We made it home

Just wanted to let everyone know that's been following us that we made it safely home.
We headed for the airport in Sakalin at 1:00 am on the 29th and got to Chicago at about 10:30pm on the 29th. With 16 hours of time zones, that's 37.5 hours of travel. We missed the connection to Des Moines and the airline put us up in a Hotel and gave us food vouchers in Chicago. Our flight on the 30th got cancelled, so we rented a car and drove back to DSM as it was faster than waiting around for the evening flight.
Marisa and Twilla will be traveling back to Sakalin around January 15th to pick up the kids.
Lots to catch up on and get back to normal here before going back to wrok on Jan 3rd.
Thanks for all of your continued prayers.

New Parent's

The Judge granted the adoption this morning. We spent 7.5 hours in court over two days.
We're very estatic about this. The announcement was followed by some tears and many hugs and congratulations.
Our flight from Sakalin to Moscow is delayed for a few hours, but we should still make our connection at the other Moscow airport. Domedovo was without power yesterday, but flights should be catching up by the time we're there tommorrowish.

Marisa and Granny should be able to come back in Mid January to pick the boys up.
Even though we had to spend Christmas away from our families, we are so happy to have just added to our family and given two little boys a forever family.

Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Even though we are far away from our family and friends this Christmas season, we wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We hope each of you remembers what it is that we truly celebrate at this time of year. Wishing you aj oyous holiday season!

We had to say good-bye to the boys a couple days ago. It was a sad moment but we made it through it. We have been hanging out in the hotel and making daily trips to the market to try out the various salads that they have for sale there.

Russian celebrates Christmas on January 6th, so today here is just like any other day. We have talked to our host and we will be going up the mountain for a festival. I believe they are celbrating 50 years of the ski area. It will be a good time and we are excited to spend some time outside of the hotel.

We love you all and wish you the best! Have a great Christmas day with family and friends!

One more day....

We only get one more day with the boys. We have had a great time with them.

We are still planning on our court date for Dec 27th. We're more and more sure that it will happen then. We have begun the process to change our tickets out of Moscow for the 29th.(we are told that flights are already completely full on the 29th, so we will have to see when we'll be able to get home)

Please pray that this(court) will all happen as planned as changing our flight tickets continues to be quite expensive.

We continue to be able to spend a lot of time with the boys, they begin to go a little stir crazy in the hotel room with 4 toy cars, animal magnets, two coloring books and a bag of bendaroos (thanks Julie!) and a language barrier. It really is amazing that we have had as few meltdowns as we have. They have a cry and get lots of love and hugs and are back to playing. Alik always wants to look at pictures on the camera after he has had a cry.

Today we also played with the adult size robes, a 4 liter water bottle, and then the genius idea of bath time for a couple of boys who normally only get a sponge bath. A bathtub with three empty water bottles = two VERY happy little boys. They were prunes but did not want to get out of the tub. We got Alik to close his eyes when we washed his hair, Misha didn't want to, but even with limited verbal communication skills, we were able to get Alik to help show/tell Misha how to close his eyes.

Yesterday and today we went to a mall here that has a play area for the kids. They thouroughly enjoyed that time and were able to work out plenty of energy.

We got snow here yesterday. Clearing the roads and sidewalks is nothing like at home. The sidewalks stay pretty slick and coated in a layer of ice.

Tommorrow will be our hardest day as we have to say goodbye (hopefully only for a couple of weeks).

We will miss Christmas with our families, but our family and friends are in our thoughts and prayers as we go through this unique Christmas season.

Merry Christmas.

Live from Russia!

It has been an amazing trip so far! It took us 4 planes and 16 time zones to get here but we made it.

The highlight of our trip so far? The time we have gotten to spend with the boys. We have played inside. Gone for walks outside. Shared meals. Saw a puppet show (that we didn't understand) and I think we are going to the tree lighting and fireworks tonight. They have grown a ton and the younger boy's personality has developed and grown a ton in the last 9 months (yes it has been that long!). We thank God each day for the time we get to spend with them.

Our host here is phenominal. She knows everyone and seems to know about all the places that we can take the boys so they are not stuck inside all day.

We know we keep putting out prayer requests, so maybe it is time to list some blessings...first, the two boys! Second, the boys were able to come to Yuzhno, this saved us a train trip and they are able to expeirence the city. Third, our wonderful host, she is a big blessing to us and all families that she helps with adoption.

Thanks again for all of your prayers it is much appreciated. Along those lines....we heard today that our friends Rob and Ami's adoption has been delayed. They were supposed to leave in the next couple of days to pick up their 9 month old son from Ethiopia, however, there has been a delay and they do not know if it will be a couple days or months. They have met Ricky and speaking from experience, waiting for that return trip can be challenging (to say the least). Please remember them in your in prayers.

From Russia with Love!

By God's grace, we are in Sahkalin.

The events of the last few days have certainly allowed us to see God's hands working in a way that we weren't prepared for.

We left Satuday morning out of Des Moines and through Chicago.

All of you who live in the midwest know what happened on Saturday/Sunday with the weather.

As we were finishing breatfast and waiting for our ride to the airport, it started snowing, HARD. The ground was white in minutes. We were at the airport in plenty of time and ended up running into some folks that Marisa works with. They were on the same flight to Chicago and then on to Finland. We spent some time with them in DM and then were able to have lunch with them in Chicago. One of them was even so kind to buy us lunch, completely unexpected, but very much appreciated.

We got out of Chicago about 45 minutes late, They had some last minute checks to do on the airplane to insure our safety. There were 1300+ flights cancelled out of Chicago on this day, so we felt quite fortunate to be able to get out when we did.

We missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt but were able to get on another flight to Moscow about 3 hours later. We were even able to track down our Russian contact to let them know that we'd be late.

Got to Moscow and through customs without issue. We waited forever for our luggage to come out and were beginning to worry that it may have gotten lost. I suspect it was some of the first put onto the plane in Frankfurt and some of the last off.

We met our translator and driver and off we went for the hotel. One thing that we weren't quite prepared for was the traffic in Moscow. It was roughly 1.5 hours to get to our hotel. Traffic was pretty bad, especially for a Sunday night. It was really interesting seeing the parking arangements on Monday. Double parking EVERYWHERE, right in a lane of traffic, which is part of the reason there is such a traffic problem.

We got through the medical exam in two days. The doctors were very busy so it took longer then expected.

Monday night we we went to a walking street just a few blocks from our hotel to find something to eat. We ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe, Moscow, not what we expected to find, but figured we would take the opportunity to eat there.

We tried to buy a bottle of water on the way back to the hotel, and gave the lady 1000 Rubles(about $33). She said something in Russian that we didn't understand and then said "small" That was the smallest we had. She shook her head no and off we went without our water. Our translator said this was common, but she argues with them and tells them Money is Money.... no matter what size it is.... our russian language skills are not that good......

Tuesday afternoon was a bit of a mad dash to finish up some paperwork, get checked out of the hotel, and to the airport. With the very able assistance of Anna, our translator, we were able to get through everything and out on our flight to Sahkalin.

Svetlana was soo exicted to see us and we were excited to see her as well.

We heard a little about the plans for the next few days. The boys will be coming here and staying at the same hotel as we are in for several days. We will get to see them significantly more than we had anticipated. Svetlana tells us that Mikhail has grown significantly(what 3 year old doesn't in a 9 month span?) and that Alik is excited to be with his brother now(they are in the same children's home now).

Court is planned for the 20th or 21st, but it is possible that it may get pushed back.

That's the nexxt thing on our prayer list, That it would happen on the 20th/21st and that the Judge would look on everything favorably.

Just a bit of info, Moscow is 9 timezones different than Iowa and Sahkalin is an additional 7.
We're actually closer to home time here than in Moscow, it's just almost a whole day off.

We should have internet access all week so we'll try to keep this up to date.

Thank you for your prayers and Merry Christmas!

The planets have aligned.....

That's what some would say, we would say it is all the hand of God. Where has time gone?! It is already December!

Deer season was good for Jason. He promised Marisa that it was a "If its brown it's down" season because of all that we had going on. Jason harvested a little buck which was great in Marisa's eyes since the meat is better for the freezer (besides nothing is going to pre-empt Fred's place in our home).

Jason got out Goose hunting several times as well. Came home with not one, but two banded geese, the trophies of goose hunting.

Marisa's team at work won the Pumpkin carving contest. A little disturbed is how many people discribed it...... A pumkin sitting on a little wooden chair. Pipe arms and legs with his pants around his ankles. Under the chair, a partially filled pie crust with... pumpkin pie filling. In his arms was a book,"baking for dummies". The pumpkin had a very anguished look carved into it as well.

We got Brutus out for a quick pheasant hunt on some public ground. Didn't see a single pheasant, but Jason, Marisa and Brutus all had a wonderfull time enjoying the beatiful fall weather.


The last two weeks have been a full of progress for our adoption. We have a court date of Dec 20. What does this mean for us? We'll go to Moscow and have our medical exams done first. Then we'll head to Sakalin and hopefully get to see the boys for a few days. Then it is off to court. Our current travel plans have us back on Christmas Eve....we hope that all goes well with all of our connections and that God blesses us (and Rob and Ami coming home Christmas day!) with good weather so we can all keep our flights.

Unfortunately the boys will not be returning with us on this trip. Due to US and Russian holidays, Marisa and her mom will be returning in January to bring the boys home.


We thought we would have some huge hurdles to overcome in getting the last of our documents together for court. In a little over three days, everything was under control and we were well on our way to getting everything done. We're so humbled by all of those who helped us out, and know that it was nothing that we did, but everything that He put in place for us.


Thank you for continuing to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

October = Deer season

Another month has passed by already, fall is fully upon us.
The apple and pear harvest was bountiful again this year at Jason's parents. We've got a freezer full of apple sauce and cupboard full of canned pears.
This weekend is the early muzzleloader season for Iowa and Jason is excited about a new spot that he's got his stand set up in. He and his dad went and checked on it a month or so ago and there was a couple of deer bedded down about 50 yards from the stand, and plenty of sign.
Marisa became the Queen of the smoker after Jason got called to the farm to help with a couple projects. She turned a pork shoulder into some really good pulled pork. 14+ hours, but well worth it.
Since the last post Justin and Nicole had a baby girl.
The adoption is contining to make progress. We've been especially encouraged with the progress over the last week.
We'll let you know more about that when we can.

September already?

Summer has passed us by already and we're into one of our favorite times of year. The weather's cooling down and fall is upon us. We've been busy working on finishing up some canning from our dismal garden. We simply had too much water this summer, but have been blessed by some awesome friends to get some tomatoes done.

On the adoption front, we continue to wait. There have been a few changes that have slowed us down. Hopefully this week things will be in place to begin moving forward again. We're hoping to be home with the boys in the November/December timeframe. It's certainly not the timeframe that we were hoping for but ultimately we know that the timing is in His hands.

One of the changes for us is that we will have to get Russian medical exams done. There is one place that those can happen, which is in Moscow. Flying to Moscow form here will likely be to the East. Then on to Sakalin flying East, and hopefully back home again to the East. I'm not sure if we'll get a day older or younger on that trip, but it will all be worth it.


We had talked about putting in a little paver brick patio in the back of the house. In July we decided that it would be easier to get done prior to the boys being here so we tackled that project. Marisa's parents came for a couple of weekends and provided some valuable help. Pictures or that are to the right. We're currently getting the grass going for some Fall growth.


Hunting season is already upon us. We made one trip up to MN for the Goose opener. Deer season opens mid October for Jason.

Other then that we are constantly organizing and rearranging. Trying to make more room for two little boys and all of their soon to be belongings. Thanks for all the prayers that you have been sending up on our behalf. Until next time, God Bless!

and we wait.....

So many of you have asked what is going on with our adoption. I will try to give you the condensed version.

Over the last three to four weeks our adoption agency has been actively looking for a different adoption agency to take on our case to assist us in finishing out the adoption process. Why would they do that? Well, our agency was the agency that facilitated the adoption in Tennessee where the person sent her child back to Russia, unattended on a plane....Yes, you read that correctly. If you haven't heard the story just type some key words into Google and I'm sure you find it. So, currently our agency's license in Russia is suspended and the rumor mill has it that it will be terminated.

So the best thing for us to do at this time is to move on to another agency. No, we do not have to start the process all over. While we were in Russia, we signed an agreement accepting the referral of our two little boys.

We have selected a new agency we are just waiting for some paperwork to make it official. All of our current paperwork will be routed from the old agency to the new agency.

We have heard that some regions in Russia are still processing adoption cases. Things are moving slowly, but that is better then not at all.

In the meantime.....Marisa has passed another class and has moved onto her summer semester.

Jason continues to be busy with building and painting. He finished up the desk for the boys room. He's currently painting the drawers, a little table and chair (hopefully building a second one) and a small set of drawers.

Twilla (Marisa's mom) has been hard at work and made two wonderful...well that's not adequate, lets try gorgeous quilts. One for each bed. Pix of the room and quilts are below.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and support, it really means a lot to us.

Until next time...

no fast pass

Unlike Disney, there is no fast pass for the adoption process. We continue to wait and gather more documentation. Last week was spent with adoption related doctor's appointments for Marisa. You all will be happy to know that she does not have tuberculosious (required test in for our process). We found out that we have to have a psych eval, so Jason spent his week tyring to track down a psychologist that would do the eval and not charge us an arm and a leg.

So we contintinue to wait. It reminds me of Isaiah 40:31 "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint"

A huge thanks to all of you out there that are praying for us! We appreciate it!

And finally we have managed to load some of our Russia pictures (over on the right). Again for the privacy of the kids we will not be sharing any pictures of them.

We're back!

We made it back home with no problem. We have learned that the people of Asiana Airlines know how to take care of their customers. We had good flights. Managed to catch some sleep while on the flight home. We are back, we are back at work...of course we get Good Friday off. So we only actually worked two days this week.

So some of you are probably wondering what now? Now we wait. The Department of Education in Russia needs to process paperwork for the boys, we need to prep some paperwork for us. We are not sure yet when we will be going back. We hope that it is sometime this summer but we do not have a good indicator of when it will be.

Their room is mostly ready. We ordered mattresses. Tomorrow is shopping day....or at least the first of many I'm sure. Tomorrow is some basics, sheets, blankets, maybe a beanbag....whatever mom and I can find while out shopping.

We'll try to get some random Russia scenery pictures posted in the next week or so.

We'll keep you posted as things progress.

Trip 1, Day 7...back to civilization

As our host likes to say, we are back in civilization! So where to start....I guess with the train. The train car we were in could best be described as vintage. I came back from the rest room and Jason asked what it was like. I laughingly informed him it was no worse the the bathroom on the boat we went fishing on in Alaska. We made up our bunks (we had a compartment to ourselves) and tried to catch some sleep. 12 hours later we arrived on the north end of the island. We had to get permission from the department of education to visit the older boy and then we were off to see him.

It was an interesting trek out to the Children's home. I know some of you won't understand this, but it was Dog Lake Road except in Russia. I think we had the privelege of riding with "Brian" or at least that how fast it seemed he was going. For those of you who have not had the privelege of traveling down Dog Lake Road. There is a sign near the end that says something like you will never find anything this beautiful at the end of a paved road. In this case it was true as well. We found a beautiful little boy at the end of a very bumpy, snowy road. We were able see and play with the him three times. Each time we felt a stronger connection with him. We played cars, puzzles, coloring and spent some time playing in the snow. We left him some picture of us and our home (and of course Brutus and Linus). He carried the pictures with him everywhere. There was several times when he would stop what he was doing and study them. We had video of his brother on the camera and we showed that to him as well.

It was hard to say good-bye and even tougher to explain to him why we had to go. We had a map on the front of the picture book that included Sakhalin and Iowa. We told him when we came back he would get to ride on the train and on three airplanes to get to Iowa. He said "where is the airplane." We got the impression he did not want to wait. We got two big hugs and then he was off to eat lunch with his group.

For the most part we have been able to buy what we need at a supermarket (chocolate, cheese, bread, chocolate, meat, diet coke, chocolate) without any problems. When we headed north we condensed our stuff from 2 carry-ons and two suitcases to one carry-on and the one smaller suitcase. As you can imagine some stuff got left behind in storage at the hotel. Well one of those things was lotion. My legs started to itch something fierce so off to the supermarket we went. We stood and stared at the lotions, shampoos, and face stuff for a while. Finally, we found a bottle that said in English "Body lotion". Victory! We got our lotion (and chocolate) and we were off. I knew that it was probably not medicated and I would need to apply it a couple of times. So I put some on and a couple hours later put some more on and then again before I went to sleep. The next morning I noticed that the bottom half of my leg looked funny. We had bought tanning lotion!!! Our hands have a nice orange tint and my calves have never been tanner!

We'll spend a few hours in the hotel and then this afternoon there is a carnival up on the mountain that we'll go to. Tommorrow is paper signing day and then we'll head to the airport to head back to Iowa.
More to come.

Trip 1, Day 3

We got to see the younger boy again today. It was great. He loves to stack things. The Russian nesting dolls are right up his alley. Whether it is taking circles off a post and putting them back, or stacking dolls inside of each other, he loved it. Little cars, not so much. He would repeat words after us and likes to put the stacking blocks in Jason's shirt pocket.

Unfortunately we had to say good-bye though. I am sure at his young age he does not understand that we are going away to see his brother and will eventually return. It was very difficult for us to walk away but "thems the rules".

Tonight we get on a train and head north where we will be able to see the older boy. We are excited to continue on our adventure. We are unsure if we will have internet or not so it might be a few days before we have the opportunity to post again.

Know that prayers are being answered as our trip has gone very smoothly and we feel God's guidance every step of the way.

Trip1 and lets call it day 2

We got to see the younger boy today. It was amazing! A little sur real but amazing. Of course we are scary, giant, unknown people so we freaked him out a little in the beginning but that was too be expected. They brought him into a room that he does not usually go into, so that didn't help matters. There was, however, toys and that did help the situation. We got to play with him, hold him on our laps and interact with him. Jason even taught him how to "give 5". The care givers at the home have nothing but positive comments and he is a delightful little boy.

We have asked for prayer requests, but I like to remember that we should be thankful and praise God for all that He has done for us. There are so many but here is a short list.
Things to be thankful for:

• Answered prayer - someone (the short one) prayed that God would speedy up the process...guess that landed us in Russia sooner then we anticipated.
• Our driver - We are so thankful for our driver. He gets us to and from all of our appointments. And let me say, I do not think that if Jason or I were driving we would be getting anywhere. Some of the cars have the steering wheel on the left and some on the right. It is all very confusing to us.
• Our host - She is very willing to help and support us and answers all of our crazy questions
• Prayer warriors - Those who are always waiting and willing to pray when that "red phone" rings
• And of course, two little boys in Russia

Until next time....

Trip 1, Day ????

We left Des Moines on a Saturday, and got here (Russia) on a Monday. So does that make this day three or day one of the trip? We're not sure. We slept some on the plane but we are tired and trying to adjust to the slight change in time zone.

We made it here safe and sound. Our contact met us right outside of customs and took us to the hotel and gave us a quick tour.

A couple shout outs to a few people:

• Kudos to the Seoul airport for having a nice travel lounge. Nice place to sit, watch tv and shower rooms (now only if we would have packed towels).
• Kudos to Aaron for all the travel words of wisdom and last minute info
• Kudos to Hank for the tip on using wet wipes when you don't have access to a shower and still need to smell well not like an airplane
• And last but not least....could someone ask the rocket scientist why you have to have the shades up on the plane when you take off and land...

To be continued....

The camoflage comes off...

We figured it was time to reveal our secret. So for those of you that have not heard the big news...

We are in the process of adopting two boys from Russia. We got an invitation to travel to Russia on February 24th which was quicker then we anticipated. The wait time was estimated to be 1 to 14 months and ours was definitely on the lower end of that. We have received one picture of each boy and some medical information. We have decided to accept the invitation to travel and will be heading to Russia soon to meet the boys. We are very excited about our up coming trip.

We will try to keep the blog updated while we are traveling. We now that we will get to spend some time with the younger boy and then travel to meet the older boy at another children's home. Please, do not ask us to post/share photos of the boys. There are privacy laws to protect the children and we will be abiding by them in order to protect these precious children.

Jason has been busy trying to finish up the bunk beds that he began this winter. They are nearing completion with only the ladder left. There is a desk that goes at the end that will come after some of the other details are finished up.

Marisa has been keeping busy with her business accounting class and work. Steve and Twilla came for a visit in early March and were immediately put to working painting beds, the boys room and Twilla helped Marisa hang border. A picture of the room is below.


Now we are off for the adventure of a lifetime....

Sunny Palm Springs...

Ok so it wasn't sunny every day all day but anything beats ice, snow and sub zero temperatures! Last time we were in Palm Springs it froze and it hadn't done that in 30 years! We have quickly learned that these Desert Cities are NOT equipped to handle a little rain. We had about 2 inches over the course of a day or so and the streets start to shut down. It seems that interesting weather always follows us to Palm Springs. Locals have asked that we notify them next time we come so they can prep.

You can see pics of one of the washes near Steve and Twilla's condo. It runs through the golf course and through town quite a ways. It fills with water and sand and then floods the road. There is a video or two below if you want to actually see it running.

So far we have swam, gone to Mexico (Rx and dentist), sat in the hot tub, walked, biked, studied, gone to the street fair (COD), played cards, slept (for those of you that have forgotten - sleep is amazing) and Jason's aunt and uncle were able to come out and spend the day with us. We don't get to see them often and it was great that they made the trek from LA to Palm Springs.

So tomorrow, I guess we have to leave this beautiful desert valley, surrounded by the snow covered mountains and head back to the cold, barren tundra of Iowa. We need to pick up our boys who spent the week on the farm. Hopefully the cat survived and didn't use up too many of its nine lives trying to escape the over zealous tongues of the terrible three. Then it is back to long work days and school work.

update of pictures

Jason is learning how to update the blog. The pictures from the McIlravy Christmas have been added.