Busy Week!

No travel dates yet, but they should be coming soon.
We had to be re-registered from Tyumen to Arkhangelsk so that’s what’s taking so long.

So what have we done this week?
-Got the new money for our trip
-Had our medicals done again (they had expired)
-Had our USCIS fingerprints taken again (they are going to expire in July)
-Had our FBI fingerprints taken (region specific requirement)
-Requested accountant’s new license and Jim’s proof of income

All this in addition to both working full time, my car getting new brakes, Jim buying a new car and us celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary!
Whew – I’m so ready for this 3 day weekend!

Have a safe and fun Memorial Day everyone!

How cool is this?

My friend Teri brought me a kid's meal toy from Chick-fil-A that they were going to toss because, well, they just don't need anymore toys.
But this isn't just any kids meal toy, it's a CD that teaches kids a language.
And this isn't just any language, it's teaching Russian!

I just finished listening to it and it's pretty good, a little fast, but still informative and definitely better than the average kid's meal toy.
There are also CD's in Chinese, Italian and Spanish.

So props to you Chick-fil-A for doing this!
And as my friend Isabel says, their chicken nuggets are like "tiny bits of gold"!

Thursday started out just like any other day...

and then we received 'THE CALL' - We got our referral!!
We don't have travel dates yet but in about 3-4 weeks we'll be on our way to Arkhangelsk to meet 2 little ones!
What happened to Tyumen?? Well, there's a baby home in Ark that has 2 kiddos available that match us so we will be re-registered there in the next couple of days.
It's been a whirlwind few days since getting the call - now it's back to hurry up and get that paperwork done AGAIN. Most of our docs have expired so it's back to the paperchase for the 2nd half of our dossier. No worries though, did it once, can do it again.

We just met Susan, Artem and Susan's SIL Amy for dinner - it was great fun!
Artem is just the cutest little man and wow, what an appetite! He truly doesn't stop eating -
His personality is just as sweet as can be and we really enjoyed our visit - thanks for meeting us Susan!

At least someone got their babies

Sweet baby birds in the Crepe Myrtle in front of our house...

Truly International

I was in a meeting this morning for work and there were 11 of us total. I was the only U.S. born person there. 3 from Mexico, 3 from France, 3 from Italy, 1 from Bosnia, 1 from Japan and me. That’s the beautiful thing about America – it’s made up of all of these diverse people who make it what it is, culturally unique.

I’m proud to be bringing 2 Russians to this wonderful country where they will have the opportunity to be a CEO or a Doctor or a musician or whatever in the world they want to do.
My mom always drilled it into my head that I could truly be anything I wanted to be, I just had to want it bad enough.

We can say that in this country and really mean it.

Kids Rooms

Well, hubby finally let me go to town on the kids rooms (I guess he's starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!).

Here are some pics of the play room which is finished except for a couple of chairs for the munchkins to sit on for TV watching. I tried to make it appropriate for any kids 1-4 years old.

I would love your help on this:

I love this room (taken from Tip Junkie) but Jim hates it. I'm trying to find something we can agree on and it's so hard! I did a quick mock-up of the colors I'd like to use and it seriously looks like the kids will think they joined the circus!

Any ideas on something in between?

Stef thought the whole thing was boring.

Hurry!

Singapore Airlines just started a non-stop flight from Houston to Moscow and they're having a sale on airfare - ~$715 per person round trip IF we book by May 22...

Anyone in Russia reading this ??!!!

Have I mentioned that we're ready to go?