Waiting 8 Weeks

Well, it's been 8 weeks now since our first trip to Russia. We got the news earlier this week that the couple we traveled with, Dave and Stacy have gotten their court date for November 29. I am soooooo happy for them. I've kind of been waiting with baited breath all week for a phone call from Adoption Ark for our court date too, since they got theirs. I finally couldn't stand it any longer and emailed our coordinator in Chicago. All she had to say was that we were still waiting on a "release letter" to get a date and that she would let me know if she heard anything. Not what I wanted to hear obviously. This waiting gets harder every day!!! I keep reading on the web message boards about others getting their court dates--seems like about 5 families got their dates last week. I try not to be jealous, but can't help wish it was us too. There has also been several posts about people loosing their referral right before their second trip, and so now I'm worried to death that something will happen and we won't be able to get our Haylie. We certainly don't have the best luck in the world, and I'm really scared our bad luck will come through in this matter and something will happen that we won't get Haylie.

Oh, well I'll get off of the pity potty and show you our first official baby gift. The sweet doctor I work with bought this for us way back when we first started the process, and planned to give it to me at a shower. But she was so excited, and said she couldn't wait for the shower, so went ahead and gave it to me. It is so adorable, I can't wait to see Haylie riding the rocking horse. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but there is also a little blanket, bottle, pacifier, shirt, teddy bear, and a bib with "Haylie" embroidered on it. I just LOVE it!!

It's Been 6 Weeks Since We Met Haylie

It was 6 weeks ago today we met Haylie at the orphanage. In some ways those weeks have flown by, but they have also been interminable waiting to get our court date so we can go back and bring her home. Every night Rich kisses her picture on the refrigerator and says "Booster, come home!!" several times--it is so cute. Is this really my husband who really wasn't too sure about kids just a couple of years ago? He is over the moon in love with Haylie. I guess I need to tell you my family is crazy about nicknames. Just about everybody has one, and Rich started calling Haylie, Haylie Boo. From there it went to "the Booster", and now the poor child who isn't even here yet has the nickname of "Booster".

I sent the last of the apostilled documents in to Adoption Ark last week, and supposedly a couple who left for Russia on Saturday hand carried our documents over as they went. Please pray they get there safely and that they haven't lost the ones we took when we went. I'm a little concerned taking them in 2 separate batches that something will be missing and it will delay our court date. I just saw on the Kemerovo webgroup I'm on, that a family who went for their 1st trip 2 weeks before we did got their court date for the middle of November!! So with any luck, we could be 2 weeks behind them, which would be right around Thanksgiving. That would be SOOOO awesome. They are using a different agency than us, but I'm sure going to keep my fingers crossed.

Because there was another home UK football game, we still didn't get a chance to get the nursery put together. Next week is out too because our church is having a Ladies Inspiration Day all day Saturday. So maybe one of these days I'll be able to post pictures of the nursery all put together. For now, it's still in boxes sitting in the middle of the room. So here are the "before" pictures, with the "after" pictures to follow in a few weeks.

I Have The Best Mom In The World!!!

Mom and Julia

This is my mom, Meleta and with my neice, Julia. She is the absolute best mom in the whole wide world (at least to me!!). She is so excited about getting Haylie, at times I think she is even more excited than we are. She should have had about 20 grandbabies, but none of her 3 daughters were fertile. She only has one precious grandchild, my neice Julia, now 11 years old, who is also adopted. We have all about loved Julia to death since we got her at 3 months old. Now with Haylie coming, Mom will have another baby to spoil. She has already hand-knitted her 2 beautiful sweaters (one with a hat), an afghan, made a handmade cover for a shopping-cart, and put together a fleece coverlet to use as a floor cloth. She also has bought Haylie her first shoes. In addition she is going to help me assemble the crib and dresser, which we finally bought last week (since Rich has no apptitude for anything remotely resembling a handyman!!). Above are pictures of the beautiful sweaters (one white, one yellow) and the afghan she has made.

I can't wait to see them on Haylie--she will be an absolute doll!! We're going on 5 weeks now since our first trip, so hopefully we will hear something about a court date within the next month.

Go Cats!!!

We had a great weekend this past week. We are long-suffering University of Kentucky Wildcat football season ticket holders, for the past 12 years. As most of you know UK has not been a powerhouse in the SEC, and that's putting it nicely. We always go to every game and tailgate with a bunch of friends from my church. We always have a big time, even when Kentucky looses, which is normally often. This year however, has been different, as Kentucky is now 6-1 (an amazing record for us poor KY fans!!)

So last Saturday, we played LSU, who at the time was ranked #1 in the country. We were hopeful, but nobody really thought we would win. Well, hallelujah we actually won after 3 overtimes!! It was so much fun, probably the best time we've ever had at a football game. The whole day was great starting with the tailgating...we had smoked pulled pork sandwiches which were fantastic. One of the guys uncle from church actually makes it himself, from his own pigs. It was a gorgeous October day and we had a crowd of about 40 people tailgating. These folks go all out, with 3 tents set up, a flat screen TV, even heaters when it gets cold. Above are some pictures of our tailgating extravaganza and some of the game after we won.

It's the Hill Family Birthday Week

It's been a busy week as we celebrated birthdays all week. BOTH my mother and father's birthday is October 10th and mine is October 11th. Because of everybodies crazy schedules, to be able to get everybody together, we started celebrating last Saturday the 6th. We officially celebrated Mom's birthday on Saturday (unfortuneately my Dad passed away 3 years ago, so even tho he's not here in body to celebrate, we still feel he's here in spirit so we still celebrate both of their birthdays!!).

We started with lunch at the Garden Cafe at the Flag Fork Herb Farm. They have a "Birthday Thank You" that you sign up for and they send you a free lunch for your birthday that you can use anyday of your birth month. We REALLY took advantage of this with both Mom and I using ours, plus my sister Marcia who's birthday is October 1 used hers. So we got 3 free lunches. You do have to have one paying person with you to get them free, so we also took Julia, my niece; Lisa, my other sister; and Betty Schlarb, my mom's best friend who lived next door to us growing up, so she is just like family too. This restaraunt is really fantastic and does a great job with homemade soups, salads, & sandwiches. It's really such a "girlie" type of place (but Rich loves it too!!--he couldn't go because he had to go to the annual Kentucky Teachers of History Conference--fun, fun). There is also a really nice gift shop attached to the restaraunt so of course we had to shop after eating. I did buy some really nice silk scarves to take as gifts when we go back to Russia.

After lunch, Mom and my sisters and Julia went to check out the new Hobby Lobby that just opened here in Lexington. We were soooo excited to have one here since the closest one before was in Louisville and we are HUGE Hobby Lobby fans!! After shopping all afternoon, we then went and picked up Betty again (she didn't want to go shopping) and then went to Bonefish Grill for Mom's Birthday Dinner--Lobster Yuuuuummmmyyy!! Rich met us at the Bonefish and we had a great time.

Sunday, we then did the family celebration for my birthday. My mom has always made our favorite meal for our birthdays as long as I can remember. It's a great treat since my mom is the worlds best cook. I always ask for her to make her homemade pizza--it's the best!! So after church we all went back to her house for pizza. She also made me her banana nut cake--from scratch!!! It's delicious, and I know how much work it is for her to make, so I really appreciated it. It was the first time Rich had ever eaten it, and he freaked out over it--said was about the best dessert he'd ever had.

So, after all of that partying, we also got together on my mom's actual birthday for dinner prior to Wednesday night church. Her favorite place to eat out these days is a little Chinese place called Chopstix (this is a woman who REALLY does NOT like to eat out at all!!) So we ordered and had dinner delivered to her house and my sister Marcia, Julia, and I ate with her before we left for church.

Then yesterday was my birthday!! I had to work (boo!), but my boss and a couple of girls from work took me out for Thai food for lunch, which was yummy. For dinner, just Rich and I went out for a nice quiet dinner at Le Deauville which is a swanky French place in downtown Lexington. It was delicious--maybe the best steak I've EVER eaten. We figure it may the last time we'll have an opportunity for a "swanky/romantic/quiet" dinner for awhile, once we get Haylie home!! It's been a very nice birthday week. I could just kick myself because I didn't take ANY pictures of any of this. I've gotten out of the practice of taking a lot of pictures. I used to take tons, but as we've all gotten older, the adults whine "don't take my picture--I'm so fat!!" But we're going to ratchet up and start taking LOTS of pictures once we get Haylie.

I have made some progress on the nursery front. My mom and I went Tuesday night and actually bought a crib and dresser. Problem is, we've been so busy birthdaying that they are still in the boxes in the back of my car!! Hopefully we'll make some progress this weekend and I'll post pictures. Of course, they have to be assembled and Rich just doesn't have the "handyman gene", so my mom and I are going to put them together--we are actually pretty handy, which of course we have to be since we don't have any men around that are!! I've also finally finished ALL of the documents for court and Rich went yesterday and got them apostilled, so I'll mail them in to AA today. With any luck, we'll get a court date by the end of November. Keep your fingers crossed and say lots of prayers it's soon.

Getting The Nursery Ready

We've been back exactly a week now, and so ONE week down in the wait for a court date!! They say to expect 8-10 weeks before we can go back and finalize the adoption in court and bring Haylie home. We've been gathering goodies to fix up the nursery ever since we started the adoption process, but I waited until we knew for sure what age child we were going to get before actually buying the crib and other furnishings. I've been keeping everything together on this daybed in the spare room. As you can see, we already have a lot of STUFF waiting for Haylie. I bought a Laura Ashley bedding set months ago on sale for a great price that I love. It's pinks, blues, greens, and yellows. I had already picked out the crib and dresser I wanted several months ago, but was waiting to buy it until after our first trip. It's a crib that is convertible to a toddler bed, so that should work well since Haylie is already 15 months old. My mom and I went last night to actually buy the crib, but wouldn't you know they were out of stock of the one I wanted. So, we'll have to go back next week after they get in a new shipment. I'll post pictures of the nursery once we get everything set up.

We've shown off pictures and video to all of our family and friends and everybody says they think she is a doll too. Even the international adoption doctor who looked at her photos said how cute she is. Of course, we thinks she's absolutely gorgeous, but it's nice to hear it from others too!! I think my mom is more excited for her to come home than we are even. She'll be only her second grandchild and she'll be babysitting everyday while I work. Haylie will probably be spoiled rotten by all the family, but that's OK. My niece Julia, who is 11 (and is also adopted--domestically) has been the only child in the family all these years, and feels like my "surrogate child" since I certainly love her like she is my own. I think she is actually a little jealous of all the talk about Haylie!! She has gotten all the attention for so long, she doesn't know how to act having to share the limelight. She'll do great with Haylie though, and in fact the little stuffed lamb I left for Haylie at the orphanage was a gift from Julia.

We Made It Home!

We left the hotel in Novokuznetzk, Russia at 5:45 am Wednesday morning (which was 5:45pm Tuesday night at home)and were taken to the airport with Natasha and our driver. We got checked in to fly to Moscow at 7:40. While we were waiting for our flight we met two other couples who were also adopting from another agency from a baby house in Novo. For one of the couples it was their second adoption, so they gave us some pointers to survive our next trip which were really helpful. It was nice to find some other English speaking folks in a sea of Russian speaking folks!!

Our 4 1/2 hour flight to Moscow was uneventful. It was again on the most uncomfortable plane I have ever encountered. They fed us what Natasha kept saying was a "substantial breakfast". Not your typical US fare for sure. They asked if we wanted "chicken, fish, or meat?". I went for the chicken and it was a mistake--it was about 5 small pieces of what looked like boiled chicken on some kind of grain product. I can't say I really ate much, but I did at least taste it. Rich got the "meat" and it was actually pretty good, kind of like chunks of pot roast on white rice. They also served a small salad, a roll, and some pieces of smoked turkey and ham.

We got to Moscow and then had to transfer to the other airport for our international flight. We were met promptly by our driver Dimitri, who didn't speak much English. It was about a 35 mile drive from one aiport to the other, but because the traffic is horrendous, it took us a little over 2 hours to get there. Once there, we had to say goodbye to our friends Stacy and Dave, as they were flying another airline home.

We took off for Atlanta at 1pm for an 11 1/2 hour flight back to the USA!! We arrived in Atlanta ahead of schedule at 4:10pm, then had to go thru customs. It was really kind of strange. We just had to fill out a form, go get our bags, go back thru security, and then recheck our bags. They didn't look in any of our bags at all. We then had a 3 hour layover, before we took off for our blessed Kentucky homeland. We finally landed 29 1/2 hours after we left at 9:30pm. Our bags made it the whole way this time--yeah!! My mom and Betty picked us up at the airport and we went back to my mom's house for a little while to show her a few pictures. We only stayed a little while as we still had an hours drive to get home. Rich decided since he was back in the USA we had to stop at White Castle for a few sliders for the drive home. I must admit they tasted mighty fine after the Russian food!!

So we are now back home. We finally got to bed around midnight Wednesday night and slept til after noon the next day. Luckily, I don't have to go back to work until Monday, so I can rest up before going back, and of course Rich is off on his sabbatical until January, so he has a lot of time to catch up on his sleep. Now the wait begins for our second trip. They told us 6-8 weeks while we were there, but we know realistically it will be more like 10-12 weeks. We are just praying we can get Haylie home in time for Christmas--what a Christmas present that would be.

Unfortunately, our adoption agency has asked us not to post any more pictures until the adoption is final, so I can't show you my pretty girl. Trust me that she is a doll, and as soon as we get her home I'll share LOTS of pictures.