We got THE CALL!!!!!!

Monday morning around 11:00 am, Rachael got THE CALL from our caseworker!

We have been assigned a date for the Court Hearing to finalize the adoption of our 2 wonderful boys.  (We are not posting the date for privacy reasons)

We are now working to get our visa application paperwork in order (Rachael has been working on this at home, at school, at home and will be finishing it at school tomorrow; hopefully it will print correctly!)  We will get new pictures made Wednesday and Rachael will take it to the Consulate Friday morning.

As far as the financials go, we think we are okay.  We still have the second payment to make in Russia (Russia fee part 2 is $7250) that will take a chunk out of our savings account, tickets for this trip (around $1500) plus tickets for us (and the boys!) on the last trip, hotel reservations for this trip (will be around $450+), hotel reservations for the next trip, visa application fee ($300), plane tickets on both trips to and from Archangelsk, meals while in Russia, and any other expenses that come up (including cost of wireless Internet connections at the hotels).

We are scheduled to run the DX Kid's Cafe at the Greater Houston Ham Fest on Saturday, March 5.  That should bring in around $1000+ after expenses.

We are very excited about this last leg of our journey (even though it hasn't really sunk in completely)! 

Please continue to pray for our boys and their current caregivers as we work to get all of this finalized so they can come home. 

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as well as we deal with all the remaining papers and plans.  We have some decisions to make regarding Chris' employment with Fort Bend and Wal-Mart and his time off.  Rachael will be taking 7 weeks off from school (will have about a week of unpaid days) that includes our court hearing trip and some time at home before and after we bring the boys home. 

Please pray for the judge, lawyers and all others that are also involved in this adoption process.

WE HAVE A COURT DATE!!!!

Papers survived the weather

The last of the papers we needed to send to Russia were mailed from Austin last Monday morning via FedEx Overnight with delivery by 10:30 (scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday by 10:30am).

They were delivered and signed for this morning at 10:10am (according to the tracking information on the FedEx website). 

They arrived in Dallas last Tuesday (extreme early morning) but didn't get delivered till today because of the bad weather (ice, snow, etc).

Haven't heard from our caseworker yet.  If they got the papers today, they should be sent back out this afternoon to Russia.  It takes 2 days to get there, so hopefully the papers will arrive by Thursday morning.

Yeah!  Now we get to wait a little bit longer for a court date. 

Still praying that we get a date around the end of the month.  Chris and I are scheduled to run the concession stand at the Greater Houston Ham Fest on Saturday, March 5.  Praying that we will still be able to do so.  We have back-up people (my sister and whoever she gets to help her) in place, but we would rather be there ourselves.  It would be easier all the way around if we are here for that weekend.

Please continue to keep us and our boys in your prayers as we continue to wait.