Our Trip Here

14 Feb – 3pm Kansas time
We are at Washington Dulles waiting for our next flight. The last time we were at this airport we arrived from London moving back to the US after 3 years in England. Emma was 2, Geneva was 2 months old. The kids did great on the flight except for Emma throwing up an entire carton of milk that she had just drank. We asked for some milk, they gave it to us, we checked the date and it felt cold, so we poured it into her sippy cup. She drank the entire thing in about 5 minutes and 5 minutes later she threw it all up. A stewardess was standing right there and offered me 2 cocktail napkins. Needless to say that didn’t begin to clean it up. Ahhh, the memories….anyway, that is a story that we will probably tell at her wedding.
Now we are flying the other way to see the son that God has for us.
It is hard to believe that 16 months ago God called us to adopt. Is it just coincidence that the boy we are going to meet is 16 months’ old. We don’t think so! The journey so far as seemed long and frustrating at times, but God’s plan has been and is ever present. His timing is perfect and looking back, we see how he has put all the pieces in place. His hand is always working in our lives. We are humbled to be His instruments and hope we will always seek His desires for us and our family.

15 Feb – 8am Copenhagen, Denmark (1am Kansas time)
We arrived in Copenhagen and are waiting for our flight to St Petersburg. I managed a few hours of interrupted sleep on the 8-hour flight over the Atlantic, but unfortunately Britt couldn’t sleep at all. It could have had something to do with the woman who sat next to him and talked in a very loud voice the entire way with her light on. Good thing the seatbacks in front of every seat had their own video/music/game service. Britt has become an expert on SAS Airlines centipede. Hopefully he’ll get a few hours of sleep on the next flight because there will be no sleeping when we get to St Petersburg. The best way to get over jetlag going east is to stay awake the entire first day you are there and then crash that night. So, I will not let him sleep or he’ll be up most of the night. J
There is something special about being back in Europe. It just feels right. Britt and I decided it was because we have so many awesome memories of our travels across the continent. It was just fun to roam the airport convenience store with all “foreign” snacks yet they were very familiar. Britt almost broke down and had a Magnum ice cream bar (Dove bar tastes like dirt compared to Magnum).
Britt says “hello”

15 Feb – 4pm St. Petersburg time (7am Kansas time)
We finally made it to St Petersburg and are checked into our hotel. It is snowing here and overcast. We are very glad we brought boots because the sidewalks are very slushy and snowpacked. The driver and translator didn’t even know where our hotel was located. It is so new…the hallways still have that new carpet smell. The room is spacious and very nice. We are located 1 block from the old historic district and about a 10 minute walk from the city center. There is another couple from our adoption agency here at the same time, but they are staying at a different hotel and going to a different orphanage. Our translator gave us our schedule for tomorrow. We have our ministry of education meeting at 10am then we will come back to the hotel until 2pm when we get to go to the orphanage. He gets up from his nap at 3:30pm, so we will have some time once we get there to gather as much information as possible before we see him. Now we are going to go wander around for a while and find someplace to eat an early dinner and then go to bed early.

15 Feb – 7:35pm St. Petersburg time
We went walking around tonight. The woman at the front desk recommended a place for dinner that was some sort of music club. It was very nice and comfortable…I guess not too expensive for a nice dinner in St Pete. They had “warm mutton tongue” on the menu, but we settled for something a little more normal sounding. Britt had borsch and sea bass and I had a lamb soup and veal cutlet “kiev” style.