We're Going to Russia!!!

Well, we have been going crazy trying to get the last minute paperwork for our trip together and make arrangements for planes, hotels, etc. We will probably be staying in an apartment while in Moscow--the best part of that is they have free international phone calls and free internet. We had originally planned to stay at the Marriott Grand. I had been watching the rates, and while it was pricy (as is everything in Moscow), when we went to make actual reservations, we were shocked to find the 8 nights in Moscow would cost us $8400!! No way Jose!! We tried the other Marriotts in Moscow and the cheapest would have been close to $5000 for 8 nights. We also checked out other hotels, all of which were comparably outrageous. So, we've decided to rent an apartment which is much more reasonable. The other nice thing is we will have a kitchen and washing machine, so we can save some on the food costs too.

We will leave Friday, Jan. 11. We're flying out of Lexington to Atlanta, then direct to Moscow from Atlanta on a 13 hour flight. We then have a 12 hour layover in Moscow (we will get a "dayroom" in a hotel near the airport to crash in for a few hours). Then, Saturday night at 10:30 pm we leave Moscow and fly to Kemerovo, arriving Sunday. We then go to court on Monday morning where if all goes well (and we get all our last minute paperwork done!!) the judge will declare Haylie forever ours. We then spend Monday night, again without Haylie who will still be in the orphanage. We will drive about 3 hours from Kemerovo to Prokopyvesk on Tuesday to the orphanage to finally pick up Haylie--so we will officially adopt her before we even see her again!!

Next we leave Kemerovo Wednesday, Jan 16 and fly back to Moscow. We will spend 8 nights in Moscow completing the paperwork, doctors visit, getting Haylie a passport photo taken, etc. It takes 5 business days to complete it all and of course since we don't get in Moscow until Wednesday, we will have the weekend to just kill time.
We ended up staying an extra day because the direct flight home wasn't available on the 23rd. So, we decided it would be worth it to stay another night, rather than have to take flights that took us to Hamburg, New York City (with an 8 hour layover there!!), Cincinnati, and finally to Lexington--this craziness was the only option on the 23rd. Changing planes so many times would just be too hard with the baby.

So we will be back into Lexington on the 24th of January, Lord willing. I just looked at the weather channel and it is currently -3 in Kemerovo with a low of -14 predicted for tonight (of course it is in Siberia!!!) It's a balmy 11 in Moscow with a low of 3 degrees tonight. The long range forecast calls for a warmup to 5 degrees in Kemerovo and 27 degrees in Moscow while we are there--yippee!!

We would appreciate everyones prayers that all goes well with safe travels, a healthy baby, easy court process, and actually getting our visas before we have to leave!! I'll try and post before we go to update you. Sounds like posting in Kemerovo might be a problem, but I'll definately post daily while we are in Moscow so everybody can know what is going on.