If All Else Fails...Go On Vacation

After we celebrate Christmas with family and friends, we are jumping on a plane and flying of to San Diego. We are looking forward to the trip. And, after digging out from the nine inches on snow that fell last night in Indianapolis, the timing couldn't be better.

We will spend a few nights at the Westin Hotel in Downtown San Diego and then move over to the famous Hotel Del Coronado for a few nights. If weather permits, we'll walk the beaches, visit the zoo and take in all the sights. We might even do some friendly taunting of Charger fans along the way since the Colts play the Chargers this Sunday (in Indy).

On 12/30, we'll board another plane and fly into Kansas City to visit the Alderdices and ring in the New Year at a party Dan and Heidi Simon are hosting. If you attended Halloween on Hillside 2002, you'll remember the Simons from their brilliant Scooby Doo costumes. On New Year's Day, Patrick and Jen have tickets for us to attend the Kansas Jayhawks vs. Georgia Tech Yellowjackets basketball game. These are two of the NCAA's top teams, so it should be fun.

Then, it's back home to wait for the next call so we can head back to Russia and bring Bo and Ellie home. After seeing how good the orphanage caretakers were with the kids, we know they are in good hands for now. But, we are also more anxious than ever to welcome them into our family.

All the best to you and your families this holiday season.

Strange Days Indeed

Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about how nice it would be to take a trip to Russia in the middle of winter? Or, have you ever contemplated how rich you might be if you had a nickel for every time you thought, "wouldn't it be fun to spend Christmas in Moscow this year?"

If you answered no to these questions, you can likely appreciate just how strange things have been around the Marker house recently. As Lennon (John, that is) once said, "Nobody told me there'd be days like these. Strange days indeed. Quite perculiar, Mama."

It now looks like we will travel back sometime in January to bring Bo and Ellie home with us. Hopefully we'll go back sooner than later, but the Russian people take the whole first week of January off to celebrate the New Year. Any other year, we would commend them for taking so much time off. This year, we'd just as soon they get back to work.

Talk to you soon.

Fingers Crossed

We were hoping to learn today if Russian officials would allow us to bring Bohdan Sergei and Eliana Inna back home with us yet this year. But, it now looks like we won't hear anything until tomorrow or Friday. The good news is our request has not been denied yet; however, it still seems unlikely anything will move until sometime later next month.

Our adoption coordinator is doing her best to make something happen. She believes we should be allowed to finish things up since our paperwork was completed before this latest change. We agree and hope Russian officials consider this when making their decision.

We also have Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) trying to help us. Senator Lugar heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is well regarded as an international diplomat. His staff helps constituents with international adoption issues and also assists with visas, immigrations, etc. We are members of the same church Senator Lugar attends in Indianapolis and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he might knock on the right door in Russia to help us out.

Thanks again to everyone for all of the kindness you've extended to us throughout all of this. Your thoughtfulness and support is very much appreciated.

Embassy Statement of Adoption Issues

Here is some background on what's going on right now in Russia regarding international adoption proceedings. This is a statement issued by our U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has learned from Russian Ministry of Education officials that the Minister of Education has directed that, by the end of December, an accreditation commission be formed comprised of representatives from the Ministries of Education, Justice, Internal Affairs, Health and Social Development.

In addition, during the first week of January, governmental offices will be closed for the holidays. This reorganization and the holiday closures may mean that adoption agencies that are renewing their accreditations or applying for accreditation for the first time will not receive consideration by the new accreditation commission until it is formed and functioning sometime after mid-January.

At the same time, for reasons that remain unclear, the Russian government has again temporarily stopped issuing letters of release for orphans on the federal data bank.
For this reason, adoption agencies should discourage parents from coming to Russia to complete adoption proceedings before the required release letters are available.

While we recognize the inconvenience and possible hardship this reorganization, the prolonged holidays, and temporary suspension of release letters may cause some adopting parents and adoption agencies, we do not believe that U.S. government interference in this process at this time would be appropriate or productive. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow will continue to monitor the situation and apprise the adoption community of any significant developments.

The Hitch

You've heard the saying, "there is always a hitch". Today we learned about ours when we were told we will not travel back to Russia this weekend. This was very tough news to hear since we had our hearts set on having Bohdan and Eliana home before Christmas, but if there is one thing we've learned through this whole process it is that we are not in control.

It seems the Russian government has decided to put a temporary hold on court proceedings as they put together a new cabinet to oversee international adoptions. The thought was that we were grandfathered in since our paperwork was already completed before this decision was made, but that does not seem to be the case at this point.

We quickly faxed a letter to the Ministry of Education and Science this morning asking them to allow us to complete adoption proceedings yet this year, but it looks like our new target date for all of this is late January. There is a very slim chance we could still travel this year, but we won't know more about that until next Wednesday when the Director of the Ministry is able to respond to our letter of request.

Since all of this involves bureaucrats and a new cabinet, we are not placing any bets on our next travel date. It's really anybody's guess at this point and maybe that's why a colleague reminded me today that it was Yogi Berra who said, "It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

Hopefully this is a temporary glitch in the process and we'll get back to Russia soon. In the meantime -- if you are so inclined -- please say a prayer for Bohdan Sergei and Eliana Inna that they might shake loose of their orphanages sooner as opposed to later.

Rostov 101

By now you have possibly located Rostov-on-Don (a.k.a. Rostov-na-Donu) on a map. But, did you know this about the place Bohdan and Eliana now call home?

Rostov on Don (Ростов-на-Дону) is the capital of Rostov oblast, in the Northern Caucasus district of Russia. Geographical location 47° 14' North, 39° 42' East. Population 1,012,300

Rostov is located on the Don River which feeds into a northern section of the Black Sea known as the Sea of Azov. The Don is one of Russia's major rivers. It starts southeast of Moscow and flows about 1,220 miles to the Sea of Azov. The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world with an average depth of only 42 feet.

Founded in 1749, Rostov is both a river- and a sea port, the rail and road junction for people traveling from Moscow to the holiday resorts on the Black Sea Riviera. That's why it's also called the "Gateway to the Caucasus".

Rostov is one of the biggest industrial centers in Russia. Today the city produces combine harvesters, cultivators, transport helicopters, furniture, refrigerators, footwear, champagne and tobacco. The city is also home to Rostov State University which is the place where the famous physiologist, Pavlov, conducted his research. Careful...no drooling.

Regarding the Russian Federation...it covers 6.6 million square miles and constitutes more than one-ninth of the world's land area. It is the largest country in the world, but it ranks seventh in total population.

Russia contains the greatest reserves of mineral resources of any country in the world. Russia is especially rich in mineral fuels and may hold as much as one-half of the world’s potential coal reserves and have larger petroleum reserves than any other nation.

Okay, that's all about Rostov for now. We hope to have more time to tour the city on our next trip. If we get some good pictures, we'll post them. For now, we are counting down the days until we get to see Bo and Ellie again. If all goes as planned, we should see them next Tuesday.

Time For Me To Fly

Lately, whenever the phone rings, good stuff happens. Such was the case earlier today when we received a call from Inna, our agency director, telling us we have travel dates for our second trip.

As of today, we have a tentative court date in Rostov-on-Don scheduled for December 16. That means we will likely need to fly over on Sunday, December 12. Things could still move around a day or two on either end, but the really good news here is we will likely have the kids home by Christmas.

We're planning to celebrate a bit tonight and then get to work painting so we can turn a former guest room into a nursery. Enjoy your weekend.

Tick, Tock...Tick, Tock

A quick check of the calendar confirms that it has been a week since we met Bohdan and Eliana. That day last week goes down as one of the best in our lives, but it will be topped in the weeks ahead when we return to Russia and get to bring these sweet little kids home with us.

All signs are pointing to a trip back sometime in mid December, but we won't know for sure until we get the call. Once the call comes, we'll travel back and go through court proceedings with a Russian judge. Now, I'll go out on a limb here and surmise that most of you reading this have never had to appear before a Russian judge. Suffice it to say, that the reassuring sayings like, "they put their pants on one leg at a time" and "imagine your audience in their underwear" don't really seem to apply here.

Anyway, I never pegged Tom Petty as prophetic, but he hit the nail on the head for us when he wrote: The waiting is the hardest part...Every day you get one more yard...You take it on faith, you take it to the heart...The waiting is the hardest part.

Enough for now. We'll post again when we know something about when we'll travel again. Until then, here are a few more pictures of Bo and Ellie.