Caroline's last day in Russia!

Only one day away from being an American!!!

How do they dress in Moscow?

 

 

Are we home yet?

Well, we are done! We just got back from the American Embassy and have Caroline's American visa in our posession. The "adoption" part is done and all we have left is the 16+ hours of traveling on Sunday. I am sure it will be fine. :0
Let me recap the last few days:

We left St. Petersburg late Wednesday night. We flew on a Russian airline and were not dissapointed with the bureaucracy from them either. We pretty much had to hand over 1000 rubles ($40) to some check-in lady because our bags weighed too much. If we did not, we would have had to pay 1800 rubles to the airline. You heard me right. It is NUTS! Irina(our translator) told us to do it because we saved $32. At this point we were like, "Whatever!" Irina told us to wait and pay her as we were about to leave the terminal for the bus. Sure enough, she comes sniffin' around as we were close to leaving and Brent slipped her the cash.

The flight was short and Caroline was very good. We sat next to another American couple from Atlanta who just adopted a baby boy from the same orphanage as Caroline. Caroline stared and pointed at him almost the whole flight. You could tell she recognized him. They were only 1.5 months apart, but he was almost twice her size! When we arrived we were picked up by a new translator, Michael. He speaks great English; I almost thought he was an American. He is not, he was born and raised in Moscow. Our driver was not too happy with the amount of luggage we had and drove 40 MPH to make up for it(he said he did not want his shocks to go bad).

We were taken to our hotel the "Marriott Grand" which took maybe 45 minutes. It has quite an impressive lobby and the staff is excellent. However, there was nothing for us to make coffee with in the room. What would we do without our dose of instant Taster's Choice??? HA Ha So we looked for coffee on the room service menu. Yea!! They have "coffee for two"!! Wait. We look closer and do the math in our heads. Hmmmmmmm....... We can have a pot of coffee sent to our room for $30. That's right folks, 30 bucks. Sigh.... Moscow is living up to the Forbes most expensive city in the world article. It was ranked #1. We did not even attempt the restaurants in the hotel.

Okay, I can not help myself, I have to mention something else I noticed. Well, Brent noticed it too, so something WE noticed. Now, we could be totally mistaken, but it SEEMS that there are some, shall we say, "ladies of the evening" that hang out in the lobby of our hotel. Now, we could be dead wrong, they could just be scantily clad young ladies looking for a good time - scantily clad being the key word. I must also say that it seems the gals in Moscow have stepped it up a notch compared to the girls in St. Pete's. The jeans have gotten tighter, the stilletos higher and the skirts shorter. Another observation on Moscow is that the people move at a slower pace. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry in St. Petersburg. Brent thinks that might just be because it is warmer here(it has been in the 40's).

The lobby.

A doctor had to look over Caroline for the American Embassy appointment. Lucky us, our doctor does this gig as a 2nd job and knocked on our hotel room door at 5:02AM. This was after getting to our hotel room at 11:15pm or so the night before. We had to wake up Caroline, but she did fine. The first thing he noticed was the shape of her head. It is mishaped due to lying in a crib for long periods of time. It is also very small. Less than 5% on the charts. She is of average height, but very skinny. He thought 18 or 19 pounds, which puts her in the 5% for weight. She has an ear infection and a cold. He also said that her leg muscles were underdeveloped and did not think she had rickets (like the IA doctor thought). Overall he said she looked great for an institutionalized child and labeled her "failure to thrive" due to being in an orphanage. It was good to hear, but we still are looking forward to having her checked out by our pediatrician.

We had a scare waiting for our driver to pick us up today. When he was about 30 minutes late Brent realized he did not have our translator's number and had to call our agency stateside to work it out. We did not know when the embassy closed, but it is Friday and they close early. If we did not make it in time we could not leave on Sunday as scheduled. We would have had to wait until Monday to get the visa and then leave that night or Tuesday morning. After waiting an hour, our translator called and told us to take a taxi. We made it in time, but were the last ones to leave. We saw about 10 other American families at the embassy who also had adopted. Suprisingly, over half of the children there were girls 2 and under. You get told a lot in Russian adoption that girls are scarce, but they were not today at the embassy. It was great talking to everyone and hearing their stories. EVERYONE who does a Russian adoption has a story, and it's usually a long one.

Waiting for our driver to take us to the embassy.

We are making great strides with Caroline. I must admit there have been a couple of difficult days. I chalk it up to living in a hotel and being exhausted for us. For Caroline I think just adapting to the "outside" world is exciting yet scary. She is in to EVERYTHING! Brent calls her the "stalker" because she walks around just looking for trouble!!! I think she is starting to understand a little bit of English, especially "no". We also say "nyet" quite often, but that word does not faze her much. The first day and a half were hard getting her to sleep. She allows us to hold and rock her now, which is a relief. She used to scream when we tried to soothe and hold her during sleep times. It is hard to say for sure, but it appears that she will be more like Avery Grace than Savannah....if you catch my drift! :)

Tomorrow is our last day and we are paying our translator and driver to show us around Moscow for four hours. We contemplated coming home early, but decided this was probably the only time we would ever be in Moscow and to make the most of it. Not to mention we have Marriott points that got us tomorrow night free! How can we pass up FREE after all of our expenses? Plus, we haven't shot one second of video in Moscow - Amy's dad would be very disappointed.

Oh, and as a side note. Brent told me that I DO NOT blend with the locals. My coat is TOO long and big and my boots (Uggs) are clearly not high enough. He says I stick out like an American as much as him. Soooo.....
Also, the English channels have learned to say Barrack Obama's name since our first trip. If you recall they would say something like: Bear-ick O ba ma.(inflection on O, and last name said in 3 distinct syllables) Somewhere along the way they figured that one out!!! :)

Happy Birthday Jackson!!

 

We miss you so much and can't wait to celebrate the big 11 with you!
We love you,
Dad,Mom and baby Caroline

Let the good times roll!

At 1:45pm local time (5:45am central)we walked out of the orphanage in Vsevolozhsk,Leningrad region of Russia with our daughter in our arms forever. It had already been a long day of paperwork and red tape trying to get through all of the bueracracy that accompanies adoption in Russia. She was bundled up like an eskimo, but only until we got in the van. We heard her first cries and saw her first tears as we pulled away from the orphanage. Our poor baby was so far out of her element, she surely was scared to death. Not to mention she was almost 2 hours behind her afternoon nap. She cried and wimpered for about 10 or so minutes until she finally gave up and fell asleep. Her sleep was restless and short lived as we pulled up to the MOE to take her name off the databank. She awoke in the most joyful and happy mood. We were a little surprised but very much relieved.

After this stop I was dropped off at the hotel while Brent and Irina ran errands for another 3+ hours. Caroline was unbelievable and did not miss a beat. She did not fuss a bit UNTIL.....bedtime. WOW! We are tired. This will definetely be an adjustment. I can not completely blame Caroline as we were up at 2:00am talking to family on Skype. Yes, our jet lag strikes again. There we were, holed up in our little bathroom with our computer. I sat on the toilet, while Brent lay in the bathtub chatting away.

Our day started at 6:45 this morning and will go until LATE tonight. We have a 7:40pm flight to Moscow. We must be crazy!!!! Well, this is all we could get. Everything was booked. We wanted to take the train, but there were no 2 seats together. We are in for it, I am sure. Here is the kicker, a winter storm came to St. Petersburg last night and there is a chance we will not get out. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Caroline has a cold. She has had bronchitus twice and we really want to get her home and have her checked out. She does not let this dampen her spirits and OH MY GOSH is she active and curious!!!! She keeps us on our toes, that is for sure.

We will update the blog when we can in Moscow!

Introducing... Caroline Hope!!

 

 

 

 

How do Russians dress?

 

Here is a quick peak at "the look" I was talking about. I will do more later.

Our last night without Caroline....

We landed in St. Petersburg for the final time on a cold snowy Easter evening.
Baggage claim and customs went smoothly. There was the familiar smell of smoke in the air as we waited for our ride. Vladimir picked us up. He was our driver on our first trip and is always very helpful and friendly. The drive from the airport to our hotel is roughly 25 minutes. He called our translater on his cell phone and gave it to us. Irina welcomed us back and let us know she was not sure exactly what time she would pick us up on Tuesday, but thought maybe 8 or 9.

We are staying at the Radisson SAS again. We just really prefer the area because it is near a lot of restaurants and shopping. For some reason Brent and I were tired for almost the whole plane rides over. Lufthansa makes it soooo very hard. I know I have mentioned it before, but oh my gosh, the foot room is non-existant. When the person in front of you lays there seat back, it is in your lap. Anyway, we just could not sleep. We both pretty much read the whole time. So, when we made it to the hotel we were exhausted. I think we had been up for almost 31 hours by the time we fell asleep. I then slept 15.5 hours and Brent slept for 14 hours. YIKES! I could have kept on sleeping too; we forced ourselves up. I needed to be up for my mission of the day! My mission was to find an artist on the Nevsky Prospekt to draw a portrait of Caroline from a photo I brought. I thought she was too young to sit still in person, not to mention it would be too cold. Plan B, a picture! Being the frustrated photographer I am, I had many to choose from!

As we were getting ready, Brent called the front desk and asked if they could bring up a crib!!!! Did you hear that? A CRIB!!!!!!!! We will be needing a CRIB on this trip!!! So, the guy brings it up and it looks like a pack and play with wheels or a very large cloth laundry basket that you wheel around. They had it nice and fluffy with a soft white duvet and small little pillow. I then put her blankets and her toys in there for her big debut tomorrow! Did you catch that?? TOMORROW!!!! :)

We finally got out of the hotel around 4:30pm. It was still snowing. It was snowing with the sun out and it was not sticking (which is just fine by me). We walked around a bit looking for artists and some food. Are you ready to hear where we ate?? Sabarro's Pizza. Can you believe it? We're in the middle of St. Petersburg and we eat at Sabarro's. That is the same pizza joint that can be found in any small mall in any little town accross the U.S. and we found it in Russia. AND we ate there! It was not too bad and it was cheap; which is a plus at this point in the adoption process.
Afterwards we found an artist and haggled the price of the *hopefully* beautiful portrait of our daughter Caroline Hope Monroe. There was somewhat of a lack of communication, but we think we are supposed to pick up the drawing tomorrow between 6 and 7pm.

We then decided to go by the little store accross from our hotel and buy things for breakfast. A little German style breakfast, maybe! A German breakfast consisits of brotchen (roll/bread) with meats and cheeses. We ate this all the time when we lived in Germany for 3 years. We also bought orange juice and cream. We had instant coffee with no cream this morning and it was blah! Not tomorrow, we will have our cheap, nasty, instant Taster's Choice with CREAM. Only the best for us Monroe's. Who needs Starbuck's when you can have instant Taster's Choice?
You should see us trying to buy things at this little store. We are like the blind leading the blind. Lots of finger pointing and nodding of the head.
"Can we have this cheese?" pointing to item.
"This?" pointing at wrong cheese.
"No" head shake and more pointing.
"This?" pointing to item next to it.
"Yes!!!" accompanied by big happy head nods.
Then on to the next item....
It is an adventure, that is for sure.

Leaving the store with our bread and cheese.

Tomorrow I will wear my black pants again. Today I was in gray cords and had on a pink scarf and did not blend at all. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Brent always sticks out, but I blend when I wear my black pants and black scarf and black coat. Basically, if you want to look Russian wear black. A typical Russian girl here in St. Pete's would wear dark blue or black skin tight jeans tucked in to REALLY long black stilleto boots. The coat should be shades of black, brown or gray. There should be fur somewhere on the coat, preferably on the hood. The hair should be any color of the rainbow, except not your natural color. Very BOLD colors are popular. Hair should also be pulled tightly back into a pony tail with no bangs. Black eyeliner is a must. My sister has asked for pictures of the Russian people and their fashion style. So today I started to take some. Maybe I will post some later for fun. The men just wear dark colors. You do see a lot of jeans, but only very dark colored jeans. Dark shoes. That is pretty much the extent of their "look". Anyway, back to the story.

We called Irina when we got back to the hotel and she was in class.(She is a Spanish teacher at a college...English is her 3rd language) She could not talk but said she would pick us up at 9:00am and we would return at 5 or 6pm. Goodness, this will be our longest day so far. We are not sure what exactly we are doing and why it will take so long. We do know that we will return to the hotel at 5 or 6pm with our daughter in our arms forever!!!!

It is late here (11:40pm) and I do believe I will need an Ambien to get to sleep tonight. It is amazing how long 15 hours of sleep will last! ha ha
Tomorrow night we will post pictures of our newest addition! Stay tuned......

Happy early Easter!!!!

 

Twas the night before......

 

The girls are helping me finish up my packing for Caroline.
Our biggest concern right now is our suitcases not weighing more than 40 pounds.It is the in-country travel on Aeroflot, the Russian Airlines, that has this rule.
We will be flying from St. Petersburg to Moscow for Caroline's U.S. visa. Right now we are at 41 pounds. Of course we still have diapers and Pediasure not packed.
I guess we might be having to pay extra $$ for the extra #'s!!!
We just put miracle grow on our money tree so it should'nt be a problem. ;)

We are home again, atleast for 5 more days

 

We returned home from London late last night. The kids are on Spring Break and at my parents house. These plans of course were made before our travel dates were moved up. Brent and I miss them dearly. I will meet my dad half way on Wednesday to bring them home.
Avery Grace left us this sweet drawing on our kitchen island. The fun part is looking for Caroline in it.(hint: you might need to click on it for a closer look!!)
To quote Toy Story 2, "You'll love Avery, she's an artist!" I say that to her all the time.
The clock is ticking and Brent and I are scrambling to prepare for our LAST TRIP!!
Can you believe it? Somebody pinch me!! :)

Justice is served....cue the fat lady!!!!!!!!

We are absolutely thrilled to report that our court hearing today was a success!!!!!!!
Caroline Hope is just 11 days away from being ours forever!!
Thank you so very much to those of you who have been so supportive to us during this adoption. It has been a long hard journey, with a beautiful and precious end in our sights!

Brent and I started our day at 4:30am. You heard me right! That would be in the wee hours of the morning. "You must have had an early morning court date", you are thinking. Nope. Actually, our court was at 11:00. We just could not sleep. Sooo, we just hung out and went over our questions and our speech for court. We went downstairs to eat the breakfast buffet at 7:00 and it was fabulous. Thank you God for the invention of coffee! Though we REALLY do miss our morning Starbucks.

We met Irina in the lobby at 10:15 and headed for court in the green van with no seatbelts.(okay, okay, I will stop with the van's seatbelts. Brent has informed me that it is old!) It was about 15 minutes away from our hotel. The building was older, yellow with white pillars and had a Russian flag flying in front . We walked in and it had really tall ceilings and a large impressive staircase. You could tell at one time this was a beautiful building, but it was run down and smelled like smoke. We were permitted to come in by a security guard and followed Irina up the staircase to a hallway where all the "players" were waiting. We had the orphanage director, the social worker, the courts English translator, the head coordinator, and the director of the Russian databank. Everyone stood around waiting for the judge while we talked with the court translator. She was very nice and had a good sense of humor which was refreshing. (Brent and I have found that our humor has a lot to be desired by the Russians....lost in translation maybe?) Anyhoo, we were informed of the do's and dont's AGAIN! If we could not get it right after this much coaching something was wrong with us.

At 11:00 we were called into the "court room". It was a VERY small light yellow room with 2 large windows. There was a table in the front with 3 chairs. We sat in the back where there were 6 small chairs side by side(3 in front and 3 in back) for us, our court translator and the 2 directors. There was a "prosecuter" seated at a table to the left of us. To the right of us was a large cage.(for criminals, I suppose)

Brent read our speech (and beautifully I might add) and we were asked muliple questions. One of my questions was to describe one of my typical days. I think they were trying to figure out how I was going to find time for Caroline!!! ha ha Court lasted about 50 minutes and we had no surpises. The judge left for about 5 minutes to consider our case and came back with a POSITIVE DECISION!!!!
Thank you Lord!!!! Caroline is soooooo close to being in our arms forever.

Brent and I with our court translator.

Brent and I celebrated by going back to the hotel and falling asleep for 2.5 hours. You did not know we were so wild and crazy did you?? The stress of court falling away made me sleepy, not to mention the valium I took before we left. Ha ha! After our nap we ventured out to do some shopping for family and our baby in the outdoor market. Brent LOVED this part. Okay, truth be told he found it torturous....but I had a ball!!! :) The weather was not too bad today, low 40's and overcast; which made it that much more doable. After that we headed to another restaurant we were recommended. (By the way Judy, we found it easily, thanks!)It was an Italian restaurant called Park Restaurant. Great prices and very nice on the inside! Highly recommended if anyone is in the area! I had a calzone and Brent had calamari, seafood bisque and ravioli with scallops in a cream sauce. Why do I insist on listing our dinner menu every night? I have no idea. Brent started it when he blogged on our first trip. Maybe because the food is so good.

We head back tomorrow at 5:00. Unfortunately we have to spend the night at the Heathrow Hilton in London.

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot. The biggest surprise of the day is that they changed our "Gotcha" day on us. It is now March 25th as opposed to the 31st. WOW!!! We have a lot of last minute shuffling going on. We had already had our plane tickets, our arrangements for the kids and Brent had a HUGE work event planned for that week.
Needless to say, this coming week will be INSANE trying to pull it all off before we leave again on the 22nd. Whew!!! I will post pictures tomorrow.....

We are head over heels in love....

Our day started this morning around 7:30. Brent slept through the night, however for the second night in a row I awoke around 2:30. I read or write for a couple of hours and then try to go back to sleep. The jet lag seems better this time around. Anyway, we met Irina in the lobby at 9:30 as planned and hopped in the green van (with no seatbelts) driven by Alexander. The MOE is about 15 minutes or so from our hotel. We went back in to the smokey yellow building and up the 3 flights of stairs to the same office of the woman we met with last time. She is always very serious and rarely smiles. She quized us on Caroline's family background, her health and all of our visits with her. Our translator Irina said she was making sure we were prepared for court. We signed some papers and then left the premises. Not a moment too soon as the smell of smoke was STRONG and making us queazy.

We jumped back in to the green van with our paperwork that allowed us to visit Caroline. The drive is about 45 minutes to an hour. It is on a 2 way road that they are in the process of expanding. Lots of construction. I recognized her town when we got near because of all the tall trees. There was a little bit of snow on the ground but it was starting to melt. The construction they were doing on the orphanage the last time we visited was complete. We walked in and went back down the long hallways to the offices and were quickly shown to the "visitation room."

When they brought Caroline to us she was a vision in red! That is right, RED!!! She looked adorable. It looks like they had also cut her hair. Not a huge difference, but I noticed. They told us she had a fever and a cold and was not feeling well. They did not want her to play too hard so we held her for most of the time. She smiled, laughed, and wanted to play. She loved her neck tickled and dancing to the music from toys. What a trooper! We can not say enough wonderful things about her and her personality. I am just head over heels in love with her already! We are truly blessed!
We played with her for about 1.5 hours and then it was time for her nap. We went to the director's office and were able to ask more questions. The director and Irina tried to prepare us for court. We were told things to expect and things not to do.
We then left our baby :( and hopped back in to the green van (with no seatbelts) and drove back to the big city.

Brent and I ate at a pizza place for dinner and it was not so good. However, it is the cheapest meal we have had so far! ha ha Last night we ate at a Pub by the Church of the Spilled Blood. It was very good. The church is absolutely breathtaking. It is almost overwhelmingly beautiful. St. Petersburg is a gorgeous city, I can not imagine what it must look like in the summer.

Tomorrow at 11:00am is court. I get anxious when I think about it, but I think we will do just fine. We are ready! This time tomorrow, Caroline will be ours!!!! Thank you God!!! Until then....