We did it....

Well, initial returns from the IA doctor are positive. We are planning our trip to Russia! Looks like we will be heading over to meet the boys for either the 16th or the 23rd of February. Our Visa application is going in today and we are waiting on tentative travel options from our special adoption travel agent. We will most likely be traveling through L.A. to Seoul on to Vladivostok and staying at the Vladivostok Motor Inn http://www.vlad-inn.ru/oldversion. In addition to the photo albums we have put together for the boys we have, with a lot of help from Gramma and Papa Harry, made the boys each a pillow with this Photo of us on it. Once we arrive in Russia we will meet with the Ministry of Education to formally request to meet the boys. If our request is granted we will go to the Orphanage to spend some time with them each day for 3 or 4 days. After this we will work with the Orphanage and the MOE to determine if the boys are right for our family and then submit paperwork to submit a request for a court date to adopt them. Watch for more timely updates moving forward....

Love to all,

Kenny, Gloria and Keegan

Big News!!!!!

Tuesday night we received a referral from WACAP! Two boys, V (5 and 3/4) and A (4 and 1/2). We are very excited but are being causious as we do have some medical concerns. We are using mutiple sources to have the information that we have reviewed. We will then make our decision whether to accept this referral and travel to Russia. We cannot provide any further information about the children at this time due to concerns for their privacy. We look forward to sharing as soon as we can.

Thanks for sharing in our excitement!

Ken, Gloria and Keegan.

What does it mean?

Well Friday we got an email from WACAP with Visa applications attached! We are not sure what that means yet as we are still waiting for our referral. We are instructed to call the Travel Agency today or tomorrow for instructions on completing and returning the applications to them for processing. Of course we don't have travel dates yet so We are not sure how they can process the 30-day tourist visa without dates....we can only assume this means we will be getting our referral soon.

We have joined an organization called "Families for Russian and Ukranian Adoption" (FRUA). It is a National organization of families that have/will/support adoption from Eastern European countries. Each state has a local chapter and on January 17th we attended the Illinois Chapters "Grandfather Frost (Russian Santa) Celebration". Our goals for attending this meeting were to view some holiday traditions that we might want to incorporate into our own family as well as to meet and talk with some people who have experienced adopting from Russia. Well boy did we ever accomplish both goals. The second goal was met when we sat for dinner with a couple from Elmhurst. This couple adopting four siblings, 2 boys and 2 girls from Russia in 2003. The kids where from 4 to 9 years old when they were adopted. Not only did we spend some quality time with them at the celebration, buy they also invited us back to their house. We spend a couple of hours talking about their experiences, enjoyed some Pizza and Keegan played with the boys and watched a Movie. They gave us a ton of books on Russian/international adoption and we had a great time.

News!

Heard from WACAP today. We are first on the list for WACAP to receive a referral once the Russians begin to issue them. It's looking like we should really have some information in the next couple of weeks. In the mean time we have been preparing for our 1st trip to Russia. Gloria and Nancy (my Brother Rons wife) spent last Saturday evening creating a beautiful photo album for us to take to Russia and leave with our new son. I will work on getting some of it up on the blog to share with all of you... Please keep us in your prayers and I will update the blog as soon as we hear anything,

Russian Holiday

Well we have been contacted by WACAP and informed that the Russian holiday period will offically end on Monday January 12th (US). WACAP expects a child to be be referred to us soon after that. Our WACAP representative contacted us via email on last Friday and let us know that she had been in touch with the Ministry of Education officials in Vladivostok. The officials informed WACAP that they expected referrels to begin to be issued soon after the holiday. This leads Gloria and I to believe that we will have information regarding our son sometime around the last week of January. Hopefully this will lead to us traveling to Russia Middle to late February. Could Gloria be spending her birthday in Russia (Feb 27th)? We'll have to wait and see....

Hope everyone had a great New Year celebration and we wish you all a great 2009.

Waiting!

Well we are officialling "Waiting"...Our file is in Russia at the Ministry of Education in Vladivostok. Now it is up to them to match us with a child and forward the childs info to our agency for us to review, forward to our doctor, and decide if we wish to persue the adoption. Once we notify the agency that we wish to proceed the Russians will extend an invitation for us to go to Russia for our first visit. We had hoped to hear something before Christmas, however we have not. Now we continue to wait until we hear from WACAP. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We know our son is out there waiting for us......

12/08/08 Update

Phone meeting with WACAP on Friday revealed that our Dossier was completed and being shipped to their Vlad office today! (Shipping will take 6 to 10 days) The bulk of the documents had been sent ahead for translation into Russian and only the hard copies of the Apostilled documents were needed to submit our Dossier to the Russians for matching with a child. What does this all mean? WACAP seems to think that we will have a refferal prior to Christmas! That should include pictures and medical information and any family history they may have. We will then have the med records reviewed by an adoption specialist (M.D.) here and review all of the other information to determine if we want to go to Russia to meet the child. Due to Russian Privacy concerns we will not be sharing any of the official refferal information. We want to make sure that this is the right child for us before setting any expectations. If this is not the right child we will ask for a new referral. Based on all of the information we have, we feel we will probably be travelling to Russia sometime Mid to late January of 2009.