Posting from: MarKuel Hotel, Khabarovsk, Russia
Local time: 3:28 pm Wednesday August 30, 2006
Weather: Clear and pleasant
We had two lovely hours with the children this morning. Andy greeted us with a very carefully enunciated "Good Afternoon". They think that having Papa toss them in the air is the best thing ever; Papa is sacked out on the couch now.
Court is at 11:30 tomorrow, an hour and a half later than my guesstimate for the countdown clock. We expect it to last until 12:30. We learned that this is the first international adoption from this orphanage ever. The assistant director will be testifying at court for us. Having court right before lunch is good, as everyone will want to work efficiently. Though the judge will make his decision tomorrow, it does not become binding until the 11th day.
Irena spent some time with us after the visit, going over what court typically entails. We got many of our questions answered and feel much better about it all.
We are happy to be here, and enjoying the rest, but I am already homesick. I am a home-body and it is hard to be away from our furbabies. We just want to pick up the children and come home. I suppose this is one more lesson in patience.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to simultaneously type, weep, place phone calls, and dance gleefully around the house? Yes, well, there is cause:
Thursday August 31[Listening to: Calling From Heaven - Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver - Thank God (2:43)]
Our pretrial appointment at court in Russia was August first and it is now 6:28 p.m. in Khabarovsk, so our pretrial has happened. Our facilitator in Russia was -- we assume -- present and knows what came of it.
We had hoped (expected, counted on) that she would call our agency in Alaska (where it is 11:28 p.m. right now) and tell her and that our agency in Alaska would send us email telling us.
This has not happened. Why not? Oh this is crazy making stuff.
I should mention that there are three familes with pretrials on August first.
So, did the judge reschedule all of us? some of us?
See all those fireworks out there? They are in celebration that we have been filed. They are actually FileWorks, but we have that "l" "r" pronunciation problem -- must have picked that up from my Korean students. Okay, yes, I am silly - giddy even.
What does being filed mean? That the court has all our documents, and all the children's documents, and that we are now eligible to receive a court date. It is theoretically possible that we could be asked to travel at any time. Unlikely, but possible.
The judge had 60 days from whenever we were filed, presumably last week (let's say the 28th of June) in which to either ask for new paperwork or set a court date. She could, on the 27th of August, set the date for ages and ages hence, but it is more likely that she will set the date for around the 60 day mark. Yes, this puts it near my birthday -- that would be quite a birthday present!
So, I'll get those bags packed and gather up another round of paperwork.
Two bits of news:
Our dossier and the children's dossiers will be filed with court during the last week of June. Our judge has 60 days from filing to either request more paperwork or to schedule our court date. This would put us, at the latest, in court the last week of August.
Two families with our agency had smooth and successful court hearings yesterday; no new paperwork was requested. These two families are the first ones for our agency this year, so their experience sets some expectations for us.
Have a lovely evening,
Suzanne
(!!)
