Thanks some more

Wow, hard to believe we have been home a month. Tonight we had a sweet time of celebration at church and were so encouraged by all of the sweet comments you had for us. We want to thank everyone for all of the cards, letters and calls. And to thank God for this wonderful gift.

Anna Beth is doing very well. She is healthy, she is growing, and she is doing a great job learning English. Right now, she understands everything we say, and she mimics everything. We are going to do a little speech therapy just to catch up.

On Sunday we celebrated a sweet time of dedication.

Its only been a week? Really

Even thou we have only been home with Anna Beth for one week, it feels like she has been a part of our lives forever. Sorry that it has taken us this long to update the blog, but we have been very busy with her. She has done extremely well, and we are all very excited. Here are few pictures from her first days in the USA!

Thanks again for all of the prayers.

Meeting Lucy

I am still silly

Championship family

This is how you do it

Very cold for sigthseeing

all dressed and ready to go

They took me for my first trip to McDonalds

Here we are at the front of red square

That famous onion top thing

Moscow underground. Check

Red Square. Check

Frostbite. Check

Too cold to buy souvenirs. Seems that 0 degrees F is at least good to keep the crowds down at the famous tourista sites. We saw more wedding parties in the Gum mall, then we did sightseers in Red Square. To put in prespecitive what a -11 feelslike tempature will do, our camera died during the experience.

Well, home tomorrow. We leave the hotel at 7:15 am, and hope to get to our house within 27 or so hours. Don't forget to pray for us. We have 3.5 hour flight from Moscow to Amsterdam, then a little over 10 hours from there to Memphis. Then a one hour to Jackson. Then a ride to the house.

We raised our right hand, and they said we could bring her home

"Cheese"

We made it to the Embassy today. They said congratulations and gave us her visa and imigration paperwork. Next stop for paperwork is the Russian Consolate. Then we can come home Saturday. Thanks everybody for checking in on us. We hope to get out and see Red Square and a few other places tomorrow.

Photos for those watching at home.

Silly faces

I love my mommy

I got to nap in the big bed

Daddy shows me the dvd player (with the baby crack on it)

I like my phone

Moscow outside my window

I want to go outside

My shirt says princess

Getting dressed up for the embassy

We made it to Moscow

Wow, sorry it has been a couple of days. Not a lot else went on in Arkhangelk except a good bit of cabin fever. With only four hours of daylight, and most of that while Anna Beth was down for her nap, there wasn’t much of a chance to get outside and play. Oh, and it was 10 degrees and snowing, so not very much fun in that anyway. We were able to complete all of our required paperwork and get ABC’s Russian Passport. Leigh was the one that had to go and pick that up, and since she got back Anna Beth has been a little testy with Bryan. Seems that since mamma left her for an hour, papa is to blame. It really only comes out when she is tired, or stressed. This too shall pass.

We had a rather uneventful flight from Ark to Moscow. A little late getting off of the ground, and that extra 30 minutes of having to sit strapped into our seats was almost more than she wanted, but we made it. She got a little fussy about an hour into the flight. She was fighting sleep, and fighting Leigh for not letting her down on the ground to stay awake. After 5 or so minutes of pouting, crying,and mild screaming, she was asleep. Another hurry up and wait in the Moscow airport for forty five minutes because our driver was stuck in traffic (a very common excuse) and we made it to the hotel. The Moscow Hilton has proven, so far, to be well worth all of our points to stay here. English is the primary language, a very helpful and accommodating staff, (well, for a regular price of $350 to 400 a night, what do you expect) and good food. Leigh has decided that civilization is much better than the best the north of Russia had to offer.

One of the main things we have had here is comfort food. For Leigh it was a rack of lamb on the night we arrived. For Bryan it was the first good cup (whole pot)of coffee since we left home, and for Anna Beth it was what might have been her first waffle. (With medical care in close reach, Leigh is feeling out the boundaries of Anna Beth’s diagnosis of food allergies.) We haven’t quite caught up on missing our nap yesterday, or waking up at 6:30 for the Dr.’s appointment this morning, but we all feel much better today. Even in a city a far from home as Moscow is, the 17th floor of a hotel where people speak your language, and u can see out makes things a lot better.

Speaking of the 17th floor. We have a neat view of the northern end of the city. We have a corner room, so we can see about 130 degrees of the city. We are much higher than most of the other buildings, so other than the smog, the view is unobstructed. The hotel is built in one of the seven Lenin towers, so it is in a historic building. Anna Beth enjoys looking around out of the window here too. After her nap, we plan to let her get out and experience the city a bit.

I mentioned the Dr.’s appointment. We were given the clean bill of health required by the US embassy for her visa. Our paperwork has been filed at the embassy, and we have an appointment at 2:00 PM on Thursday for our interview, and to get her visa. After that, either Thursday or Friday, we go to the Russian Consulate and register her to leave. Mixed in there will be her trip to Red Square, Arbat Street, and anywhere else we can stand. A good friend of ours pointed out that it was warmer at the south pole today then it is in Moscow. Thanks to global warming, Moscow is having its coldest January in 20 years. At least we have daylight here longer than we did in Ark, so that should help all of our feelings.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope to see you all soon, and here are a few more pictures.

Cousins

Thanks Dr. Mills for the dum dum.

Getting to know the airport monkey

Waiting on our airplane. Alex, Anna Beth, and Anya

I love my new clothes and hairbrush/ waiting on my hairbow

still learning

A few milestones. We were told one time when we needed to go potty number 1. And after she woke up from our Sunday nap she went to the fridge and pointed. When Leigh opened the door, she grabbed a bottle of food and a spoon.


Other activities included acting like a two year old at breakfast. Seems she is a lot easier to keep in check in a lap, then she is in the high chair. She likes the freedom, but she also likes to see your reactions when thinks go sliding to the floor. She continued to be a little wild until nap time. She didn’t want to go down, but ultimately did. And she woke up being Anna Beth the easy again. We also learned today that for the long skinny kid, elastic waist are good, but draw strings are better.

A few more photo’s.

Little Miss Anna Beth Bed Head
























Poopy trilogy

ABC was excited to hear that the Saints won. And Bo thinks she is back in college, because with our weight restrictions on luggage she is having to redefine what exactly is dirty clothes and what isn’t.

photos for now

I can do it.
I play hard.

This is fun.

Cold, but out for dinner.

I can smile.

First shopping trip. Shoes that fit.

Please, what's with the camera?

Turns out the only real problem we had on day one was bath time. She did not like that big ole tub, and the air was too cold evidently. And using the hair dryer to speed things up after the bath went no where fast. After we got her dressed, she was fine. I guess for a father, your daughter wanting to keep her clothes on is a good thing.

Today was another good day. She slept thru the night, woke about 6 am, but let us cuddle around her in the bed for an hour or so. She is really eating well, and has not been picky thus far. I went out for another paperwork appointment today. While she and Leigh stayed in. After a good set of afternoon naps (Leighbo won the longest nap prize) Anna Beth and I got to spend some quality quite time together trying not to wake up mommy. We got to read several books today too.

We have not had much success getting “good” photos. Every time the red eye lights come on she stops smiling. Here are a couple of the more classic ones from today.

Highlights for today were getting to skype with lots of her family back home. She got to meet NA, Pops and Joey at the office. She saw Caleb before he went to school. Nana and pop had company over to meet her. And Jacob and Bruce got to get out of class with Aunt Brandi to say hi too.

We have a couple of days waiting for her Passport, so maybe we can get some better pictures over the weekend.

GOTCHA

With all the time I knew we would have on planes and in airports I brought along Dr. Avant’s book, “If God were Real.” I finally started reading it this morning while I was waiting on them to bring Anna Beth to our hotel room. After just 30 minutes with her I can promise you God IS real. Your prayers have been heard. While I promise you the first 10 or 15 minutes were probably some of the most tense any of us have experienced., things have made a turn for the better. ABC has calmed down a little. (Ashley you will be so happy that changing her into some new clothes made her calm down.) She has played with some toys, had a snack, finally tried her juice, and is having a discussion with Leighbo about what it means to potty.

When they brought her to us, they had a little bag of toys with her. She had the photo albums we had left for her, and she had a”little angel” doll. I asked Leigh if we had left that before, and she quickly produced our copy that Lesley had sent. Thanks again God for winking at us and reminding us that you are in control, and as long as we will follow along you will continue to take care of us.

Well, the morning continued pretty well. We had a visitor from her orphanage, Alexander’s new parents had to go out to get him registered. The kdis both played, but not together. Diana Beth was very tired, so we laid her down for a nap. Then we had another surprise hoop to jump thru. We had to wake her up and take her to Alexander’s room while we went back to the courthouse. Seems that Diana’s last name was misspelled in translation and we had adopted the wrong kid. Some how 26 letters of our alphabet get messed up when you try to convert them to 34 phonetic characters. This was discovered when they wouldn’t allow us to register her as ours. The hearing only took about 10 minutes, and the judge agreed to correct the spelling and allow us to get that decision today, not 10 days from now. So back to the hotel, and wait to see if we can get registered today. 　
　
Just got back from getting the adoption decree and birth certificate. SHE IS OFFICIALY OURS!!!!!!!! And we are back on schedule.

Hope everyone else has this good of a day.

Back in Arkhangelsk

Well, we have been here often enough now that the young lady at the front desk recognized us when we walked up. We got checked in and then went out to a little market for some provisions and stopped by the baby food store. We got to sign a few more pieces of paperwork and got a chance to clean up a bit. We are about to call it a night, even though it is just 5 pm here. We have a big day tomorrow as Anna Beth should get to us around 10AM tomorrow.

We met one of the other families that is here picking up their son. They were able to fill us in a little bit about what they have been doing. Hopefully we can get the kids together for some playtime before they head off to Moscow.

Thanks again for all of the thoughts and prayers. Leigh's cough has been back, but doesn't seem to be gettinng any worse.

If you remeber when we talked about our summer vacation at the beach. This is what the beach looks like now.

1/2 way there

We are sitting in the KLM Crowne room in Amsterdam - for 12 hours. What a lay over! Should be in Moscow early in the morning/late tonight, 5am moscow time, then on the Ark to get Anna Beth on Thursday. Just cheecked the weather and it is much warmer than last trip. Looks about like at home last week! No below O F days while we are there. Maybe we can get out and play in the snow a bit. More to come...

Travel Plans

We leave Monroe on the afternoon of the 11th of January to go get Anna Beth. We should be back home, flying into Jackson, on Saturday night the 23rd. We get to Arkhangelsk around noon on Wednesday the 13th, and should get Anna Beth around 10:00 Thursday morning the 14th. In Arkhangelsk, we should file paperwork on Friday the 15th, pick it up on Tuesday the 19th. We go to Moscow on the 20th do our paperwork there and home Sat. Hopefully everything will work out on that schedule.

A lot of our thoughts have been about what will we do for seven days in a hotel with her. Today the temp in Arkhangelsk was -36F. Not a lot to do outside in those temps. We have tried to find light weight games and toys (we only have 44 pounds of luggage a piece going in) that we can take with us. We have invested in a portable DVD player and a few hundred hours of dvds. We have playdoh, markers, colors and such. We just don't have anything that converts everything we say in English to come out as Russian. But we aren't the first to go thru this, and we won't be the last.

We have been in contact with a couple of other families that will be in Ark at the around the same time. We hope to try to get the kids together during the days to play and to make each families transitions a little easier.

Thanks to everybody for following along with us on this adventure. We pray everyday that God helps to prepare Anna Beth's heart and mind for this change, and ours too.