Pictures are here!!

Touring Moscow

Alexander the Great

Standing on the bridge that goes over the Moscow River in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

Us with Janice and Jon

This was awesome to see with our own eyes-St. Basil's Cathedral

So today we spent 7 hours touring Moscow, let's just say my shoes are definitley broken in now! We rode the Metro, which was CRAZY!! The Metro moves over 10million people per day, so today it was 10 million and 2 hicks from Pleasant View :) It was awesome to see some of these things in person that I had been looking at online for the past few months. Janice and Jon are awesome hosts, we've learned a lot about Moscow and Janice has given me some really good ideas for Hudson (like to buy a Russian cartoon dvd for him). We are going to try and get him at least 16 small gifts for his gotcha' days.

It is really starting to hit me that I will meet our son in less than 24 hours. This is the moment I have been waiting for, the moment I've dreamed about. But today I found myself thinking so often of his birthmother. I am sure we walked the same streets she has and did I stand where she had stood on the metro. Could I have passed by her. Does she know that the tears she cried the day she walked out of the hospital have brought me tears of joy. One of the hardest decisions for her has been the greatest blessing to us. I thank God for her and hope that one day I'll meet her in Glory and share the warmest embrace.

We're Here

Just wanted to post quickly that we made it. We were over 3 1/5 hours late because in Atlanta the plane we were suposed to take had a major electrical problem-Thank God we didn't get on it-so they had to find a different plane and then transfer everything into it. Our plane ride was long, I think we slept for about 4 hours if you call it sleep! So we are very tired because on Friday night we only had 4 hrs. of sleep too. Hopefully we will stay up a little more so that we can sleep all night here and it will make adjusting to the time a little easier.

Janice and Jon are awesome. We were greeted with big hugs and she took pics of us coming out of the airport. We just finshed eating with them and we are going to go on a short walk and then probably retire for the night. We couldn't have asked for any better of people to stay with!

Tomorrow they aren't working and so they are going to take us our sightseeing so I will post lots of pictures tomorrow.

Last Post from TN for a week :)

Just thought I would post one more time before we leave. We are going to leave early in the morning and I think I'm going to go ahead and retire the computer until we arrive in Moscow!

Today has been pretty normal, I picked up our new Treasure 2 Farm shirts and seperated them out so that took me a few hours and I've been trying to clean the house that way I come home to a clean house because I know we are going to be exhausted.

Casey's boyfriend, Will, is house sitting for us and he and dad are going to keep a close eye on all of the animals. Between the two of them someone will be here all the time and that makes me feel good because of all of the horses and our dogs. I'm going to miss my little Foxxy and Andy!

Okay, I'll quit rambling, but next time you hear from me I'll be in Moscow-WOOHOO!! Pray for us that everything goes smoothly and pray especially for our son that he will bond with us and accept us. WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

Ready to go!

So, all I have left to do is pick out what outfit we are wearing on the plane, and I have an idea of what I'm wearing. What am I going to do when I have to get a baby ready, myself, plus my husband!! I received the last of the paperwork in the mail today of what we have to hand carry, our visas came yesterday so it looks like we're good to go.

So I want to try and answer a big question we keep being asked...Does he get to come home with us on this trip? No, he doesn't. This trip we will officially accept him and get the ball rolling on some paperwork. We will come back home and wait on a court date, please pray that we will hear something soon after we come back home about the court date. If the court date comes quickly he should be home by Christmas.

Here is our itinerary. We fly out Saturday at 10:55 to Atlanta. From Atlanta to Moscow. The total for the trip will be 14 hours. When we arrive in Moscow it will be mid-morning there on Sunday. Monday is down time. We will register our visas and do some site seeing. What is really cool is that Janice and Jon, the awesome couple we are staying with, have Monday off so they are going to take us to tour Moscow! On Tuesday we will go and get permission to enter the orphanage at the Ministry of Education from there we go to the orphanage and meet with the director and ask questions we have. Then we get to see Hudson WOOHOO!! I will take lots of pics. We will get to spend Wed.-Fri. with him as well and then fly back home on Saturday.

We are going to take a video camera, too, so hopefully I can figure out how to put videos online. I cannot wait to see him, I keep wondering how much he's changed since we've seen his pics and video, they were over 3 months ago.

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR PRAYERS!

Busy Days

WHEW, I'm still trying to catch my breath, what a ride!! This morning when Jason got out of bed he whispered, "Goodmorning, Mom"! Haven't heard that one before!! Maybe he'll just call me that from now on because my name changes as the season changes. In the fall I am "punkin" in the winter I am "snowflake" and in the spring/summer I am "sunshine" or just "my love"! He's so goofy, I think I have these names just because they annoy me!! But I love him anyways:)

So today we have to go have another passport pic. made for the visas, I have to overnight the visas to New York. I also have to go to the bank, buy plane tickets, post office, etc. I'm busy, but for me, this is good. Otherwise I would be sitting here staring at my son's picture! Yesterday was the first time in a while I looked at it and smiled really big. Here lately I had been looking at it and feeling sad because I didn't know when I was going to get to see him and wanted to so bad, but in 9 days I'll be boarding a plane!

Tomorrow will be even busier than today. I have to get a lot of documents ready. I will have to go to Clarksville, Ashland City, Downtown Nashville, and then finally to our agency in Nashville to turn the paperwork in. I'm hoping on Saturday I will have time to catch up on laundry and cleaning!

MOSCOW HERE WE COME!

Hey everyone, we have our travel dates. We are going to hopefully leave on Oct. 11th, if there's not a flight out for that afternoon then we will leave the morning of the 12th. This is so exciting and we don't have much time to plan. Which is totally okay with me:) I have cried all morning. These past few months I have cried more than I have in my entire life combined!! If you felt the earth move, I was jumping up and down this morning about 9:30 when they called and told us our dates!! I will post more later when I learn more exact times on our travel, there are a million things going through my head right now, but the best part of my day was when I hung up the phone with our agency and called Jason and said in less than 2 weeks you will be holding your son!! THANK YOU GOD!

Few more pics

I know that seeing my feet was just what you wanted today!! Meemaw got me a pedicure for my birthday and I wanted to have pretty toes for the baby shower, but instead of going with a pretty pink or red I had to match everything at the shower!
Isn't this bag cute that Casey got for Hudson?!

Baby Shower

Casey made me this shadow box, which, I have to say is my favorite. You can't see it very good, but the row of buttons going diagonally are hus name, the top left if for me to put his plane ticket hom and the bottom right with the bow is for his first haircut. The poem is an adoption poem, of course this made me cry and is already hanging in his room!

Mandy and Tiffany were troopers all day, they are very good friends of mine!!
Front Row: Sheryl (Jason's mom), me, Jeanna (Jason's sister), Jason's Aunt Cathy

Back Row: Jason's Aunt Jan, Jason's cousin Amanda

I love this picture of Mandy and Tiffany looking at the shadow box

Greco family
My mom, me, Casey (my sister), Sheryl, and Jeanna

I love this picture of Diane and Mrs. Pat
Me, Abby, and Jordan
Haley and Hannah Loveless
Can you tell we are very excited about the carhart overalls!! They are so adorable.

I think this is such a good picture of Mrs. Vivian, Diane, and Chris. Diane you should feel like a celebrity, you made two pics on my blog :) !!

My beautiful sister Casey who threw the best shower in the world! And for all of you who helped, my hat goes off to you...Jeanna, Tracy, all my aunt's, grandmother's, Carrie, and all of you awesome Bethel women.
I will post some more pics within the next few days. These were taken with my camera which I think my cousin Tracy had throughout the shower. I hope to get more pics from some other people to post.

Whoa, I don't even know where to begin. We are completely humbled and still in awe from our baby shower. It was so awesome. So here's how Saturday went for me. I woke up at 4:55, got ready, fed horses and loaded up for the horse show. Arrived at the horse show at 7:00 left the horse show around 9:30. My girls were awesome at the horse show. It was 2 of their first show and one of them was riding a horse that had never been shown before, they all did wonderful! I ran in my house at 9:46 (I had my shoes and clothes laid out, thank goodness), changed clothes and ran out. Arrived at the church at 10:01 whew! Thankfully Jason drove the horse trailer for me so I didn't have to worry about unloading the horses.

Thank you just doesn't seem like enough for everything we received. Hudson will definitely be stylin'! He has the cutest clothes. Watch out girls in Bethel nursery! I have gone through all of the clothes probably 5 times, and I can see those big brown eyes dressed in them all! We have more than enough 18 month clothes and we have a bunch of 24 month/2T clothes. We have over 1200 diapers and lots of wipes! He has cute tennis shoes and john deere boots! Lots of toys, bath stuff, I could go on and on. I was in tears (yes, me, in tears) thinking about all this goodness poured out on us and our soon to be son. All I could think about was how we are so undeserving, and in the next breath I was praising God for His grace, which is sufficient for me!! Our cup is running over and for once in my life I think I'm speechless!

Quick Note

I am so excited about tomorrow. Except the fact that I have to get up at 5 am (you know I am NOT a morning person)! We have a short horse show to go to in the morning that will end by 9:00 and then the shower starts at 10:00. Hopefully we will run on time that won't be good if I'm late to my own shower and smell like a horse!! I haven't had any pics to post here lately but tomorrow I will have cute little boy stuff! WOOHOO!

Today I spent more time with Lena, my neighbor who is from Russia. I have learned about 6 Russian phrases that should come in handy. She's even got this country girl rolling her R's :)
She is an amazing painter and came over today to look at Hudson's room. She wants to paint him a mural all around his room. I think we are going to go with farm animals. I am so excited about this. She showed me some pictures of a mural she did for her neice and it was amazing. I am going to take some pictures of her work so you can all see. She can draw whatever you want, so if you have any artwork you would like, e-mail me and I'll get you in touch with her. She could make some very special Christmas presents!! lindsey@treasure2farm.com

I have become good friends with Amanda K. from Michigan and she and her husband leave for Moscow tomorrow afternoon. Say a prayer for them, they will be meeting their son for the first time on Monday, I am so excited for them!