OLIVIA'S ROOM

Well, we are just about finished with "O's" room...we just have to find a door knob for her door and we are done!(for now anyway-ha-ha). My sister and I went to a few antique stores in Point Pleasant and found this really cute furniture. We also found really cute "shabby chic" curtains at target....I LOVE their shabby chic collection!

We just have 2 more weeks left before we leave for Russia again....we can't WAIT!!!

Renae and Joe

WE GOT OUR COURT DATE!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeaaaaaah! FINALLY we received our court date today! It will be Wednesday, December 17th. Joe and I will probably leave on Sunday the 14th (3 weeks and 2 days!)in order to be in Kaluga on Monday, visit Olivia for a couple days, have court on Wednesday and then home again on Thursday (unless of course we get REALLY lucky and have our 10 days waived which is kind of rare in Kaluga). In that case, we wouldn't have to come home and wait out the 10 days that they make you wait after court in order to get custody of your child, we would be able to have custody of her right away and stay in Russia.

We will keep everyone updated!

Renae and Joe

BABY SHOWER

I want to thank my mom and sister for throwing me a BEAUTIFUL baby shower last Sunday! Joe took me out in the morning, and I came home to a house full of family and friends. I want to thank everyone once again for all of the gifts that you bought for Olivia (she will LOVE them all!) and for being there to share this VERY special occasion with us. We are so proud to have a loving and supportive family like we have and to be surrounded by a great group of friends....we are SURE Olivia will feel the same way!

Below are a few more pictures of the shower. My mother made the BEAUTIFUL and DELICIOUS cake and my sister and mother both made the little purse favors filled with chocolates that have the Olivia Reese tags on them.....SO cute!!!! Thank you also to my sister-in-laws, and mother-in-law for coming early to help out with everything....I love you all!

Now that we got just about EVERYTHING that we need, we will anxiously wait for our court date!

WAITING FOR A COURT DATE!!!!!

Monday morning I got the two extra documents that we need for court notarized, drove an hour to Trenton on Tuesday to drop them off at the State building to get apostilled and then drove back to Trenton on Wednesday to pick them up. I had to send them UPS to the Atlanta Marriott where another family (thanks Karen and Kerry) is going to be staying before their flight out on Friday to Siberia to have their court date and pick up their little girl. They will hand-deliver our documents to the Moscow office....thank you! I believe that will be the last of the documents that I have to get ready for court, but you NEVER know!

Now, I will be preparing my lists for trip 2 and also for trip 3. Trip two will be for court and we will only be in Kaluga for about 3 or 4 days and then fly home. Trip 3 (picking up Olivia) will be about 10 days after that and I will be there for about 2 1/2-3 weeks.

During this waiting period,I will keep occupied by doing Olivia's room. I haven't even started yet and hopefully this will keep my anxiety level low while waiting for a court date.

C'MON COURT DATE!!!!

bye for now,
Renae and Joe

BACK IN THE U.S.A

Well, we got home at about 1:30a.m. this morning. Now we have the unpacking, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.. We miss Olivia SOOOO much already. But, now that we are home, we just wait now for the court date which will probably be December or January (hopefully December).

I do have to say, Joe and I had a GREAT experience in Russia. It was so interesting to see the OLD Russia (Kaluga) compared to Moscow, which is COMPLETELY different from Kaluga and most of the outside regions. Moscow is similar to New York City/Manhattan, but 2 1/2 to 3 times more expensive! Although, I do have to say that the Russian's (whether Kaluga OR Moscow)(especially the women) are ALWAYS dressed in style. The women all where the high heeled boots up to the knee with the pants tucked in and a real nice coat and pocket book. You actually would stick out like a sore thumb if you wore sneakers!!

The staff that Catholic Social Services has in Russia is incredible! They are ALL so nice and will help you in any way possible. All of our needs were taken care of and we were never waiting for them, they were ALWAYS there waiting for Joe and I...They were the BEST!!!!

Well, I have alot to catch up on, so I will be sure to keep everyone updated! Thanks to all of our family and friends who gave us their support while we were over there...it meant SO much to us!

Now we wait for our court date!!!!!

take care,
Renae and Joe

WE HAD TO SAY GOODBYE TODAY

Hi everyone,

This morning we had to say goodbye to "O" until we can come back to Russia for court. We were picked up this morning and taken to the orphanage. We could only have about 20 minutes with her because we had to get on the road to drive to Moscow. It was REALLY hard to leave her but I knew that the faster we got home, the faster we get back to pick her up.

Yesterday we had two visits with her and they were the BEST day of all. Angie and Kurt, who were there to have court, stopped in with their adorable little girl while we were playing in the room. When "O" saw their little girl being active, she held onto my fingers and just started walking like crazy. This is the first we have seen her walk (with help) that good. She is so precious!

We are in Moscow now and it is completely different than Kaluga. It is like New York City here and Kaluga is such a small town. But, I kinda miss Kaluga. The people were really nice who we were working with. We are staying at the Marriott Grand and it is really, really nice. The internet access is so much better than what we had in Kaluga also.

We went to the Catholic Social Services office here in Moscow to meet with Svetlana and Irena. They asked if we had pictures and Joe whipped out his laptop and showed them the videos we took. They loved looking at them and were VERY happy that we accepted her as our daughter.

Our driver, Vladimir, will pick us up tomorrow at 11:00am to take us to get our physicals and then tomorrow we will head for home.

We can't post pictures of "O" until after we court and we get her, so I will tease you a little.

paka,

Renae and Joe

WOOOOHOOOOO...SHE IS GOING TO BE OUR DAUGHTER!!!!!

Hi everyone!

GREAT news! We are letting them know tomorrow that we want to sign papers to adopt this ADORABLE little girl!

I'm SO sorry that I didn't post our trip 1, but I was just SO nervous about getting all the right medical docs to our doctor and our access here is HORRIBLE, our Skype keeps breaking in and out and your really can't understand ANYONE your talking to and it has been hard just to keep in touch with the doctor and our family.....whew!
But, I can now share the AWESOME news and we are very excited!

Trip one was good, but as most of you adopting know, she was a little hesitant and scared. Then we visited her again for about an hour in the evening and it was a little better. All she wanted was to be held, she really didn't want to be put down to play too much at all.

We then went into the office and the orphanage doctor gave us all of her medical. Joe and I asked question after question and got I'm SURE all the medical in her file. Afterwards, the orphanage doctor told us that she wasn't prepared to be asked about so much. She was REALLY nice though and gave us everything we asked for.

We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our translator Nadia (or Nadya?). She is THE BEST! She and our really nice driver Vladimir even drop us off at the restaurant that we want to eat at and she comes in to order for us before she leaves for the day. She takes really good care of us and so does the driver Vlad. We are NEVER left alone anywhere until after we get back to the hotel.

Today....our 2nd visit....was AWESOME! We took Michelle's advice (thanks Michelle) and asked if we could observe her with the other kids before she sees us. She WAS a completely different person than she was with us the first visit and, like Michelle said, it made us feel THAT much more sure of our decision!

We then took her into the gym and she just felt so much more at ease with us. She played, giggled, walked around (with the help of someone) and just was SO funny and loveable. I cannot WAIT to bring her home to our family because they are going to LOVE her! She is so adorable, funny and LOVES to be held. She actually puts a choke hold on my neck! She's also teething VERY bad and loved to bite on anything that she could. Forget the little photo album Joe and I brought for her, she already destroyed it. She was chewing it and ripped out a few pages, but will NOT let us take it away from her. It was the only thing she wanted to hold and play with. She wouldn't take the teether I bought her..she didn't want it. Loved the gerber treats though!

Tomorrow we will go for her visa and visit with her two more times and then one time Thursday morning to say our goodbye's and off to Moscow for our medicals and then home on Saturday.

I will try to post again while in Moscow, maybe the access will be a little better.

I just want to say CONGRATULATIONS to Karen and Cathy for getting your COURT DATES....YEEEAAAAH!!!!

And, to our family, I can't WAIT to come home and have a MOVIE NIGHT with all of you so you can see the future addition to our family.....she's ADORABLE!!!

Love you Michael.

Talk to you all again soon!

Paka,
Renae and Joe