Dare we even say it?

We are leaving for Russia on Sunday! Really, we are this time!! We will arrive in Moscow on Monday and arrrive in Vladivostok on Tuesday morning. We have our appointment with the DOE on Tuesday afternoon and then on Wednesday morning ....................you got it............we finally get to meet K & I. We are over the top about it.

We will miss Mother's Day in the states but we will be home the next day, May 11th. Keegan will be at the house with our nephew Rob. (Thanks again Rob! - You're the best!)

We will try our best to update the blog every day.....................I guess it will depend on the internet service in Russia.

Please keep us all in your prayers!

We are going to Russia!!!!

YEAH!!!!! We got the call - the travel invite. We are super excited!! We are not sure what day we are leaving just yet but we are trying to make the most out of the time we can spend with the kids! We will let you all know the travel plans as soon as we know them.

Thank you to all of you who have already been overwhelmingly supportive and kept us in your thoughts and prayers!

By the way........whichever one of you had the direct line to the man upstairs - THANK YOU!

Will we ever get there?

Well, we still don't have travel dates. Maybe the week of the 4th or the 11th????

Our current visas will expire soon! Have to order new ones - AGAIN!!!

Russian Holidays! -- No work or visitations allowed!!! May 1st -(May Day) and May 11th (Victory Day)

Doctor Vacations! -- Senior doctor at orphanage on vacation week of the 18th and 25th. -- Can't visit the kids then!

So the big question is.......................will we ever get there? Will we ever get to meet these kids? The answer is out there somewhere - we just don't know where. Please say a few prayers for us that we get answers sooner rather than later. By the way......... if anyone has a direct line to the man upstairs please tell him that we really could use some good news soon we are starting to doubt the process.

Trip Off!!! Again....

Not sure exactly why, Just very frustrated! Our current Visas expire on the 4th of May and it does not look like we will get to use them...again. We are being told that the MOE is wanting to "make sure they have all the I's dotted and T's crossed before extending the invitation for us to visit the kids. Although the agency is ensuring us that it is just a matter of time...I'm not very optimistic at this point.

TRIP ON!!!!!

We got our 6PM call tonight! The trip is back on! We will find out for sure tomorrow night at 6PM when we will be traveling. We believe it will be Thursday the 23rd or Friday the 24th. Russia has a holiday on May 1st so we want to try and get to Russia on Sunday so we can do paperwork on Monday morning and still get to see the kids. We may lose a visiting day because of the holiday on Friday (this is totally up to the orphanage). This time frame is still within our visa dates. YEAH!!!! So after tomorrow night's call we will have definite dates to give you all! Thanks for all of your support and encouragement. By the way.........Kenny called it. He said we were going to get notification today!

Easter Weekend

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We had a great weekend. We went to our first Sox game of the season. They won! YEAH! Keegan brought his girlfriend with us and she had never been to a professional baseball game, thank goodness the home team won! Next stop - Wrigley Field?? Is there a possibility that I could get my boys (Sox Fans) to actually go with me?? Keegan says no way! For Easter, we went to Kenny's brother's house and had a great dinner and an Easter Egg hunt. Our niece, Ellen asked the Easter Bunny not to hide the eggs this year so her parents could do so and she even asked the Easter Bunny to leave a few extra for her cousin Keegan that was going to be at her house. Wasn't that sweet? She sure is thoughtful! So all in all, the Duda Family had an egg-cellent weekend even though we weren't coming home from Russia.

On the Russia note................we will know by the end of this week, when we will be going to see the kids. We continue to get updates each evening at 6 PM.

They say "No news is good news" ???

I am not sure whoever said that ever really waited for news.

Well we got our call last night around 615PM. It wasn't bad news, but on the same note, it wasn't good news either. We have to continue to wait! We will get another call tonight around 6PM with another update.