Day 3 waiting - Here kitty, kitty (double click for pics)

Saturday, July 22--- (Day 3 waiting period)

We are adjusting to our new visitation schedule of 1 time per day Monday through Saturday. Although it is hard to know your son is staying somewhere else every other hour of the day, we realize this is all he knows and is probably better off with the care he is now getting. The count down is on and we are soooo ready to pick him up on 8/4. Kim and I spend much of the day discussing what we are going to do around the apartment to babytize things and where we are going to take Landen and Rylee during the few days we will be in Pavlodar.

The day started with Kim making pancakes while I uploaded the blog from Friday. Mornings seem to go by fairly quickly as we are looking forward to the visit. We are planning some outings next week when the visit is over, hopefully ,that will pass some time. Friday is the start of weddings around the area, so we get a lot of excitement from the cars all dolled up with ribbon, flowers and writing on the cars to celebrate the day. You can tell when they are near by as all the drivers of the cars in the procession lay on the horns. There are usually 4-5 cars per wedding and we see 3 to 5 each Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Part of today’s excitement was when Rylee got to hold the brides flowers and get a picture with them at the eternal flame. Yes, the eternal flame is on for the 1st time since we have been here. I guess it will be eternal from now on….. More on this later..

Our visit started at the normal time of 12pm and again Kim went to the infirmary to get Landen. The nurse said he was eating, so Kim and Rylee joined me in the music room to await our son’s arrival. It seemed to be forever, but approximately 15 minutes later Landen arrived with teary eyes. We could hear a child crying during our 15 minute wait and Kim kept saying it was Landen---I was trying to comfort her by telling her I thought the crying was coming from upstairs, but Kim was correct, it was Landen. It is so hard to see your child going through something like this and you are so helpless. When he arrived, we soon saw another sign that he was a Woodard….yes; he was mad at the world for the shots he had just received---don‘t blame him. We inspected his bottom (only place shots are given here) and found several marks from the needles. Let’s pray this is making him better! After a few minutes of pouting he was ready to play. He and RyRy made the most of the opportunity. It’s funny to see him learning that he is not to go off of the blanket (maybe he heard me getting in trouble and felt bad), but he seems to stop and wait for RyRy to re-direct his crawl (maybe this is why he stops, RyRy picks him up…..). Following his normal routine with us, he crawled into Mom’s arms around 1:25pm and laid his head on her right shoulder. He likes this one and prefers his face to be facing away from her neck where he can watch Rylee and me. One cute thing Landen does every time he gets in Mom’s arm is to start saying Dada…. Kim made up a little song (Dada, Momma, RyRy and Landen…repeats 2 times, and then the last line is “we are a happy family”. If she stops singing, he will start over with Dada and get her to sing to him again. You can imagine…she loves every minute of it.

As 2:00pm neared, we had to wake Landen up from his nap. Correct, we are now his parents and if he wants to take a quick nap while he is getting some loving from Momma, he can do it.
He fell asleep around 1:25pm and lay on Mom’s chest the entire time. Looks like he will really need a crib when we get back J--yeah, right!

After the visit, we stopped for CHICKEN (it has been 2 days) and some pastries for breakfast. We had to rush back to the apartment as Rylee had been invited to join Lena and Leeza in the park to walk Leeza’s cat. Sorry I missed the fun, but I was not invited… Kim walked Rylee down and soon returned to the apartment as Rylee did not want her to join them (she’s growing up Mom). Rylee took the camera to capture the moment, so you know these photo’s will be great.
When she returned, it was all smiles as she had a great time watching the cat run around the park. Again, sorry I missed it…

We ended the night with a Pizza for dinner (CHICKEN is for tomorrow) and talking about the soon to come events! Until tomorrow, POKA, POKA…..

Day 2 waiting - The infirmary (double click for pics)

Friday, July 21--- (Day 2 waiting period)

Well, Mommy and the baby are both doing well after the “re-birth” of Landen. It has been a long “pregnancy of sorts” for us, but yesterday made every minute worth it. We would like to thank our family and friends for all there support along the way. Kim is doing amazingly well and is back on her feet getting around just fine. Landen, as you can see, is also doing very well and is already crawling around. Wow, who would have thought this could happen so fast…..

On a side note before we talk about the day, we are putting together a cd to capture the journey and would like to ask all of you to help us by giving us some ideas for songs that can be played in the back ground during the showing. You can email Kim or add it to the blog. We know there are some songs about adoption out there, or songs that would be very fitting…but cannot think of them. Thanks in advance.

Today will be call infirmary for a very good reason:

First, at 12 am our time our doctor, Dr. Plotkin, called us unexpectedly to check up on Landen. We had emailed a photo of his ear to him and had discussed the situation around treatment in the baby house with him and he has been wonderful throughout this. Dr. Plotkin is also Russian and has offered to call the baby house Dr. directly if needed. He has also said the medical will be in Russian and he will translate them for us. What a wonderful person he is and we appreciate what he is doing for our family, so very far away. There are not many doctors out there that would care as much as he does!!! Thank you Dr. Plotkin!

After another simple morning (grits for breakfast), we arrived at 12:00pm for our visit. Kim again went upstairs to get our son, but to our surprise he was not in the room. Kim attempted to communicate with the caretakers and somehow made out that he was getting treatment for his ear. He had been moved from his group to the infirmary or on-site baby hospital. This was alarming, but after we saw him we were glad to see he was being treated for his ear. They had to feed him (takes 3 minutes or so), then he was brought to the room for some play time. His complexion was a little pale, but his ear was showing signs of improvement. Later we found out from our attorney that he is on an antibiotic and confirmed he was doing much better. If he continues to show the same improvement over the next few days, he will rejoin his group on Monday.

The play time was a little mellow for the first half of the time since we did not want to get him too worked up. He of coursed hugged and loved on Mommy (sorry Barbara, no warning) and you could see in his eyes that he missed her yesterday. As he got out the “lovey dovey” on Mom, it was time for Rylee and Dad to get some attention. Rylee did a wonderful job of keeping him on the sheets when he was crawling. Just to note: we have be scolded when a caretaker saw him crawling off of the sheet in the past, a big no, no. Dad played the sunglass game with him. He loves to take my sunglasses off of my head or face and bang them on what ever he can. Yes, when he gets excited he will bang a toy or paci around a little bit. ANGER MGMT? J
The visit ended way too soon again, as we were enjoying every minute with our son! We took him back to the infirmary where we pray his health will continue to improve.

After the visit, we had an appointment with our attorney. We started planning our “gotcha” day and our return to the states. Some good and some bad came from the meeting. I would like to add that before we went to the meeting, Kim and I were discussing that we needed to take some money for the passport and visa in order to get home and may need to pay something to get Landen home sooner (not sure what if anything we could do, but we were going to be prepared. Rylee heard this conversation and went to her money and pulled out a thousand tenge (1/3 of her cash) and told us that she wanted to give this money to us for us to use in getting Landen home sooner. This was a very sweet and heart warming moment! Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of opportunity to move the process along any faster.

We spent 1 hour discussing when we could pick up Landen, when we could travel to Almaty and when we could travel home. At first, it appeared we would not be picking up Landen until 8/5 or possibly 8/7 and would not be traveling home until 8/17 or later. We explained our need to get back to work, get Rylee in school and have Landen back where we can get him treated for his conditions. Our attorney and translator started looking at dates and process steps to see where they could save us some time. Not a lot of time to save as we are dealing with a couple of weekends (same as US, everything stops except for Progressive!) and a foreign country’s speed to process. We did get some of the dates to share with everyone:

8/4 - “Gotcha” day. We will have a little party at the baby house and pick up or son for good.

8/10 - We will travel to Almaty.

8/11 - We will have the medical exam for Landen in Almaty

8/15 - Landen’s visa and passport should be ready and we start our flight home after 4pm. We will update the arrival time in Atlanta as soon as we confirm it.

A priority note: Pitts - we need to get the fantasy football mock draft set up and Kim is ready to assist J. We do need to have the draft around 8/26 if possible, see what you can do. Udaman!

We ended the day with several phone calls and it was great to hear from everyone. We have an incredible support team behind us!!!!!!! I will use the phone calls as an excuse for not posting on time, really I was being lazy! (FYI---we have been talking to people on Skype…this is through our computer, and it is costing us 2 cents per minute! It has been such a blessing to be able to talk to our family ½ way around the world and it not costs us an arm and a leg!) Also, we have been asked a couple times if we are able to keep up with world news. We have a couple English channels on our tv….one is a European CNN channel(which is not very Bush friendly), a foreign variance of VH1(which actually plays really good American music), and Euronews. I have found a couple of Russian sports channels---I have gotten to watch soccer, track and field, gymnastics and some sporting events that we don’t know the name for….I am missing the Braves, the British Open and Sports Center! Needless to say I am in sports withdrawal! It is all worth it, though!

Until day 3 waiting…..poka, poka

Officially a family of FOUR! Day 1 - Waiting Period (double click for pics)

Thursday, July 20---Court Day (Day 1 waiting period)

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of the Woodard family, Robert Landen Woodard. At 10:04am this morning, Landen was officially registered as our son. Although this is the official date and time, we have felt it for some time now.

To recap the morning; we woke up around 6:50am and started getting ready and had a quick breakfast. Kim and I prepared for court by going over some notes and details that we thought might be discussed. We were picked up by Sergey around 8:56am (he was a little late which was making us wonder) with a van load of ladies. Our attorney, translator and the lady from the baby house were in the van with us. Still no sign of the lady from the city.… We were at the court house around 9:05am and took a seat. Around 9:30am, Kim and I started worrying. Still no sign of the lady from the city and the other ladies started getting that look on their faces. Lena and Svetlana started working the cell phone for what appeared to be contact attempts with the lady from the city. At 9:36am, she (lady from the city) arrived with a big smile on her face. She immediately stopped in front of us and said something in Russian that appeared to be an apology for being late, but what ever it was we were just glad to have he with us. Soon after this, we were called back to the court room. A very small room with tight seating for the entourage we had. The judge was a very judge like middle aged man that was all business. When we were speaking with him or the judge came in or out of the room we were to stand, which we were glad to do. Kim and I were discussing that there was no prosecutor in the room, when Lena advised that the prosecutor had reviewed all of our documents and signed a letter that confirmed her approval of the adoption. This was a big relief as she was the main representative of the state for any objections to the adoption. We all agreed that the judge’s decision would be final then we started. I was asked about why we were adopting, so I delivered my little speech that we had prepared. It covered our jobs, home, friends, and family, Rylee, why we are adopting and asked the court to make the ruling in favor of us. Kim was then asked to stand and address the judge with any comments she had. Kim addressed the judge with our decision to adopt Landen and how we knew he was our child at first sight, but even more so as we spent time with him. This was pretty much our spotlight, and then it was turned over to the representative from the baby house who strongly agreed with the adoption. The lady from the city was next and she also agreed strongly with the adoption and commented on her interaction with us and Landen, saying they are perfect for each other. Our attorney was last to go and she covered the paperwork from America and Kazakhstan saying that everything was in order and by the letter of the law.
Drum roll………The judge made his decision to grant the adoption effective today and we can pick up our child in 15 days from today. We should have him on 8/4 (also called “gotcha“day)!
We quickly departed the chambers and regrouped outside the court house where we thanked everyone immensely for their part. I offered to buy lunch for everyone (beats their custom of straight vodka) and we agreed on 1pm at a fitting spot…our favorite Russian restaurant.

Lunch was great as usual. Rylee had a great surprise, because Lena brought Leeza to lunch with her so that Rylee would have someone to play with. Kim and I tried not to veer too far away from our normal orders. The traditional red wine was served with our meal. Interesting fact, the red wine was from Georgia, another former Soviet state. We had several toast during the meal, Svetlana, Nina from the City Department of Education and the lady from the baby house. These were very special and heart felt toast and everyone assured us not to worry about the 15 day waiting period. Easy for them to say….. After our meal, we had the traditional coffee/tea and discussed shopping, foods, customs and several other small topics. It was very enjoyable and the theme of the lunch was… our family will always be connected to Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan will be connected to us. The lady from the baby house summed up the past few weeks events when she said she could see in our eyes that our family was now complete. Wow, how true was that. After the 2 ½ hour lunch, we walked through the park with Lena and Leeza as we headed back to our apartment.

What a perfect day, except we will not be doing a visit today (appears he is not feeling well per the baby house), but we will start our new schedule of visiting 1 time per day from 12:00pm to 2:00pm. I’m a little worried about giving Rylee and Kim more time to shop….

Tomorrow is day 2 for our “waiting period” and we are set to pick up Landen on 8/4. From that point we will be waiting on passports and visa to leave the country. We are asking for ways to expedite the process after the waiting period to get us home as soon as possible. We were advised that we can talk about possible options tomorrow with Svetlana Right now they are saying we will be able to fly home on 8/17, but I can assure you we will do everything we can to get home before that!

Sorry for not having a lot of photos today, but you can look at yesterdays post as I was able to upload them this morning. See you via blogging tomorrow….Poka, Poka…

Day 22 - Happy 11month Birthday Landen (double click for pics)

Wednesday, July 19---Day 22 Visitation (7th extra day)

Happy Birthday to Landen, as he turned 11 months today.

Bailey, our dog, came home from the vet and Nana said she is doing great. Thanks again Nana.
I heard that Bob shot a 43 on the back nine today, but Rob has yet to verify the score. Sounds like the group is having a good time in Hilton Head; wish we were there (with Landen.) So how was Landen today?…

The morning session was the best yet! We had a plain, boring morning, the kind I have grown to love and got to the baby house at 12pm. Kim again went upstairs to get Landen, where he was awaiting her in the high chair by the door. When that boy saw his mommy, he immediately wanted out of the high chair and into her arms. Kim did a check of his ear (some drainage over the last 2 days) and everything seemed a little better.

Rylee and I had laid out the play area when Landen and Mom arrived. From the time he came into the room until 1:30 (his slow down…I want to be held by Mom time) he was full of play with a cute smile on the entire time. It’s hard to believe, but through his little smiles we know everything will be ok. We introduced the birthday boy to DVD’s. His first “movie” was Praise Babies (thanks Kari) and he loved it! When Landen gets excited about something, he has to touch it and did he ever want to touch it. Just ask Rylee as the portable DVD player is her’s and she was letting him know it. He watched about 20 minutes of the video as Kim, Rylee and I sang the songs to him. Don’t worry Don---Jason will not be signing me up any time soon. Another little trick Landen has is to turn around in Mom’s lap from side to side when he is watching his sister dance or play peek-a-boo. He gets so excited that he can not control himself so we think he turns to start over with the laughter. Whatever it is, you will get cracked up when you see him do it. This visit was over way to fast and we were so excited to get back at 5pm to continue the play time. Take a look at the Packers clothing he had on, the last time he will have anything except the Falcons, Dawgs and Braves sporting attire on, if I can help it!

We came back to the apartment during the break and fixed a quick lunch, I finished my book The Summons, by John Grisham. Kim has enjoyed watching me read since this is the first book she can remember me reading since we have been married. I often remind her we are half way around he world with out Sportscenter and more time that I like on my hands with nothing else to do.

The afternoon visit started off bad, as Landen was asleep when Kim got to the room and before they would give him to her he got a shot. For what? We do not know, and that kinda bothered us! He cried when the got the shot and was favoring his little leg the entire visit. Although he was a trooper and battled through it, we could tell it took a lot of the fun out of our visit. This just reminded us how badly we want to get him home with us.

Rylee had a good time entertaining the kids in the play area next to us. By the end of the visit she had gotten the little boys to do spins as she was doing. Of course she loved being the center of attention.

After the visit, we stopped by the Baby Store and a small market for some items. We did not have an agenda for getting out, but it was another gorgeous day and we wanted to take a walk to enjoy it. We saw our attorney at the market and it appears we will be picked up at 8:15am in the morning for the 9am court hearing. Keep the prayers coming that everything falls into place (and everyone shows up), so we can become the legal parents of Landen!

Hopefully tomorrow we will have great news, so until then Poka, Poka.

Day 21 - All dressed up and no court today (double click for pics)

Tuesday, July 18---Day 21 Visitation (6th extra day)

It was just not our day! You guessed it, no court today and it has been moved to Thursday at 9am.

The day started out very well as we all got a good night sleep and we made some pancakes for breakfast. All was going well until 12:59pm, when the bottom fell out of the sky and we experienced the hardest rain since we have been here. Great timing as it was not raining when we left our apartment, but during the 5 flights of stairs, the facets were turned on. I had to run back up stairs and get Rylee’s umbrella (the only one we have) and attempt to get the family in the van without getting soaked. Rylee and Kim were able to stay somewhat dry, but I had a second bath. If we had only left 30 seconds earlier, we may have missed the heavy stuff.

Oh well, it was court day and nothing could dampen the Woodard’s spirit. We spent 40 minutes with our attorney and translator, and then it was off to the court house. While at the attorney’s office, Lena asked Kim if she thought the rain was bad luck. Of course we did not think so and told her of how it had rained on our wedding day and that was good luck. Little did we know that it would not be the same on court day. We arrived at the court house at approximately 2pm, right on time for the hearing. We were all waiting in the front lobby of the court house, just as you walk into the door. Again, no air conditioning and for some reason the lights were not on in the building. The rain had stopped outside, but it was now time for the humidity to kick in and it did. We waited for what Kim and Rylee thought was over an hour, but it was only 45minutes, for the other parties that were to appear with us to arrive (baby house representative and city department of education representative). Around 2:30, Kim asked Lena what was the happening as a lady that was the judge’s assistant kept coming out to discuss with our attorney. Come to find out, we were waiting on the city representative and the judge had decided he would not hear the case without her. We are not sure how our attorney found out the bad news, but she was told that the lady would not be there today and could not meet until Thursday at 9am. We had a few tears shed (Kim) as we loaded up the van and went back to the apartment.

Some good things did occur today, as in we got to visit Landen at 5pm. He was in a good mood, considering what looks to be an ear infection---there was a lot of drainage coming out of one of his ears . Kim pointed this out to the caretaker when she took him back up stairs and thinks he is on some kind of medicine for this. The first part of the visit Rylee was dancing around pretending she was ice skating (this is the “in thing“) and Landen could not keep his eyes off of her every step. We played with the bubbles and a few toys, but mainly enjoyed being outside with each other. Landen did get RyRy good with some spit up, direct shot on her favorite shirt again. I must say that Kim and I had a good laugh with it and Rylee did not seem to mind (true sign of her love for Landen).

Also, we had some great news from home. Our dog Bailey is doing very well and should be home today and the water leak at our house has been resolved (Thanks Bandaddy!)

We decided on the way home to have a good diner to help us get over the disappointing news about court, so we stopped and got a CHICKEN….yummy….what better way to celebrate.

We are not sure what this does to our return dates, but it’s not looking good for an 8/4 return. Please keep us in your prayers!

Until the next post, POKA, POKA.

Day 20 - "Baby Bop" (double click for pics)

Monday, July 17---Day 20 Visitation (5th extra day)

First of all, Thank you Nana for assisting us with Rylee’s little melt down last night. After we posted yesterday, Rylee became home sick for all of you, Scarlett and her dogs. Fyi, Bailey is undergoing surgery as we write this post, so we are waiting for some good news. Thanks for the prayers as everyone knows our pets are like kids to us.

We had a nice breakfast this morning that included scrambled eggs with cheese and biscuits (thanks to Diane and Bob for sending these). As time grew near for our visit, we still had not heard from Lena. When we got in the van with Sergey and noticed Lena was not with us, our minds started to wonder..was court moved back, was there going to be a delay, did something happen? Since Sergey speaks no English, my SpanEnglishRussian language would only make the situation worst. Kim felt Lena may be with him when we are picked up from the visit. Was she correct?

The visit was different from any of the past visits. Kim said when she got to the room; our little boy was in the walker crying up a storm. This is tough to see as we can not go into the room and get him, so Kim waited patiently as the caretaker dressed him and gave him to her. It appears that going without a visit on Sunday had upset Landen more than we thought as he wanted to be held close all visit. We had brought the clothes to try on for sizing, but he was not too happy when we tried to change him. Hard to say what was going through his little mind, but Mommy made it all better by holding him tight. We introduced bubbles to him and had a lot of laughs watching him try to touch them-- then seeing them pop. Not sure if he realized where they went, but we all had a good time. Rylee had brought a ball that she got yesterday at the fair for Landen to play with. He is too little to do much with it, but he seemed to approve of the taste. One funny thing was when Rylee had her head in my lap and Landen was in my arms holding a hard plastic toy and she wanted him to tap her head with the toy. Rylee had seen Landen hit me in the head a couple of times and thought it looked fun-- I guess. She started grabbing his arm and making the hitting motion with the toy. Well, you can figure out what happened next... We had a little girl with a tiny knot above her eye where her brother got her good. Kim and I enjoyed seeing both of them learn from this. We were advised of something new today… in the baby rooms there is one “mother” for every 2 babies. Landen’s is Kim’s favorite caretaker. We will include a photo of her. She also has a little girl, but we do not know which baby she is….

Kim was correct about Lena; she was there at 2pm to pick us up. She said our phone must be having problems as she had called several times and could not reach us. She did not have the exact time of court, but felt it was still on for tomorrow. For court we need to take some pictures of the four of us with the dates on them (no problem as he have thousands already), so we went by the baby store where they have a “Kodak station” and we got 24 photos printed off. After that, we went back to our apartment for a simple lunch (left over soup) and chilled out for a little bit.

When we got into the van for the second visit, Sergey handed me a note from Lena.
Court time will be at 2pm tomorrow (4am EST). We are expecting calls at 4:30am to get an update, so set your alarm clocks….. Just kidding. We will have the, hopefully, great news on tomorrow’s post. Our understanding of the significance of court is…We will be asked questions around our adoption and there will be a prosecutor for the state giving the reasons why the child should not be adopted. Factors that come into play are known parents, reasons for child being in the baby house, etc.. Our attorney feels good about our adoption case and expects a successful decision tomorrow. From that point, the laws here state the decision will be left open 15 days for appeal. If the decision is successful and no appeals occur, we will be able to pick up Landen in 15 days. He will be viewed by us and the baby house as our child tomorrow, if court goes as planned.

The second visit was another great time for all of us. Kim said he was asleep when she got to the room and they had to wake him up for her. He was blinking his eyes while trying to wake up and smiling at his Mommy. Today he was dressed in a red and white outfit with what appeared to be an American flag on it. Of course, we took a lot of pictures with his stylish look and his sucker today. It’s amazing to watch him when we go outside as he can not get enough of the trees, wind, flowers, brick walls, etc. The visit ended way too soon for us and Kim took him back up to his room. The caretakers had some music playing in the background and he was glued in to the sounds. I bet mom has music playing all the time when he gets to come home with us!!!

We had spaghetti tonight and it was, again, very good. Nice to have a change from the chicken! After finishing this post, we plan to play a little UNO and call it a night! Please keep our family in your prayers, as it is a HUGE day for us tomorrow.

Until tomorrows update, Poka, Poka!

Day 19 - Farewell to our American Friends (double click for pics)

Sunday, July 16---Day 19 Visitation 4th extra day

Today has been the hardest day yet for us on the trip. We did not get to visit our son and our friends are traveling to Almaty tonight. We wish them the best of luck with their new family and are so glad we had a chance to get to know their incredible family. It will be different without them here. To continue some other news, our dog Bailey will be undergoing a surgery for her ear tomorrow. She will be staying at the vet for a couple of days to rest, so please keep her in your prayers.

Since it was the last day with our friends, we met them around 10:30am and spent the afternoon with them. It’s tough to see the girls losing the only friends they have in Kazakhstan. We took them to the slide we found yesterday and let them play there for about 30 minutes, then it was off to get some lunch. We went to the café above the bakery (fyi - same place we get the chickens and Kim’s cake). They have an American menu, but when the wait staff can not speak English, the menu could have been from Mars. This café is fairly small and we were in the middle, since we had a large group. For the first time here, we felt as if we were in a fish bowl with everyone looking at us. There were 3 younger men across from us and they were getting into watching us. I had the defense mode going (Newton, you would have been proud), so everyone had a duty to get us out of the café safely. I am going overboard here a little bit, but they did enjoy getting into our conversation and when I said “hey”, they laughed and one of them said “hey” back. Not sure what they were up to, but no harm done. We had an interesting lunch, pancakes. Not your typical pancakes, but one’s that are filed with mushroom/onions or chicken/onions. Both were very good and worth a trip back. Even Rylee loved them.

After lunch, we decided to re-visit the fair. Again, this was a good time for all the kids as they rode the horse and buggy, played some games and got a stick of cotton candy. We were again treated to the joy of watching Ellia doing some first. Cotton candy, horse ride, kids four wheeler rides, and many other things made for our entertainment. It’s amazing to watch this child learn from his new family and respond to them.

It started to rain, so we headed back to the apartment. We dropped by our friend’s apartment for the last good byes, exchanged emails and wished each other the best of luck. The girls took it hard, especially when they did not want to go. That shows you how much they have enjoyed each others company. We stayed for about an hour, and then headed out again. The weather was still a little rainy, so Rylee got to use the poncho Mom had packed. We stopped by the baby store on the way home and got two little outfits for Landen and the shoes for Rylee’s Halloween costume. Yes, they are high heels and she loves them. These are the “in thing” around here for the little girls, but Mommy said when we go home they are only for play! We then made our daily stop at the little store down stairs for some water and milk (we go through 5 liters of water per day). We are now in the room and “fixin” some diner and planning tomorrow. We find out in the morning about the court time for Tuesday. If we have an early court time, we will spend the afternoon with our attorney and prepare for court. If it is going to be late on Tuesday, we will prepare Tuesday morning. Either way, we will only have 1 visit on Monday or Tuesday. After court, we will have approximately 14 days until he will be with us full time. We are ready!!!


Until tomorrows update, Poka, Poka.