One trip down, two to go!

We made it home safe and sound, thank goodness!! Boy, is that ever a LONG trip! When we woke up at 6:30 on Saturday to begin our journey home, it was actually 8:30 Friday night at home, we got into Phoenix just after 8:00 on Saturday, that makes almost 24 hours of straight traveling. Too bad we were not able to sleep on the plane, oh well. I think I am doing pretty well, Daryle is having a harder time adjusting. Hopefully he will get better over the next day or two.

Travis is getting excited to be a "big brother", after all, he did turn 6 today! Sometimes I am not sure what is going on in his little brain, but then he does or says something that lets me know he really is excited about all of the commotion. His world is about to be turned upsidedown! That little Connor is as sweet as can be, we can't wait to get back over there and bring him home. He has the softest, roundest little head and the most beautiful blue eyes. (Actually, they are the exact same color as mine!) We have two more trips to make. One trip is for court, the next trip is to bring him home. Since in Moscow the children have to be at least 12 months old to be adopted, we can't have court until he turns one. His birthday is in June, so we will not have court before that date. Then we will wait out the 10+ days until we can go get him and bring him home forever! It was hard to leave him, but we were comforted knowing that he is in a good place with people who really seem to care. The one caregiver we did meet was a very smiley person and seemed to genuinely care about the babies. The orphanage was very bright, clean and has a lot of toys. He even gets "music" lessons!! He loves music, he will rock back and forth to it and then stop when the music stops. I asked if the children heard music and was told about the music lessons. I was impressed with some of the things they do there, so much different from our past experience. You can tell by the way Connor acts that they really do try to give them some good experiences. Although I am sure he has some developmental delays, I really don't think there is much. We will keep our fingers crossed that he continues to do well in our absence. He is going to fit in well with our family!!

Of course, life went on around here while we were gone. Travis and Grandpa did a good job around here, there was a lot going on! Travis started playing t-ball, and Grandpa even got to take Travis to the doctor because he got hit in the eye from a ball on the playground at school!! I guess it was some type of rubber ball. The white of his eye has a big red spot and now he has eye drops. I guess we are pretty lucky that it wasn't worse! Grandpa handled it all like a pro!! It was so nice to come home to a tidy house and all of Travis' laundry was done too! Of course, Grammy and Grandpa kept in close touch too all week, they had a pretty good system worked out. Thank goodness for grandparents!!!!! We love you guys! We have never left Travis for so long, it was nice being able to leave knowing he was in very good hands!

I am exhausted! I can't post any pictures of Connor, I am so sorry, but it is one of the rules we must follow. As soon as we go to court and bring him home you can bet I will have tons to put on here. Later in the week I will try to post some pictures of Moscow. We had such a wonderful experience, many memories for sure!

Update from Russia

Hello from cold, snowy Moscow! It has been snowing all day and they expect to get more tonight. We saw some GIANT snowflakes this morning, we took some pictures and video of it coming down! Daryle and I are so excited, although I think the Russians are ready for some spring! We saw the baby again today and officially opened the procedures to adopt him. He is for sure the "missing" member of our family! I have to chuckle to myself, because he has "my blue eyes" and fair skin, I kid you not! You have all seen Travis, so you know what I am talking about here. He is so cute and sweet, he is active, a lot like Travis. I think Travis has met a good match, hopefully they can wear eachother out and let Daryle and I rest! Hahaha!! We were allowed a 2 hour visit, but after about 1 1/2 hours he was getting sleepy, so our translator went to get somebody to get him. Well, in those few minutes he fell asleep on my shoulder!!! It was wonderful!! Daryle said, "He is drooling on you." I said, "That is great, I am his mom and that is what we are for!!" He just smiled and laughed! It is only fair, afterall, Travis fell asleep on Daryle first in Blago! The only thing is that the baby has a red birthmark over his left eye. I guess it has faded since birth and will either fade away all together or as he grows it will move up his head and be covered by his hair. His medical is fabulous, no problems at all, only this mark which is nothing at all. Our dr in Memphis that led us to Travis reviewed his medical and pictures and said "his medical looks great, no red flags if you have further question let me know." Well, that is exactly what she said about Travis when we met with her! We have had many great signs like this the whole time we have been here. This is our son, and we have decided to name him Connor. He is a Connor for sure with those big blue eyes!! We have been having a great experience here in Moscow, we are getting a true feeling of how people in Moscow live. We feel like we are making some very good friends whom we will keep in touch with. Most of them have children our age, it is interesting how many of them have left Russia for the US, Canada or even Italy. Out of 6 kids, only 2 are still here in Moscow and they are single women. They may leave just yet! It is so interestiing hearing these people's stories.Ok, I had better get going, it is getting late.

Hello from Russia

Hello!! Ok, I finally got access to the internet, Svetlana's neighbor has the internet, they are so kind to let me use it for a bit on their laptop. They have a 6 year old boy, he said "Hello", I guess one of the English words he knows!! I think Travis would like to play with him. Anyway, our flights were smooth sailing, we even landed in Moscow 30 minutes early. Our driver was there and he took us to Svetlana's flat. She is wonderful, so warm and welcoming. You should see the tiny elevator we took to get to the sixth floor, I am not kidding when I say it is the size of a phone booth!! Anyway, we got off the elevator and there she was with her door wide open and giving us hugs and welcoming us into her home. It was like we were already members of the family! I took pictures of her place, it is tiny but sufficient. No family room like we are used to, but I guess that is what our room would be if she didn't reserve it for guests. We already have stories about her, she is a lot of fun. We are even enjoying her cooking, although she feeds us way too much food! We laugh about it!! Since our appointment is not officially until Tuesday our coodinator was not able to get us in today like she had hoped to. So, we sat around waiting for her, sleeping, and reading wishing I had a computer!! Svetlana got home around 3:30 and showed me a little store and she showed me where we could go walking to the "mall", it was a lot like the one in Blago, only busier and maybe bigger. That is where I saw the apple computer store and I got on the internet and sent out a quick message that we were ok.

Tonight our coodinator came to meet us. We really like her a lot. She explained some things to us about the baby and about Dr.B. We are hoping and praying that it goes well with her tomorrow. She definately has an opinion about her, but she is also ok with us sending things to our doctor in TN. After our visit she will let us forward the medical information and a picture to her so that we can get her opinion on him. Our coodinator spent an hour with him today and she just really likes him, she has a good feeling, she doesnt' know why. We totally get that! Of course we are proceeding with cautioin, but the birth mother's birthday is the same day as Daryle's....hmmm. Anyway, we feel like we are in very good hands here, don't worry about us at all. I don't know when I will get back to a computer, I don't know if they will let us do this every day, they are busy people! We are going to try and get a calling card tomorrow, but we may be busy visiting the baby etc. We will do our best. Well, think that is about all for now.

Tell Travis they have lots of McDonald's here and we saw an IKEA store right by the airport!! We took pictures to show you too. It is cold here, but very nice inside. We really enjoyed our walk in the cold earlier, my cheeks and nose got cold and there were some tiny snow flurries.

Thanks for all the prayers, we go to the ministry of education at 10 tomorrow and we will meet with the baby around noon after his nap.

Ok, I had better get going.

Much love,Lisa and Daryle

12 1/2 more hours...

We are on the final stretch now, only 12 1/2 hours until we are on the plane to Atlanta and then off to Russia! Thanks so much for all the prayers and well wishes, we will update when we can.

Das fidanyeh!!

(I figure I had better start brushing up on some Russian before I get there!!)

Amost there

Tomorrow will be a crazy day for sure! We need to get packed (no, I haven't done that yet!) and make sure everything is in order. I have several errands to run along with getting some laundry done and making sure the house is cleaned up a bit. I was hoping to get my taxes done before we left, well, I guess that isn't going to happen unless I stay up all night tonight getting them done. I have serious doubts about that too. I am getting nervous about the trip, mostly because we are leaving the country and Travis. I know he will be fine, we just have never been away from him for that long before. I am also excited because hopefully we will meet our child in just a few days. That is an amazing thought alone! I will try to post some updates from Russia, but I don't know how easy it will be to find internet services from where we will be. You can bet that if I find the internet you will for sure hear something from me!! Hopefully things will go smoothly and we will be back in no time with lots of news! Just so you know, I will not be able to post any pictures and I will have to limit any details until after the adoption is final, which will be a few months until all is said and done. I will share what I can though! We leave this Saturday morning (EARLY!!) and return the following Saturday evening. I had better go, I have a million things to do!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Did the leprechauns come to your house last night? They stopped my our house and left a shamrock headband, some straws, Lucky Charms cereal and they left their magic wand behind. However, they also made a mess in my kitchen! Can you believe they turned the milk green and they baked my shamrock cookies??? They even had the nerve to take a bite out of one of the cookies!! As the day has gone on, Travis has found other messes they made around the house...hmmmm....I am not too sure about those little green guys!

Just FYI, our trip is on for sure!! We found out that there is a baby for us to meet when we get there, yipee! Now I can pack knowing that we will be boarding that plane!!

Spring Break Part 1

Last week Travis and I were on Spring break, part 1. We are lucky to get two weeks off! One more week to go. Hopefully there will be more time for "fun" this week, although I am not too sure about that since I still need to get our taxes done, pack, and get things around here ready for our departure. I am sure we will squeeze something "fun" in! Here are some highlights of the past week.

Travis wanted to move bedrooms and said he wanted a Raiders theme. So, after MUCH convincing mom it wouldn't be too bad, we did it. I have had a lot of compliments on it, I am pretty proud of how it turned out. For the record, the gray is called "Mickey's Shadow" and the black is called "Cinema Star". I am really impressed with the Disney color collection at Home Depot. Also, this border is actually a big adhesive sticker! Having scraped a lot of wallpaper out of my house in Memphis, I am not eager to go down that road again. I was so happy to find a border like this, it went on well and looks really good. He hasn't officially "moved in" yet, but here is a glimpse of how it turned out.

I am not sure the pictures do it justice, I think it looks better in person!

At this point, Friday the 13th seemed to be going ok, not much, I finished painting his room ( I was so worried about using black paint, phew, no catastrophes with that!) and we decided to try out the brand new McDonald's just down the street from us for lunch. We got back home and Travis went out back with the dog and I was putting some items into the dryer. All of a sudden I heard a loud "CRASH!!" I had no idea what that was, it sounded really bad and not normal. I ran out and looked at the sliding glass door by my kitchen ... the entire door was shattering before my very eyes! I ran through my bedroom to the backyard yelling for Travis and Rock. After a total panic meltdown from mom, I finally got the story out of Travis. I guess it was a complete accident, he was digging in the rocks and one rock flung up and hit the door and shattered it. I compare it to something that could have happened from the weed eater kicking up a rock or something. I was FURIOUS!!! I figured dad would be just as mad, if not madder. Well, he got home, talked to Travis and ended up telling him all about the time he kicked a soccer ball through the window when he was younger. Male bonding I guess. Anyway, I am still mad, this window is "energy efficient" blah blah blah and will be over $400 to replace!!! AAAHHH! I don't need that right now, however, I am very glad that nobody was harmed and that I didn't have the $800 window in my house that the man on the phone was asking me about. Here is a picture of what it looked like this morning before Daryle cleaned it up.

I thought the bad stuff would end there, but no, just this afternoon I tripped on the sidewalk, fell, ripped my pants, scraped my knuckle, scraped the palms of my hands and was bleeding on my knee and down by my foot. I guess I should be happy I didn't break any bones!!

So, that is how our break is going so far. Aren't you happy you stopped by??!! I am hoping things will start to look up for the Hawes Clan. I am hoping and praying that Alla finds our child and we are able to make our trip. If all goes as planned Daryle and I will be on a plane to Russia next Saturday! I can't believe it...actually, I don't think I will believe it until I am sitting on the plane. I am just nervous that it will all be called off at the last minute, and that is a very real possibility if Alla does not find us our child within the week. Until then, we are staying inside where it is safe and cozy.