It seems like just yesterday I was fretting about missing our window of opportunity to get to Russia quickly... oh wait, it WAS yesterday. It turns out that we didn't miss it at all. How frustrating it can be to expect things to work out on our time schedule when it's God's schedule that counts. God showed us YET AGAIN that He has things well in hand and that we're going to do it His way and in His time. Today we received our travel invitation!
The fun part is that it came AFTER I had left home to go to St. Louis for the NATA Convention. I go every year (I pretty much have to... I'm on committees that meet at the convention and I'm usually giving an invited talk or two at the conference). I arrived in St. Louis just in time for my first committee meeting. Just as it ended, Lisa called to tell me the good news. We were given our travel instructions and we had to act pretty quickly to capitalize on them. Our agency's case worker pushed hard for us to be traveling in 10 days. We opted for one week later so that we'd be able to make more sound arrangements for our biological kids (and for Bandit the dog).
We had to arrange for flights to Moscow (over $1500 each... ouch... and that doesn't include the ~$500 each for the in-country flight from Moscow to Stavropol). We also learned that the Moscow-Stavropol flight has a per person baggage limit of 20 kilograms (about 40 pounds) INCLUDING our carry-ons. We'll have to pack light. We also had to apply for our Russian tourist Visas. I wound up having to find a Walgreen's in St. Louis to get a passport style photo taken to attach to the Visa application (SUGGESTTION TO FUTURE ADOPTIVE FAMILIES: keep an extra copy of your passport photo to use with your visa application). I FedEx'd my Visa application from St. Louis. It's sometimes a little crazy how these things come together.
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