Goin' Home

We are going home tomorrow and I am so ready...to hug my kids...to see their faces...we meet in the lobby at 8:45 in the morning and our flight leaves Moscow at 12:55. Four hour layover in ATL and home around 10 something!!! It will be a long day of travel but I am so excited!

The last few days we have been wandering the streets of Moscow. We took Els down to Red square to get her pic in front of St. Basil's...I am pretty sure it is required:0) I can't post pics from here because they keep the tower locked up so I can't plug my camera into it. We also walked to Arbat today and had a drawing of Ellie done by a street vendor...ate at the Hard Rock...lousy food, worse service:0) The weather has been beautiful and we have really enjoyed being outside.

For those coming behind us, there is a park about three blocks from the Marriot with lots of room to run around and a slide and sand box...you walk past the grocery behind the hotel and you will dead end into it. We (and two other families) took all the kids out there yesterday morning before our Embassy visit.

The Embassy visit was great. I continue to be so impressed with our in country staff...they got us there first...we were numbers 1 and 2 in line and literally 5 minutes after we got there a line 100 people deep formed. Our facilitators were the only ones of adopting families that walked us in and explained the process to us and then left to wait outside. Once we were there, Americans are allowed to skip all the lines (how cool after being shoved around for the last month!) We paid our fee and sat back down...then they flashed our number and we went to the window for our "interview" in which she compared Ellie to her Russian passport, had us swear to something, we signed some papers and sat back down...30 minutes later, we got called back up, were given our sealed envelope for immigration in ATL and sent on our way...Ellie will be an American as soon as we touch down! Praise God, we are goin' home! Thank you, Father.