Finally a Court date!

After a VERY long 11 weeks since our first trip, we are excited to say that we have a court date!!  We leave this Saturday (11/17) for Russia and we will have court on Wednesday 11/21. 

It’s been a longer than expected period of time between trips filled with a lot of stress and anxiety.  The judge requested more information from us over that time including things such as:

•  a survey of our house including the square footage of each room, totaled for each level and then whole house
• copies of our vehicle purchase receipts & registrations
• updated background checks (June 2012 wasn’t recent enough)
• a letter explaining our stance on corporal punishment

There were a total of 16 additional things that we had to provide to the judge since we returned from our first trip.  Then it was a matter of waiting….and waiting….and waiting! 

Last week we finally found out (on Friday) that the judge had set us a date of November 21 but until he issued an official invitation, it could change - meaning that we shouldn’t book our airfare and hotel until we know for sure.  The judge did officially issue the invitation today for the 21st!  We took a chance and booked our airfare Sunday night and it worked out - had we waited until today, it would have been an extra $399/person! 

The best part about this trip is that we will get to see Baby Girl on her first birthday (Tuesday November 20)!  That is very exciting and special for us (especially having missed that milestone with Andrew).  It means that we will be traveling home on Thanksgiving but we are set to land in Pittsburgh at 5pm so we won’t completely miss out on dinner (which happens to be Laurie’s absolute favorite).