4 days and a wake-up..............

Well one week from today, well actually from yesterday, (remember Vladivostok is 16 hours ahead), we will be in Russia. Hopefully we will get to see the kids that day. We do not know the schedule yet, maybe after our travel call tomorrow night we will know. We know we are at their mercy and we are hoping that they give us as much time with the kids as possible.

We did most of our packing last night but still have some to do. We have to make sure we don't go overweight in the suitcases. Never cared about that kind of stuff before. We also need to bring our winter coats and those take up a lot of space in the suitcase.

In case we don't get to update again before we leave................please keep us in your prayers that everything goes well! Keegan will be keeping everything happening on the home front with help from our nephew, Rob.

Our flight leaves at 8 am on Saturday. We are travelling to Seattle, Washington and then onto Tokyo and then onto Seoul, Korea where we will spend the night. Then on Monday morning (Sunday morning in the states) we will be off the Vladivostok, Russia and staying at the Vlad Motor Inn - our home for the next five days. We leave Russia on Saturday (Friday in the states) and return to Seoul, Korea where we will spend the night again and on Sunday (Saturday in the states) morning we will fly to San Francisco and then home to Chicago, where we will arrive on Easter Sunday in the evening. Please don't ask me to explain the whole date/day thing, Kenny is much better at it and I think he is getting tired of explaining it to me.

So again...........please keep all of us in your prayers and we will update the blog as often as possible.

The countdown has begun.............

We received our passports back and our Russian visas today! YEAH! We can actually travel now! We just now have to wait for the day to arrive. The countdown is at 7 days and a wake-up. We will finish our shopping this weekend. We only have a few small things to get......pop tarts, granola bars, rice krispie treats, and small cereal boxes for our snacks in Russia and batteries for our cameras so we can take lots of pictures. Other than that we are ready to fly!!!! We will try and update the blog again before we leave and will keep updating while on our trip. Remember.....we will be 16 hours ahead of home time while in Russia.

Two Weeks to Go!

Well here we are...two weeks from today Gloria and I will be on the ground in Vladivostok! We spent some time this weekend doing some "final" shopping. We do still have a few things to pick up. (Gloria...add Batteries for the cameras to the list) But we think we could leave today with what we have and make it through the trip. Its been rough trying to get a good nights sleep the last week or so...all the thoughts that pop into your head during the night. But we will get through this and bring our kids home. We have faith that god is looking out for us and the kids and will make this work. One of the things you have to realize is that the kids actually own NOTHING right now. All of their shoes, clothes and toys belong to the orphanage. This being the case part of our visit will be sizing them up for clothes that we will have to take back with us on our 2nd trip. We picked up tracing paper and a cloth measuring tape yesterday. We will measure them and trace their feet (to determine shoe size) so that we can bring back clothes and shoes that fit them. We are of course taking with us "toys and games" to help us get acquainted with where they are in regards to their abilities to learn, play and make decisions. We will leave these toys and games at the orphanage when we return home from this trip. They become orphanage property to be shared by all. We will be giving each of the kids a small photo album of family and our home as well as a small pillow with our family photo on it. Well hope you all had a great weekend, keep watching for updates.

Ken and Gloria

Confirmed!

Flights are booked, hotel rooms reserved! We leave on 4-4-09! Not returning until Easter Sunday. Watch for more updates as we travel. Pictures will get uploaded from Russia. Maybe some enroute video too.

Hi ho, hi ho, its off to Russia we go!

Gloria and I have accepted the invitation to travel to Russia to meet Kristina and Ivan! We will confirm our travel dates today and expect to meet the kids on the 30th of March or the 6th of April. We have had to order new Visa's as our last ones expire on March 20th. We are so excited about meeting these two little ones! Unfortunately we cannot share pictures until after the court date. We can tell you that they are 2 great looking kids with brown hair (Ivan's is almost blond) and big Blue eyes.

Whats "Different"?

Well our new referral is for two super cuties! One will be 5 in December and the other will be 8 in October. Both of them have beautiful bright Blue eyes. We are very excited about these two and continue to gather information prior to making our decision on whether or not to travel to Russia to meet them. So whats "different" you are wondering? Well the older of the two is a beautiful little girl named Kristina! The younger is a very cute/handsome little fellow named Ivan (John).

Referral Picture

Excitement....

We have received a second referral. We hope you all can understand that although we are excited we are hesitant to share a lot of info until we are confident these are the kiddos for us. We will say that there is a "different look" to this pair...