Welcome aboard!

Welcome to our blog and guess where we are going? We are starting this blog (thanks to my friend Lauren’s help) to let all of our family and friends follow along on our journey as we start our family. We finished all of our paperwork (dossier) and sent it to our adoption agency last week. They are reviewing it and hopefully sending it to Moscow next week (September 22) to be translated. Translation usually takes four weeks. Once translated, it will be submitted to the MOE (Ministry of Education) who will assign us a child or sibling group (Yep, maybe more than one) and invite us to travel to the Moscow region. This may take another 2 –3 months. We will only have a week or two notice before heading to the Moscow region for one week to meet our child or children. We have no gender preference and hoping for children between ten month (youngest available) and four year old. We will NOT receive any information about our child prior to landing in Russia. This is commonly referred to as traveling blind. Adopting in Russia has been very challenging as the laws are forever changing (NGO and reaccrediation are two current issues that we have been struggling with but so far so good).
Life is full of surprise and this will be the adventure of a lifetime.
Prior to this, we had been busy running around get paperwork, fingerprints, a home health inspection, criminal records checks our homestudy, and passports (ask Jeff about that fiasco). So, now that our paperwork is in, we wait. There will not be a lot of news in the next two months, but we will try to update you every couple of weeks on our progress. In fact, we may even take some time to do fun things like work on the baby’s room.

One statement that we read and feels so true:
"Adoption is having your child born to another and your journey of faith to bring them home"

We welcome you to participate in our journey, hold on tight, we are heading for the ride of a lifetime.

Maria and Jeff