Introducing: Maria Josephine Pinson -- known to us as Josie

Little Miss Josie

                                                
                                                                          Our first meeting

                                                              Waving pa-ka pa-ka to us
                                  This one breaks my heart.  We are so ready to go get her. 

          We left disposable cameras and this is a picture the caregivers took for us. 

                                                              Josie and Grandma

Another one the caregivers took for us when we were away. 

Our sweet baby doll

We got word today that it is fine to post pictures of our little Princess. 

Maria (our translator) Jeanette and Chad

                              Cathedral of Resurrection (“The Saviouur on the Spilled Blood”)

                                                          All done with Mosaic tile

                               Snow and ice removers- mostly done with no safety belts

              This is done daily to try to prevent ice and snow from falling on people walking                                        Many people in Russia die each year from falling ice. 

                                                           Catherine’s Summer Palace

                                                                       Russian Ballet

My wonderful Mother-in-law and I

Recap from our 2nd trip

Our 2nd trip was amazing, wonderful and stressful all in one mix.  We had the stress of court, a bombing nearby, and a sick child thousands of miles away but we got to see Josie smile and laugh for us for the first time.

We got to Russia on Sunday and thought we would just catch up on sleep and site see on Monday but we got a very pleasant surprise.  We were told that our driver would be at our hotel the next morning to go see our daughter!  We had been asking, and hoping for more than one meeting but just didn't know if they could make it work.  So after getting permission from the committee we began on our 2 hour drive to our daughter. Chad's Mom (Jeanette) went to Russia on this trip with us but we did not know if she would be allowed in the orphanage so she stayed to site see the beautiful city of St Petersburg.  Going to the committee takes awhile so we did not get to the orphanage at an ideal time.  The children follow very strict schedules so we have to work our visits around their time.  We got there when it was lunch time so we went to a little cafe for a while until we could go visit.  We rode to the orphanage with another couple that was meeting their daughter for the first time.  It was nice to have them to visit with.  Their little girl is just a few days older than our Josie.  We then got to the orphanage and it was much more relaxed this trip.  They just took Chad and I up to the music room and within a few minutes brought Josie in.  She was as sweet as ever and wanted to snuggle and be held the whole time.  She was very tired as it was almost nap time.  She actually fell asleep on Chad’s chest for a short time.  Toward the end of our visit one of the caretakers came in to set up a puppet show for some of the older children.  Josie obviously loved this caretaker and got very excited when she was in the room.  She played the piano as we were leaving and Josie loved that.  We then had to say our pa-ka pa-ka (bye-bye) until tomorrow.  We were told that Jeanette could come in the orphanage so the following day she got to come with us.  That was a nice treat.   It was not too cold Tue when we visited so they told us we could take Josie outside.  We waited a long time then finally they had her all bundled up and we went out for a while.  She was still a little timid of us and knew we were strangers.  We had a nice time outside and she still wanted to be held a lot and look around.  It began to get cold so we took her inside.  The other couple was visiting their little girl in the music room so we waited for a while in foyer for them to find a room for us to play in.  I began to unbundle Josie and she her personality just began to shine.  She had all kinds of smiles for us and was giving high 5's.  She was being quite the little ham.  That was wonderful to see.  We knew that it was in her as we had seen her interact like that to the caregivers but never with us.  We then went in a different room that seemed to be a room that they do Dr visits in. She had obviously been in there before and loved playing there.  She took a hold of Grandma's bracelet and she held on tight.  She loves jewelry!  She was so sweet and gave lots of smiles and laughs.  She really warmed up to Grandma as well.  There was a big exercise ball and she love bouncing on that.  That was a wonderful visit and it went too fast.  A caregiver came in and told us about her schedule and we could ask questions of her.  Chad asked her to hold Josie while he video recorded her talking to Josie about her stay.  I am very excited to get that translated as her caregiver was so loving toward her.  We then had to say our Pa-ka Pa-ka's until next time.   Court was the following day and that was definitely on our minds as we said our goodbyes.  But court went very well!  The judge was 40 minutes late getting started.  We had met most of the people in the room so that made it less intimidating.  There was the orphanage director (which we love), orphanage social worker, prosecuting attorney, secretary, committee director, our translator/facilitator, Judge, and Chad and I.  It was much like a court hearing here in the states.  When it was my turn I went up to the podium and gave our speech.  Chad and I decided that I needed to give the speech as sometimes he can come off too much a busines like and in most cases that is good, but not so much here.  My speech went very well and then came the question time.  We really had been prepared very well by our adoption agency and knew pretty well what to expect.  The judge really just wanted to know about our parenting style and weather we had prepared to add a child to our family.  She loved the photo album I had brought.  Chad then had his turn at answering questions for a while.  The prosecuting attorney had some questions for us.  Then it was time for the orphanage director to give her observations about our time visiting our little girl and she was very positive.  It was then time for the social worker to give her spill and when she was almost done the judge broke for lunch.  Of course her announcement was in Russian so as everyone was leaving I leaned over and asked our translator what was going on, she replied "lunch time".  After our little break we went back to the hearing.  There was just a little more and the judge gave her ruling.  Even though it was in Russian we knew she said positive decision.  What wonderful words to hear!  After that we could relax as much as a set of parents can when there is a bombing nearby and a sick child at home.  I was ready to get home by this point but we knew our boys were in good hands with Katie and God had control over what happens so we stayed as planned.  The following day was a great day of site seeing with our driver Nadia and translator Maria. We went and saw Catherine the Great's Summer Palace.  That was amazing!  We also saw the Cathedral of the Resurrection ("The Saviour on the Spilled Blood") This was built on the site where Alexander II was mortally wounded.  This was also amazing.  I will try to post some pictures.  The interior was all made of mosaic tiles.  It looks like paintings but it all made of little stone tiles.  It was built in 1883-1907.  That evening we went to a Russian Ballet which was awesome.  We then packed our bags to begin our long journey home.  We will definitely be missing Josie until next time but know that we will be seeing her soon.  We got our date that we go pick her up.  It happens to be Valentines Day!! What a day we will definatley remember always.  We had a wonderful trip and we are so glad that Jeanette could join us for this part of our journey. 

By the way, Katie definitely needs to be hired on as a teacher close by.  She is wonderful and we are so blessed that she is able to keep our boys while we are away. 

I almost forgot

When the caregiver at the orphanage was telling us about our sweet girl she called her lazy because she doesn’t totally eat with a spoon and wants to hold a hand when she walks.  We were also told she drinks from a tea cup.  Goodness she is only 15 months with an adjusted age of 13 months due to being born prematurely.  I think she is doing pretty darn well!  What a difference from our way of thinking. 

Our sweet girl is legally our daughter!

We had a great day at court.  Our little girl has legally become a Pinson!  We now just have to wait for the mandatory 10 days to apply for her passport and do more paperwork to bring her home.  Court was fairly long but it went well.  The judge started our case 40 minutes late and when it was almost over she broke for lunch.  The orphanage social worker was giving her speech and had less than 5 minutes remaining and the judge broke for lunch.. When we all got back back the social worker gave the rest of her spill. Then judge checked off the huge stack of documents and she broke again for a few minutes and came back with a positive decision!  In all it was 4 hours.  We are anxious to come back to bring her home for good.  We think we will be returning about Feb 6 for a 10 day stay.  I'm not sure if I can put her legal name or pictures on here so I will wait until I know for sure. 

Sad part of the day

Our day did have one sad part that will not leave our minds any too quickly.  We witnessed the love of a Grandma (or Great Grandma)  that brought her little one to be left at the orphanage.  She came with a stack of papers and one of the cutest little Russian boys and left wiping her tears.  What a hard thing this lady did.  We could just tell it was done out of love.  If  I could, I would pack them all up and bring one to each of you wonderful friends and parents.  We in America have no idea how good we have it until you see otherwise.

Wonderful Day!

We went to see our sweet girl today and we had a wonderful visit.  She really showed off for us today.  We got to take her outside for a while then go play in a different room than we normally go in.  It was obviously a room she had been in a lot as she was very comfortable there.  She was all smiles and laughs which was wonderful to see.  That was the first time she has smiled or laughed for us.  We had seen it for her care givers but she has always been quite somber with us.  Today was definitely a new day.  She was little miss show off!  The director let Chad's Mom come in and visit with her as well.  We were told that she would not be able to come in so that was a nice treat.  Our girl is already a diva.  She took hold of Grandma's bracelet and there was no letting it go.  She wanted our jewelry and Chad’s watch over any toy we could offer.  Also they had a therapy ball (large exercise ball) in the room and she absolutely loved bouncing on it.  She definitely knew what she was doing so she must have spent a lot of time on it.  We got a treasure today that I am anxious to see.  We had left her 3 disposable cameras and they had 2 1/2 of them filled up.  We will be developing them right away to see what all they captured for us.  One of her care givers came in and told us a lot about her stay and what she likes and doesn't and about her day.  They have all been so sweet and caring.  Today was our last visit so we will be missing her until they say we can come back for trip 3 to pick her up for good. 

Tomorrow is court so we could use a few extra prayers. 

Also we have a sick boy at home.  While we know he is in good hands it is very hard to be so far away when he is not feeling well. 

We got to see her again today!

Our little girl is just as sweet as ever.  She has changed in the last 2 months.  She has 2 more teeth, has grown and we think she can now walk.  Her caretaker left her standing up but Josie was very shy and didn't want to be down at all.  She loved being held and cuddled.  It is 7:00 pm here and we haven't eaten since breakfast so this will be very short. 

PS  this was wrote after what was in the news, so yes we are fine.  We flew into and will be flying out of St Petersburg.

We made it to St Petersburg

We are in Saint Petersburg.  It was a long flight of course and we are without some of our luggage but nothing we can't deal with.  That is kinds getting to be a trend.  We are very tired so it will be a short post.  The most exciting thing is we found out that we get to go to Luga tomorrow to see our sweet girl.  It sounds like we will be going tomorrow and Tue.  We thought we had to wait till Tuesday so we are very excited we get to go twice.

The adventure at home while were in the air between Germany and Russia

When we decided that we were going to add a child to our family we knew we would need a bigger vehicle.  Our Tahoe was the sport version and it just didn't have any storage space for luggage in the back if we used all the seats.  We began our look for a vehicle and as I'm really more of the "as long as we all fit and it is comfortable and reliable it is fine with me" kind of person, I let Chad take over the look.  He called up the lady he bought his truck from and told her what we wanted.  Within about a day she called and said she had an Expedition which fit the bill for what we wanted.  The problem was we were leaving for Russia that following day and just didn’t have time so go look at it.  After sending pictures and deciding it was indeed just what were looking for she said she would bring it to us along with papers to sign if we wanted to purchase it.  So about 2 hours before we left for the airport we got the Expedition and I drove it about a whole 3 blocks to test drive, we signed the papers, loaded the kid paraphernalia in and handed the keys to our wonderful friend Katie who was staying with the boys.  She would be driving it for the week.  We had thought it worked out great because when the word got out that we were going to sell the Tahoe we had 2 different friends contact us wanting to buy it for their daughter that live out of town.  The next day (a whole 24 hours after be bought the Expedition) Katie had to go get something from her house.  She took the boys in and when they came back out the new Expedition would not start.  Katie being the calm person that she is just called one of the wonderful emergency contacts that we left her.  Kendra came to her rescue and went to our house to get the Tahoe. She soon found out that the Tahoe was not there but there was a car from our local dealership sitting in our driveway.  Chad had told Kendra that we had someone wanting to buy the Tahoe but there was a service light on that we wanted to get fixed.  Kendra works with Chad and had seen many times the dealership bring a loaner when they needed to service one of our vehicles. So naturally Kendra assumed that the Tahoe was in the shop and they had left a loaner.  So she took the “loaner” to Katie.   Actually one of the guys that work at that dealership wanted to buy the Tahoe for his daughter and Chad had left him a key so when she came in town he could show her and test drive it.  When this guy got back from his test drive and his car was gone he thought it had been stolen so he called the police.  Meanwhile when the Expedition wouldn't start Katie had put in a movie to keep the boys occupied while she tried to figure out what to do.  Well rather than make the boys leave in the "loaner car" AKA "stolen car" in the middle of the movie they just stayed at her house until it got over. Meanwhile when the police came and realized there was a "stolen car" they also knew we were out of town and began to get concerned about the wear about of our children.  (One advantage of a small town where we go to church with the police chief).  They proceeded to search our house looking for clues as to where our kids were.  They had spotlights out and were spotlighting our neighborhood.  One of our neighbors came outside and the police even had her come search our house with him to see if she thought anything looked out of place.  Everything looked normal so they apparently began to figure out how to contact Katie.  From what I have been told the police got on my computer and looked up Katie’s Face book account and found her brothers phone number.  They called him and got Katie’s number and called her to see if everything was ok.  Of course she had no idea that all this fuss had gone on.  She simply thought she was going to drive this "loaner car" back to our house when the boys got finished watching their movie.  Anyway the dealership where we bought the Expedition came and towed away our new Expedition and brought her a real loaner.  They found out that somehow the key got deprogrammed and the ignition did not recognize it.  They then deprogrammed the whole vehicle then reprogrammed it and it has been fine ever since.  Luckily the whole incident did not scare Katie away and she is willing to watch our kids for us.   I also learned later that before the new Expedition got towed away Kendra’s husband (our pastor) came to take car seats out.  One of them is installed differently than the ones they have and he had trouble getting it out so he called the police to have them tell him how to get it out.  The police came and took the car seat out of the Expedition which was parked right beside the “stolen car”, but no one noticed.  Who would have thought that the pastor would be trying to put car seats in the “stolen car”? 

We appreciate all that everyone had done for us while we are in our adoption process.  We have great friends and family that are so willing to help out with our kids and take over the office while we are away.  We also appreciate that the police were concerned with the safety and whereabouts of our children.  We also appreciate that all you wonderful friend took control of the situation when we were in the air somewhere between Germany and Russia and handled it.  We learned tiny bits thru our e-mail contact but did not even learn of the whole situation until we returned which was no doubt for the better.  Katie even was able to keep the boys busy so they did not even realize the police came and were searching for the “stolen vehicle”.  What great friends!

When God Winks at You

During our business Christmas Party this year, I met a new friend that had heard about our adoption process.  She wanted to hear all about it because her daughter was also in the process of adopting.  During our visit she asked if I had ever heard of "God Winks" and while I certainly had felt the power of God in my life I had never heard it called that. I later found out that the next day she drove over 3 hours to buy me the book called "When God Winks at You" by Squire Rushness.  It is a book about how God speaks directly to you through the power of coincidence.  God has given us many of these "winks" thru our process, where we just know he is saying that this is what he wants us to be doing.  One such example came just a couple days ago.  Our adoption case got assigned to a new judge in Russia that our agency had not dealt with much.  We had been told that the last family that went before her on Christmas Eve also had their own business and she drilled them for 4 long hours to make sure they were prepared to add child to their family.  This worried us a little and we were given this families e-mail to correspond about what we could expect.  The judge also requested a huge amount of additional paperwork.  We had 1 week to complete everything and have it to the agency to make our court date.  This would not normally put me in panic mode except there documents that had to be prepared by some of the people we deal with the business. One of these important documents had to be written by our CPA.  It happens to be that our CPA is in TX, and with technology it should not be a problem except that the document had to be apostilled (a seal by the secretary of state in the state it was wrote).  The problem is that TX has a 10 day turn around on apostilling.  How was I going to get an original document from TX appostilled and to OH in 7 days?  I prayed about how on earth we could possible get this done and I happened to notice that the family that had gone before the same judge that I had e-mailed once was from TX.  I e-mailed this family and asked if they happened to know of a way to get this paper apostilled in less than 10 days so we could make our court date.  This perfect stranger said "just overnight it to me and I will go hand deliver it and get it done".  Wow! This person that I had corresponded with in one e-mail was willing to go to a governmental agency and wait in line to get this stamp for our family!  This family was busy preparing to leave for Russia in 2 days to bring their new son home.  Normally I would never send our financial information to a complete stranger but I just knew that this kind stranger was an answer to my prayer.  Short of driving to TX myself in a snowstorm I don't really think our document would have made it in time and we would have missed our court date.  I am very happy to say that I found out today that all our newly assigned documents made it and it looks like we will be clear for court on the 26th. Thank you so much Heather.  You were the answer to my prayer that day.  

Our little girls name

Some of you may of noticed that I have been calling our little girl Josie.  That will be her nickname.  We are not allowed to put her legal or pictures on internet until the adoption is final.

Paper Chase

This week has definitely been the most stressful part of the entire adoption process.  Our case was "lucky" enough to be given the new judge that our agency had just dealt with a handful of times.  We had all of our paperwork completed weeks ago but she has since requested so much additional that I can't possibly imagine what else she could possible want.  Having our own business has thrown her for a loop. We have all but one thing in the process of getting Appostilled  (a seal from the Secretary of State).  The last piece WILL be in the Fed-X box tomorrow to make the deadline of being apostilled and in OH by Thur.  I will feel so much better when all this paperwork is complete and we can just focus on our upcoming trip and our boys.  I have heard adoption paperwork called paperwork pregnancy.  I now agree.  I don't mean to complain.  We feel so fortunate to be going thru this process and know that God will help us see it thru.  We could use some prayers for our court that is Jan 26th in Russia.  We are told this judge will give us a run for our money. 

Comments

I did not realize I had it set so you had to be registered to leave a comment.  I have now changed it. 

Our dreams

I had mentioned in an earlier post that Chad and I had been having the same dream about adopting and did not realize it.  I will share a little about that.  I (Kelly) had been having dreams that I was in an orphanage and would meet our child but could never see her face.  I had those dreams for years but knew Chad was not really on the same page about adoption for us so I didn't talk to him about the dreams.  I had begun to pray to God that if adoption was not something that was right for our family that he take it off my heart.  I just did not want to have the same feelings when it was too late in life to do anything about it.  I could not imagine there being a child that God had for us and never finding her.  I bought adoption up to Chad occasionally during our marriage but we always said we would pray about it and if it was what God had for us we would know. Some time ago I finally mentioned the dreams to Chad and as soon as I did his face got white and he got very quiet.  He told me a couple days later that he had been having the same dream but just could not figure out where he was and why he could not understand the language that he heard.  In his dreams he had been walking in a hallway and up a long staircase, but he could never get to the top.  Chad then began to wonder if God really was trying to show us something.  Then one Sunday we sat in Sunday School and our teacher gave us a lesson that was about following God's path and trimming everything else from our lives.  The teacher had brought in a peach tree branch for demonstration and is sure made in impact.  Chad felt as God had put this lesson in his life at this time to help show him what he had planned.  Later that day in church Chad had an overwhelming sense that God had a child he wanted us to go find. He pulled my into our wonderful pastors office and told me what God had been revealing to him and thus our journey began.  Fast forward several months.  While in the orphanage we were going to the room where we would spend our time playing with Josie and on our way we opened a door and there was that hallway from his dream with the long stairway that he could never get to the top of. Only this time he did reach the top, and I got to see our Daughters sweet face.  What a wonderful day that was!

Court Date!!

We got our court date!! It is Dec 26th.  We were told we would not hear a date until after the shut down was over so this was a very nice surprise!  After court we will come back home and then return to St Petersburg about 2 weeks later to pick her up.   This last trip will be about 10 days to 2 weeks long as there are a lot of appointments we will have to take her to such as getting her passport and visa.  We are guessing she will be home by mid Feb.  We are very excited!