My wonderful mother-in-law.

I just wanted acknowledge my mother in law. She has just been released from the hospital today. We had a big medical scare last week but we thank God she made it through. She is not only like a mom to me but, she is also my friend and I love her dearly..I am truly blessed to have her in my life and I know we can't wait for the day when her newest grandson will meet his mum-mums. I look forward to getting back to our afternoons with having tea
and Irish soda bread.

March/April updates

The monthly updates came out for March. Two referrals were received and one was matched with a sibling group.

Three children arrived home to two families in March. The children were all from Yekaterinburg.

The wait time based on the current trends, they anticipate most families with a complete dossier will wait 7-10 months. WHFC has reported that they have seen a significant slow-down in the rates at which several regions are referring children for international adoption.

Some really good news. As of April 16th, things have changed in Russia. I listened to our latest call in session with our agency and I was so encouraged by what I heard. So far this month there were four referrals. Very busy and the month is not over. This is great news(considering it has only been two referrals a month).

One referral came from Bryansk so that region is moving again! I was so excited to hear that. One other came from Voronezh and one from Yekaterinburg.

I spoke to our case manager today and we are next in line for Bryansk. (Yahoo) So we are hoping that our time is not too far off.

Our case manager and I talked about the four referrals and she also shared with me that several families received court dates this month. I commented on Yekaterinburg region saying it appears to have a lot of activity lately and she agreed. So things have changed to the positive in just a month.

Our paperwork for Voronezh has been sent to our agency today. So it is 50/50 chance for each region. Which one will come in first with our referral?

Please keep us in your prayers.

Jersey Girls

This weekend was wonderful. I traveled to New Hope PA, to meet up with my very good friends who I have known for many years. We try to get together as often as we can. I must say it lifted my spirits and brought my sunshine back. We did some shopping & catching up with each others lives. I am truly blessed to have all them in my life. We always joke that we will some day be like the show the "Golden Girls"(but I will always be the baby) :-)

You guys do bring out the best in me. Thanks for always letting me say what is on my mind, and for all the laughs that we shared. I can't wait until our little guy meets all of you.

Documenting our journey

We have this blog to document our adoption journey for ourselves and our child and also to share our progress and news with our family and friends.
I encourage everyone to post their comments, because down the road, I would like to have this blog printed as a book for our child.

http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook

Happy Easter

Russian Easter egg history, like most history dealing with artifacts, has everything to do with some sort of tradition. In the case of Russian Easter egg history, it has something to do with how Easter was celebrated in the area a long time ago. As we all very well know, the legend of the Easter Egg involves Mary Magdalene and her gift to the Emperor of Tiberius – proving that Christ has, indeed, risen, the chicken egg that Magdalene offered to him turned red right before their very eyes – since then, colored eggs have become a symbol of Easter, new life, and a promising future. The Russians have therefore adopted a tradition wherein they would gift each other with painted chicken eggs not only to commemorate the holiday but also to celebrate the promise of a better future. In Russian Easter egg history, the eggs most likely symbolized hope.

That being said, Russian Easter egg history evidently didn't end there. In a place like Russia, it's not necessarily practical to give away Easter eggs made of real chicken eggs (they need to be used for something else) which is why Easter eggs made of wood, bones and the like were also given out in Russian Easter Egg history. Today, the tradition remains – people receive Easter eggs on easter, whether the eggs are real or made of something else. As the years progressed, though, these “fake” eggs have become more intricate and popular, even going as far as becoming priceless.

The most famous of all the Russian Easter eggs, to give you a very good idea of what this is actually about, would be Faberge eggs. Faberge eggs are world-famous decorative Easter eggs that are not only expensive, but also very beautiful. And because they are so precious, they are hardly ever used in the traditional Easter egg sense and are instead displayed in very secure places.

Shopping

We bought some great items like clothes, slippers, coloring books, crayons and bubbles to donate to the orphanage. We had some contributors to the cause as well. We will fill a suitcase with the donations and just leave the suitcase in Russia.



We also picked up some toys for our little one! We will bring the toys & leave them with him on our first trip. We were warned we may not get them back, but that's not a problem! It's customary to bring gifts to the people who will help us when we are there. For example: the orphanage director, caregivers and our facilitator that works with our agency. We will also include our driver. I put together a small photo album together of our family and identified each at bottom of each picture in Russian. We will leave this with him until we return to pick him up.

Voronezh Region :: Regions & Cities :: Russia-InfoCentre

Voronezh Region :: Regions & Cities :: Russia-InfoCentre

Here is a link to our additional region that we could get a referral from.
Hope to have the paper work that we need for this region completed by next week.

Map

Dbl click on map. You will get close up view.

For those who wanted to see where Voronezh & Bryansk are located. It is a 6 or 7 hour train ride from Moscow. Time will tell what region we will be traveling to. My mom traveled to Hungary/Budapest in the 70's with my grandfather, they visited with our relatives in that country. Not so far from Russia.