Day 2 in St. Petersburg...

Well, we are exploring the Hermitage today. I decided to do the audio tour as well, but didn't realize that Vernon would hit the button for each and every exhibit and painting and listen to every detail. So, I am on the internet at the cafeteria at the Hermitage, my brain completely maxed out on information.
Our hotel has breakfast, so we aren't having to snack on pop tarts and cereal bars, that will by the way be banned from our house when we return. The sight might just turn my stomach.
St. Petersburg is very nice. We have 3 and 1/2 more days to visit, so we should know the town quite well.
We even found a 24 hour bookstore near our hotel. As you may know Vernon reads books only in Spanish and managed to find 2 more books out of his Spanish author's series to read at this bookstore. I bought some children's books (for very young children, in Russian, of course) to give to the baby home when we return.
So, that is it for right now. I am hoping there is enough time left for this to post. Will update in detail later (with pictures)!

Christa and Vernon

St. Petersburg

We are in St. Petersburg. My internet access will be real limited so I won't be posting much while I'm here. We had a wonderful visit with Andrew yesterday. I will post more when I can. I will do updates every day and then upload them when I have better internet access. Thanks!

Tourists for a Day

Well, we spent most of the day traveling around Moscow.  Our morning started at the notary office.  I love that their government offices don't open until 10.  Absolutely love it.  I also love that Europeans take such long holidays.  Our translator's daughter lives in Germany and she gets 5 weeks off a year.  Here I am with our translator Irena:

Anyhow, I digress.  The notary assistant who helped us had just returned from a vacation in the Crimea, which is by the Black Sea.  It took about an hour to get our documents notarized, but then we were on our way.   To get clothes.When we were here in June, we were lucky if the temperature got into the 70s.  In the evening it was definitely in the 50s.  So, Vernon packed only long sleeved clothing.  It is well into the 80s right now and Vernon was melting.  I knew he was warm when I suggested we ask Irina our translator to stop at a store to get some short sleeved clothes, and he readily agreed.  It takes extreme moments like this to get the guy out shopping.  So, Irina found a mall near the Kremlin.  She didn't know if she could find a 'normal' store with moderately priced clothing, but she did wonderfully!  She found a store called Zara that had guys shirts on sale.  We found Vernon about 4 shirts.  As you may know, European styles are a bit different that American styles.  I kept teasing Vernon that he would get a tight, sleeveless, V-neck shirt with a lot of writing on it.  We managed to find some normal styles, though.  Except the sizing is way different.  He likes loose clothes and he had to go to an XL to find one that looked like a men's size medium in the states.  Here is a picture of the mall we went to:

So, now we were set to do some sightseeing.  We first drove around to see some sights.  We drove by Christ the Saviour Cathedral.  This cathedral was built as a monument to Russia's

 victory over Napoleon, but was ordered razed by Stalin.  That never happened, but for a while it became a big indoor/outdoor pool.  Don't ask me how.  Anyway it survived and was never demolished and here it is today:

We also went to the Kremlin and saw the Cathedral of the Assumption.  It is located in an area called Cathedral Square, so there were many church buildings so it was hard to distinguish the cathedrals.  Of course, we also saw St. Basil's Cathedral, here below:

We also saw some pretty gardens:

And some old cannons:

Then, in the evening, we met up with new friends.  Four of the families were adopting (2 already have their children, the other two of us are still waiting to pick up our children). Another couple at dinner was an American family living in Russia who loves to provide support to adopting families.  We had a great dinner.  

Tomorrow our train doesn't leave for St. Petersburg until 6 in the evening, so we will get a chance to see Andrew tomorrow.  We are looking forward to our visit with him.

I am not sure about internet access in our hotel in St. Pete, so my posts may or may not be more sporadic.  I will try to find a coffee shop to update if all else fails.  

I am going to bed once the slowest washing machine in the world stops washing our clothes, so I can hang them up to dry.  Load number 2 will have to get washed overnight.  

Have a nice day!

Christa

Smooth sailing for court!

We are officially Andrew Paul's parents!  We had a very uneventful court experience today, and the court granted our petition to adopt Andrew.  I had prepared myself for all sorts of scenarios and questions.  Neither the judge or the prosecutor had any questions for us.  I did have a speech prepared that encompassed all of the questions we might get asked.  Another adoptive family who had been to court recently provided us with all the information we needed to say.  It was funny, because another family with our agency went before the judge right after we did, and we basically both used the same speech.  We both benefitted from this same information.  It is interesting because here in Russia, the 'healthy babies' are not supposed to be adopted by foreigners.  So part of the court experience is to for the social worker to lay out the health concerns so that the judge could be satisfied that no one in Russia would adopt the baby.  Isn't that just so different?  Anyway, the judge ultimately said it was in the best interest of the Andrew for us to adopt him.  So, that is over and we now just have the 10 day wait.  Thank you all for your prayers.  They really meant so much today.  I didn't get much sleep in anticipation of court, so I might try to get some rest now.

Tomorrow we go to the notary to sign some power of attorney, and we might get another visit with Andrew in.  Wednesday we will leave for St. Petersburg.  Our wonderful agency here in Russia made a couple of quick calls and we now have train tickets and a hotel for St. Pete.  I am such a travel planner (I know that's a bit out of character - for me to plan anything), but I am so glad I didn't spend a lot of time trying to plan our trip to St. Pete.  So, if you stay tuned you will get to hear of our adventures traveling and sight seeing.  I am really looking forward to it.

Back home in Mocow...

At least it feels like we are back home.  We are staying for the first few days in the same apartment we were in last month, and we confidently walked out and down Arbat Street.  It was much different than the first time when it all felt so new.  We got groceries and made some pasta for dinner.

Well, we have court tomorrow morning at 10:30 in the a.m.  Which is about 2:30 a.m. for everyone in America.  So, hopefully by the time most people wake up we will be done with court.  I understand court takes about 40 minutes to an hour.  There is a prosecutor involved (I think it is quite different than a prosecutor in the U.S.), a social worker from the baby home, the judge, and us.  I have a "speech" prepared that I think and hope will answer the usual questions asked by the judge.  Please keep us in your prayers today as we prepare for quite a big day tomorrow.  

Oh, and we saw Andrew today!  I am calling him Pavel (Paul) right now because that is his Russian name I will use in court tomorrow.  He now has 2 more teeth (top row).  He has grown and is getting stronger.  We certainly have some feeding to catch him up on, though.  We were complete strangers to him again but by the end of our visit, he was really warming up to us and even making a few sounds.  I will be glad to have the 10 days over with.  We have a different translator this time and she asked the staff at the baby home if we could take him outside.  It was so nice to be outdoors with him.  I am fairly certain this was one of the first times he was outdoors just for fun.  

I will post more tomorrow.  Thank you all again for your prayers!!!

Christa and Vernon 

Well, here we are at the airport.  I feel oddly relaxed.  I'm only checking to make sure I have my passport every 15 minutes instead of every 5.  We had a late night, of course.  I thrive on the last minute details.  I was even at the CVS at 1:30 in the morning printing off more pictures for court.  We will be going to court on Monday, so please keep us in your prayers as we get ready for this big day.  We go in front of the Russian judge and we hope that she will grant the adoption without any issue.  Sometimes there can be little bumps.  A family that preceded us just a couple of weeks ago had a judge who was insistent that yet another document be provided that would satisfy her inquiry as to whether they owned a house.  Fortunately, our agency told us to get that documentation last week.  Russian adoptions can be interesting, though, as there could be yet something new next week that they want.  So, we'll go with the flow but hope and pray this week is a smooth process.

We will visit with Andrew on Sunday.  His baby home is near the airport, so as it will work we will land and go straight to visit him.  I hope he is doing well.  It will be interesting to see how and if he has changed.  He had 2 bottom teeth last time.  We will see if he has any new teeth tomorrow!  Most of our luggage contains items for Andrew.  Clothes, diapers, bottles, pacifiers (not sure if he'll use it), food, formula, a few toys, and towels.  He probably won't know what to do with all the attention we bestow on him.

We won't get to officially pick Andrew up until July 25th, so we will keep you posted on our travels to St. Petersburg in the meantime.  I am sure they will be quite adventurous.  Thank you all for your prayers over the next few days and beyond!  

Christa and Vernon

Going back to Russia!

We have dates to return to Russia!   We will leave Charlotte July 12 and arrive in Moscow July 13.  Then on July 14 we go to court.  This will be quite a big day as we go before the judge to officially adopt Andrew.  We are already starting to get ready for this experience.  After court is finished, we will have a 10 day wait before we can physically have Andrew with us.  This wait is over on July 25, and on this day, we will go to his baby home and bring him home with us.  Home for the time being will be an apartment near a historic area of Moscow called Old Arbat.  We will have to process through the American embassy and do a little more paperwork before we can leave Russia.  We anticipate being home in early August with Andrew.  I can't wait to show everyone his big blue eyes and cute smile.  We continue to pray that Andrew receives lots of love and attention from his caregivers, and we are eagerly looking forward to having him home with us.  

While we are in Russia and wait for our 10 day wait to expire, we are going to travel to St. Petersburg and visit this beautiful city for a few days.  We hear this city is the cultural and artistic center of Russia, and we hope to absorb some of Russia's beauty during this trip.

And meanwhile, this week we will be busy packing, preparing for court, and doing everything else we have to do to get ready for our 20 day trip.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as this promises to be quite a crazy but wonderful week!

I have attached a picture of a Matryoshka doll, also known as a Babooshka doll, which is a stacking doll with one doll inside the other.  It is a Miami Hurricane Matryoshka doll, which we found in Moscow on our first trip.  When Vernon saw this, it was a must have gift for him.  He enjoyed seeing his school on display in Russia.   Russians clearly anticipate gullible American tourists like us.  Have a nice day everyone!

Christa and Vernon