We're in St Petersburg

Hi everyone,
We made it to St. Pete. We transferred in Zurich with no problems and arrived here at 2:15pm. We were met by our translator Luda and driver Sasha. We are styaing at the Renaissance hotel this time which is within walking distance to the city center.
When we arrived at the hotel our agency coordinator Galina was here to go over our itinerary. Tomorrow we get to see baby B- Yeah I can't wait. After we visit we are meeting with the woman who is representing us in court to go over the procedure. Monday at 8am we are going for our 8 Dr medical exam. After that we get to visit with baby B again. On Tuesday at 11am is our court hearing. We were told it should take approximately 1 hour. There will be other couples there too. We visit with baby B after court on Tuesday and then on Wednesday before our flight back to NYC. We will find out at our court date when we can return to pick him up. If looks very unlikely that the 10 days will be waived.

Surprisingly it feels much warmer here than when we were here in December. There was very little snow on the sidewalks. Luda told us that the snow is gone by mid to the end of March.

That's all for now. I'll update again tomorrow after we see him.

Paka,
Jodi

One step closer!!

We have our court date – March 3rd. We are so excited!!!!!!!!! We are leaving Feb 27th arriving in St. Pete on Saturday Feb 28th. We have an appointment on Monday March 2nd with a medical clinic where John and I will undergo a medical examination with 8 doctors. Fun! After that we hope to visit with Baby B!

We were assigned a new judge for our hearing on Tuesday. This means that we can expect her to be strict and follow the rules. Our agency does not expect her to waive the 10 day waiting period, but I continue to think positively that she will and plan to pack some clothes for Baby B just in case. If it is not waived we are traveling back to NY on Wednesday March 4. My agency thinks we will be returning on March 14 to pick him up, we should know at our hearing. After we pick him up we will be traveling to Moscow to complete his immigration paperwork and can be home with him by March 21.

If anyone can spare any points we would be very grateful. We could use points for the Marriott, American Airlines, Delta or American Express. Any points will be helpful. Thanks to Chuck and Louisa who are giving us points for the Hilton when we stay in Moscow.

I plan to update the blog while we are in Russia--- so please continue to follow our journey!

Jodi

Still waiting......

No news is NOT good news. We are anxiously waiting our court date. As per my agency there is a good chance we will hear something at the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone for their PJ recommendations. I found what I was looking for on The Children’s Place website.

Now on to the fun stuff……..

I’ve been tagged. For those of you who are not familiar with “being tagged” in blogger world, it is similar to the chain emails we all receive. Meghan (a mother who adopted from Russia – check out her blog and her beautiful son Nick at mbgemmilladopt.blogspot.com) is the first to tag me with “Book Tag”.

Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 2 to 5 sentences, along with these rules.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual book. Pick the CLOSEST!
6. Tag five (or more) other people to do the same!

Since I am in my office and anyone who has seen my office knows it is filled with books from floor to ceiling. Luckily the closest book to me isn’t a law book but one of those trashy Vampire books I am addicted to.

Here goes……

“I really didn’t want to see Requiem tonight. I am still embarrassed that I’d added him to my list of food. But he’d been in England, so he’d seen the Harlequin in person, and recently. He’d be helpful. Or that’s what I told my-self as I nodded for Lisandro to let him in.”

I am going to tag:

Carrie & Michael
Joy
Keith & Becky
Tiger & Kar
Carol & Lance

Fingers and toes crossed that we get a date soon!

Jodi