktoria. I had printed out cute little covers with a different baby doll on each and the title "Viktoria's 1st Dossier; 2nd Dossier, etc." Just knowing we did all this for a child that will never be ours is just hard. It's hard to turn my thoughts to a new unknown child. But I got it started. I just have one more document to do before sending it to Austin, but I'm waiting to hear back from our casemanager on how to go about it with our moving and all.

Another bummer to realize was that when we did this stage of the paperwork for Viktoria's adoption, it was 6 September, 2005. Over two years ago. It makes my stomach hurt all over again just to write that.

After working all morning on that, I went to the church to finalize the women's retreat rooming list. We've ended up with 73 ladies going. I think it will be really fun. The planning is just killer. Even with delegating responsibilities to others, I still end up carrying out a lot of the demands. Maybe that means I'm not a very good delegator, so therefore shouldn't chair such big events in the future??

We worked till it was time to pick D up from school then back I went (with D) to Hubby's office at the church to finish up the adoption paperwork and print it out (our printer is dead at home.)

We came home at 4:30 and I started dinner while D played a bit. We ate dinner, did homework (spelling words), got D's bath done, hair dried and up in curlers then off to bed.

About 9-ish the tree guys called to say they'll be at "the Land" early in the morning to cut the trees! Yay, it begins!! Only I wanted to take one more "before" picture. Oh well.

By the way, Hubby has a humongo case of poison ivy from "the Land." Had I mentioned that? He finally went to the doctor yesterday.

Ok, it's past my bedtime and tomorrow is bound to be another busy day.

So much for the slow, meandering country life, huh??

p.s. Has anyone noticed my ongoing different "roads" on each post? Or am I wasting my time on that??

"The Land"

We call the property we are going to build our house on "the Land".

I took a little video clip of "the Land" before the work gets started.

I plan to document the building all throughout as we go.

We will have the trees removed this week, so things are about to begin. So here is "the Land" before we get started. *We'll have 8 trees and 2 stumps removed. There is a big stump in the middle of my laundry room right now! 3 oaks and 5 pines. The one huge oak just kills me to have to remove, it's beautiful, but there's no way around it.

We have 3 lots which are equal to about 1 & 1/2 acres total. We'll build in the middle of two lots and leave the other free in case we want to sell it some day. There are very few lots left in the city limits, so it was an investment for the future.

If you look carefully, you can see where we staked it out ourselves a couple weeks ago and strung pink rope around the perimeter.

Ok, the property begins at the pole right as I start the video and ends at the pole beside the orange pipe at the end.

Just a little Fru-Fru-ness

Willow City Loop Spring 2004
Originally uploaded by cathytx2001

I've heard about OPI Nail Laquer's new Russian line and thought I'd look it up. It sounds fun. I'm going to have to make me a little list of these and ask Santa for some in my stocking, I think! They've even got lip-colors. There is even a color named "Suzi Says Da!"

I'm not allowed any little extra expenditures like this right now "just because" - but Santa can be shopping early and be prepared, right??

By the way, the model on the ad looks much like I imagine D will look as an adult - only with brown eyes instead of blue.

Throw-Up Thursday

Nothingness
Originally uploaded by ewanr

Sorry if anyone has a sensitive stomach.

D has the tummy bug.

Hubby drove her to school as usual this morning and right as they were pulling up to the line at school, D says she feels like she's going to throw-up. So Hubby pulls over to a grassy spot and tells her to lean out the door. Well, nothing happened.

So, in they go straight to the nurse. She has no temperature so it's off to class. Along the way, hubby asks if she is nervous about something. Well, come to find out they were to watch a Magic School Bus video today concerning the Five Senses, particularly focusing on the sense of touch. We had an episode last year of nervous tummy with these Magic School Bus videos. It justs icks her out to think of that bus going into people's bodies!

So, hubby has a talk with teacher about her nervousness about the movie. She said yesterday they read a story about Magic School Bus going into someone's eyeball (sense of sight). D started crying saying, "I don't like this story!" So, the plan was for D to sit with teacher during the movie today.

Didn't happen. The nurse called at 8:53 to tell me D is in her office and is truly throwing up. So, I called Hubby to see if he was available to go pick her up (he's much closer to her in town than I am out here in the country - could get there more quickly).

Hubby said when they walked down to her classroom to get her backpack you could smell the reek down the hall! Poor kids remaining! They had evacuated and the custodian was in there cleaning, he said he felt so bad for her. But in a way he was super glad it wasn't him! Poor custodian!

So, D is on the couch sipping 7-up and watching Sprout, NickJr and Disney Channel.

I think she'll be ok now.

Wednesday words

Dangerous Road to Pari Tibba
Originally uploaded by ShayarGautam

I've been super busy today. Had to leave at 7:30 this morning to drive to Louisiana for a meeting. A friend and I went together and it was really enjoyable if you don't count the morning chaos of trying to get everyone ready this morning.

I am the Chairperson for our Women's ministry at church and we've got a retreat next month at Cypress Bend Resort and my friend and I went to tour the place and finalize all the arrangements. They treated us to lunch and we had Natchitoches meat pies for appetizer, they really reminded me a lot of Russian Piroshki. I had a yummy Pontchartrain Snapper with shrimp and crab sauce, steamed asparagus and rice pilaf. My friend had Ribeye steak with the asparagus and rice pilaf. It was all delicious.

Then we drove home for the 1 hr. 40 minute drive. It's a gorgeous but hot day today (90's still).

When I got back to town I had to stop by hubbie's office to sign some bank papers on our new construction mortgage then to get D from school.

From the adoption agency, I got the e-mail with the documents I need to update our dossier with. So I'll start working on those tonight or tomorrow and we'll get them sent off to Austin to apostille. It's only 4 or 5 things so no big deal.

There are rumors that another batch of agencies are about to hear some good news soon. Our agency has no idea if they're in this batch or not, so I'd think it's not likely. It seems that agencies usually are knowing a little before the official news comes out. So, we'll see. I'm still thinking end of October. Fingers crossed.

The new address . . .

Blue Box
Originally uploaded by .Marie-Antoinette.

Well, here I am in my new digs. I feel more sad, I think, to leave behind Russian Adoption Dva than I did to leave my house that we just sold!

I know it will take some getting used to, and as soon as things start moving again with the next phase of this adoption, it will feel more homey.

When I set up the blog back in July, I had no idea that the title would carry a double meaning. This blog will encompass our road to our new little girl as well as the road of construction on our new house!

So, here we are. We'll see where this road takes us.