We have great news! The agency called today to inform us of our court date (o.k., I called them), our court date is February 14th, Valentines day.
We are really excited, more than anything we can't wait to see Andrew. On our court date, they will also let us know the date that we can return to bring him home.
So, have to go now, we have lots of plans to make.........

Shopping..........straight to the clearance rack - that is what I have been doing this weekend! The sales are fantastic - I went to Gap kids and bought Andrew lots of new clothes. How could I resist.....they had shirts for $3.00, leather boots marked down to $5.00. It was lots of fun, I only hope I got his size correct! I also started to gather gifts for all our "helpers" in Russia.
O.k., as you might have guessed, we have still not heard from our agency about our court date. They are closed on Fridays, and don't open on Monday until 10:00 am (I wish I had those hours!) so I will have to wait til then to make my phone call. I have found that if I don't call them they do not rush to call me so when I call my usual line is "just checking to see if you have heard anything" or I ask a phony question about expiration dates on our paperwork to get the ball rolling. During our last conversation she led me to believe that we were close to getting our "invitation to travel" - to travel to Russia you need a Visa - however, in order to get a Visa, you need an invitation from someone in Russia. I think our invite comes from the Ministry of Education. Anyway, she hinted that we should be receiving ours soon.
O.k., I'm off to the couch to watch "The devil wears Prada" - I hope its good.

Like many others we are waiting for news about our court date. The MOE (ministry of education) closes in early January for the Russian Orthodox Christmas - they re-opened January 9th - so we are hoping to hear some news this week. In the meantime, we are sending the agency updated paperwork, etc.....
We are also working on Andrews room - we bought him a new bed (a twin bed, the kind with the drawers in the bed for extra storage). I also ordered a highchair today online! We purchased the Euro II highchair from One Step Ahead (www.onestepahead.com) - it is natural wood and grows with the child. It holds up to 150 lbs. so we should get lots of use out of it. I found another catalog "Right Start" (www.rightstart.com) - I haven't ordered from them ....but they have some nice things. We still haven't made a decision on what to bring to Moscow in relation to car seat/stroller combo, umbrella stroller, baby carrier/backpack type system or nothing at all (just carry him in our arms).
I received information today on my "secret blog pal" - we are assigned a blog pal - and from now until mid April - we exchange cards, small gifts, etc.....This is my first time participating in this and I think it should be fun!
We hope to hear some good news soon! Have a great week.