Russia Adoption 2011

A Christmas Miracle!!

2011-12-24T20:56:00.001Z

Ok, we can now let the cat out of the bag! Sorry for the deception dear blog reader but I am overjoyed to announce that I am currently writing this post from the comfort of my own bedroom in Ballywalter! God Bless us, everyone!*

We submitted the visa application docs to the British Embassy on Wednesday as previously reported but I also made sure that I met one of the embassy staff that I had been in email contact with to plead our case for a quick decision. Visas can take up to 15 days to process, our agency told us the average wait is 4 days, we got ours at 9am the next morning! BIG answer to many prayers.

We then hatched a devious plan to tell no one, sneak home and surprise our family's... In the immortal words of Hannibal Smith "I love it when a plan comes together"! Operation Christmas miracle worked a treat and we were able to surprise everyone, Gary in particular was an emotional wreck!

Can't quite believe its Christmas eve and we are home, in our own beds with Leah and Will already asleep next door.

God is truly good, how thankful we are for answered prayer.

Amen.

Have a good Christmas everyone, I know we will!

Philip, Amanda, leah & Will

* (c) Charles Dickens

Snoozing on the plane.

The 'miracle' visa.

Domoedovo Airport 3.30am UK time

'Hello Granny'

Mission accomplished!

Nothing to report.

2011-12-23T17:22:00.004Z

Its been four days now getting to know Will and it has been wonderful seeing his little personality emerge, I can confirm he will be no shrinking violet!

Some of the things we have learned about Will already,

He DOES NOT like being hungry, this is unfortunate as he is almost always hungry.
He has very low reserves of patience.
When he knows when hes not allowed to do something he tries to catch our eye and then makes sure he does it again.
He has a wonderful sense of fun, full of smiles and giggles.
He is very sweet and is constantly offering hugs and cuddles.
He loves attention, although he is surprisingly sturdy and quick on his feet he will not pass up any opportunity to be carried around.
He DOES NOT like to be hungry.

Now I understand that the first three things in particular are very un-Davidson like but I'm sure he will come around eventually!

Its not something we planned being out here over Christmas but I think we will look back on these moments as being very precious.

Few more pics now including the obese snowman of which i'm very proud!

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will

Just been playing in the snow 'glow'!

Next years Christmas card sorted!

Better option for next years card?

Leah is immune to the cold.

Our Obese snowman

Will in his Jammies

'Come to your big sister'

One last hurdle...

2011-12-21T20:24:00.001Z

Another early start this morning, sitting in traffic and gathering paperwork. Finally made our way to the British Embassy to submit our application for Wills visa.

All we can do now is wait and pray for a speedy response. Our agency originally told us to book our return flights for the 29th but we are hopeful for a little quicker than that, 26th or 27th would be great!

It's quite a relief actually that there is nothing more now that we can do, we intend to just enjoy these next few days together getting used to life as a family of four!

Will was a little unsettled last night which was only to be expected but he is coping incredibly well with what is a total change to everything he has ever known before. He's been asleep for almost 4 hours now though and has been eating really well all day, in fact he's already got a Davidson's attitude to being hungry, he doesn't like it!!

He really loves attention and is really easy to entertain, he also makes sure he keeps Amanda in sight at all times!

Also, I'm delighted to report that snow has arrived, Leah is over the moon and we played in the little park across from the apartment until we could now longer feel our fingers! After explaining to Leah that we couldn't play in the snow at nighttime we compromised by agreeing to return first thing in the morning to build a snowman!

Few more pics now and I'll be back once we have anything else to report!

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will.

Snow has arrived!

Personalized blanket courtesy of J. Fulton!

The camera is adding a few pounds here, really!

"Wanna half-sucked rice cake?!"

Leah's very happy!

Wills Liberation Day!

2011-12-20T17:25:00.000Z

What a day! 8 exhausting hours in the car altogether! Started out at 8.30 AM visiting the vital statistics office to collect adoption order and new birth certificate then met the social worker to get an authorization order to release Will from the care of the baby home, passport office to get his Russian passport and then finally a 4 hour round trip to the Vidnoya Baby Home to get our son once and for all!!

Will has coped with the day unbelievably well, a real answer to prayer. He has been happy and content all day, eaten his lunch and then napped for a couple of hours in Amanda's arms. Now back at the apartment he has eaten a big bowl of pasta and cheese, played for a bit and is now down in his cot. 5 or 10mins of crying with Amanda going in and out quickly but he is now pretty quiet!! So far......

To be fair Leah set the bar pretty low in the 'first night with our new child' stakes, if we manage to get through the night without Will being rushed to casualty at 3AM with a temp of 105degrees then we will have topped Leahs first night!!

It was lovely seeing Leah and Will meet for the first time, he already finds her very entertaining and she is taking her big sister responsibilities pretty seriously!

British Embassy tomorrow to submit Wills visa application documents and then the waiting will begin.....

Just a few pics and not the best quality but I'll post better ones tomorrow.

Praise the Lord for answered prayer thus far! Thanks to all who have been praying, keep it up.

Philip, Amanda, Leah and Will!

Check out the T-Shirt!

One last visit to the rings.

'What do you mean you've no idea how much further?!'

Back in the apartment.

Leah stealing his chew rings to make Jewelry!

Moscow again

2011-12-19T21:16:00.001Z

Just arrived in unseasonably warm and distinctly un-snowy Moscow, just hope for Leah's sake we get a bit of a snow storm before we leave! Apartment is really nice, much bigger than our last one, plenty of room for Leah and Will to charge around.

The third trip has finally arrived and we are getting very excited indeed about picking up Will once and for all tomorrow, It's great to have leah out with us this time and to say she is excited is a gross understatement!

Life is going to change forever tomorrow!

Continue to pray for our trip to the British embassy on Wednesday that all will go well with our visa application and that we will get home as quickly as possible.

I promise there will be some big sister and little brother pics tomorrow!

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will.

It's a boy!

2011-12-07T14:50:00.001Z

Phew, finally!!

Submitted the new document in court today and after taking a few minutes to explain the definition of Freehold as understood by UK law the judge finally accepted our application and we were free to proceed with the rest of the hearing. Ten minutes later after a few words from the prosecutor and then the Vidnoya social worker the judge retired to consider her ruling. Twenty minutes later she came back and announced that the adoption order had been granted and we would now be registered as the parents of, William Charles Vasili Davidson!

Thanks for all who were praying so hard for us we really appreciated it, we are thankful again to the God who hears and answers prayer!

Home tomorrow and then back out on the 19th with Leah to finally bring him home. It will be a tight thing to get his visa issued before the Christmas holidays but surely we are due an easy and straightforward trip after the trial and tribulations of our first two trips?! We will see....

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will.

Outside Court.

So close...

2011-12-06T13:21:00.001Z

*Deep calming breaths*

It was all going so well, Amanda and I had given our little speeches, all the docs looked to be in order, answered a few simple questions from the prosecutor about Leah and just at the final hurdle the judge asked for proof that we owned the land our house is built on. We pointed out our letter from our bank confirming that we owned the property at our address, etc but apparently this is not good enough, she wanted a letter confirming we owned the land also!

To be admissible in a Russian court every document must be notarized and legalized so it was not an option to simply have a document emailed from home, aarrgghh!!

Thankfully we brought an additional letter from our bank which again confirms we are the property owner and also that the title on the property is freehold. The definition of Freehold in UK law means that we own both the house AND the land.

So. We are having this letter translated and notarized today, along with some notes on the definition of freehold under UK law and we are heading back to the court tomorrow at 2.30pm to resume the hearing and we trust and pray that the court will be satisfied with this clarification.

We were due to fly back home tomorrow afternoon so after leaving the court today we had to embark on a 5 hour round trip within Moscow to get to a BMI office and change our flight times. There are MASSIVE pro Putin and anti Putin demonstrations all round Moscow today after last nights elections so the traffic which is normally merely horrific is now something approaching a crime against humanity!

After some light gouging by the BMI cashier we are now back in our apartment and reflecting on the last few hours. we expected a pleasant 45mins in court followed by a trip out to see Will officially as his parents. Didn't quite work out that way but we still believe that everything is in Gods hands and we trust that our court visit tomorrow will go according to plan.

We then leave our apartment at 4AM on Thursday morning and should arrive in Belfast some time that afternoon. As always, only predictable thing about inter-country adoption is its unpredictability!!

*More deep calming breaths*

Philip & Amanda

Court Tomorrow...

2011-12-05T17:02:00.001Z

Our day (45mins) in court has finally arrived! Getting collected nice and early in the morning to allow a little prep time with our interpreter before our hearing at 10.30.

We have to introduce ourselves, give a little family background and our reasons for coming to Moscow, etc and the whole process should be wrapped up within 45mins. The adoption court process is generally pretty informal but it will be nice to get it all done and dusted!

After court we should have enough time to visit Will, this time we will officially be his parents!!

Pray that all will go well.

Philip & Amanda

Outfits not getting any better!

Will eating = Will happy!

Snowing in NI, bright and sunny in Moscow?!?

Second day

2011-12-03T20:33:00.001Z

Another nice visit with Will today, he was in great form! Nice though Moscow is though we are counting down the days till we collect his visa from the British Embassy and get home, can't wait till we all get back to sunny Northern Ireland for good!

Other notable highlights of the day include,

Going out for my birthday dinner in McDonalds.

Amanda having her phone stolen.

Walking around Red Square, photos don't begin to do it justice!

Only 3 days now until court!

Philip & Amanda

Last person seen with AJ's phone before it was stolen!! hmmmm...

Latest Crime against fashion!!

Red Square

GUM shopping centre

Meeting Will again.

2011-12-02T15:41:00.001Z

Forgot just how bad the traffic was here, our 15mile journey took an hour but we eventually made it out to the baby house to see Will again, first time in 2 months!

He's noticeably bigger since we were last out also, words cannot adequately convey just how curly his hair is, it's a big curly bush!! He has also just started to walk in the last week or so, he's very impressed with himself and waits for a fuss when he manages to walk a few steps, carers also say that he has really come on since we were last there, 'a very clever boy' was the exact quote!

Also got a little encouraging news about the passports, new rules apply to 'Moscow' adoptions however we are adopting from 'Moscow Region' which in reality is only about 5miles outside the city but seemingly that is far enough away to mean that the new rule does not apply. The fine print worked in our favour this time!

Anyway, unto a few more pics, i know why you're really here!!

Philip & Amanda

Will and Mummy

Look how clever I am!

Still loves Leah's keys

The Bush!!

Round Two...

2011-12-02T07:32:00.001Z

Made it to Moscow, no snow and unseasonably warm... very disappointing!

The city looks beautiful though, massive Christmas trees everywhere and the buildings and bridges are decorated with MILLIONS of lights.

Apartment is nice, much closer to the centre and only a 15 walk from Red Square. There is a 24hr supermarket right across the street, the building is ridiculously grand and magnificent and in any other city would house an art gallery or museum but in Moscow it's only good enough sell groceries!

Getting picked up soon for our visit to see Will again, cant wait! We will also have a chat with our agency to see it there is anything to speed up our next visit, we will keep you posted.

Philip & Amanda

Moscow tomorrow!

2011-12-01T00:47:00.001Z

Time has finally come for our second trip and we head out early tomorrow morning. Leaving Belfast and a balmy 10 degrees we arrive via London 8 hours later to snow, traffic jams and a couple of degrees above freezing if we're lucky! Really looking forward to seeing Will again though, its been a long 8 weeks!!

However it wouldn't be an adoption without unforeseen problems cropping up just when things seem to be running smoothly, we just found out yesterday that Russia have changed the rules slightly regarding issuing passports. Until very recently our agency in Moscow could apply for Wills passport in our absence and it would be waiting for us when we arrived for our third trip. This has now changed and we have to be there in person to apply for the passport and it will take a further 5 days to be processed. This means that if we arrive on the 20th, after the appeal period has expired as planned, then it will be the 25th December before the passport is issued, if you are keeping up then you will have already realised that is in fact Christmas day and the staff in Stormont will be eating turkey, pulling crackers and will not return to the office to process our entry clearance until the 3rd January at the earliest, just to make it even better our visa's expire on the 29th December.

We will try to get more info from our agency directly over the next few days but it looks like our potential options are as follows,

1. The judge, in an admittedly uncharacteristic move appreciates the extenuating circumstances decides to waive or reduce the appeal period thus allowing us to return much earlier and get all the paperwork sorted out before the holiday period.

2. We return home as planned, scrap our existing visas and apply for new visas which extend into January then fly out last week of December and return first week of January.

Option one would be fantastic though in reality highly unlikely.

Pray that we will get some positive and a clear direction in the next few days. A Christmas miracle would be nice!!

Brace yourselves for a few more pics of Will in the coming days....

Philip & Amanda

Court Date

2011-11-17T21:09:00.001Z

Good news, we have our court date, 6th December 2011! We need to be back in Russia on the 1st to complete the required number of visiting days, court on the 6th then home on the 7th.

Spent the last week or so getting flights booked, accommodation sorted, new documents for court and visa's applied for. Most things sorted now, just waiting for our visa's to come back and unfortunately we also need to redo some docs for court as a batch we send out to Russia over two weeks ago seem to have been lost!

Just counting down the days now until we can get back to see Will, then home for 2 weeks and back with Leah for the third trip around the 20th December. Looks like we are guaranteed a white Christmas this year!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Home.

2011-10-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

Back a couple of days now and mixed emotions to say the least, on one hand it's great to be back as we really missed Leah, especially strange for Amanda who spends so much time with her to suddenly be away from her for so long. At the same time though it feels very surreal to have spent so much time and energy and effort in finally getting to the stage where we could meet Will to suddenly leave him again only 3 days later.

Still, we have been told the time will pass quickly, hope so.... only 7 and a half weeks until we travel out again for court!

Pray that he will be preserved in our absence and that the rest of the trips will go as scheduled. Still a reasonable chance of being back home for good last few days of December!

Anyway, enough chat unto a few pics...

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will

Finally...

Not hard to make him smile!

As you can see!

Was fascinated by leaves when we went out at first.

Loved playing with the rings.

His 'happy' place, being carried around by mummy and daddy!

Final visit for a while

2011-10-08T17:42:00.003+01:00

Nice long visit with Will today, he was tired but still in great form. It was scorcher again in Moscow so he was allowed another little taste of freedom to whet his appetite for his eventual liberation in a few months time!

A different doctor on today but like yesterday she told us that it was wonderful that he was going to have a home as he was a child that needed lots of attention, that was obvious again today, whenever we tried to put him down he moaned and fussed until he was picked up and then suddenly he was happy chappy again.

We brought a few little jumpers and t-shirts from home to try on, safe to say that he doesn't appreciate getting dressed, he shouted the place down until we had finished then went back to playing as if nothing had happened.

We also had a wee party for him today, its his birthday next week so we brought him a card and a few small presents, the orphanage celebrates every child's birthday which is very nice, just going to be strange for us now that we have met him that we are going to miss his first birthday.

As chaotic and hassle filled as this trip was its still going to be very sad to leave tomorrow, hopefully the next two months will pass quickly.

Continue to pray that Will will be preserved in our absence and that the next few stages of the process will run smoothly.

5.30am start tomorrow, yuk!

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will

Stairmaster added to the Baby Gym!

Walking in the home grounds with Will

Will looking at himself on Amanda's phone

Will & Buddies room

Will's birthday card and presents

Fridays Visit

2011-10-07T21:03:00.000+01:00

Went to court first thing this morning to submit our adoption documents and apply for a hearing date, all went well and we should get a date for our court appearance in the next week or so, there are two judges who sit on adoption hearings, one who is very formal and insists on reading aloud every word of every document and one who keeps things nice and informal and gets one with things nice and quickly, thankfully we have been placed with the latter!

After this it was on to the baby house, only 20 or so miles away but with the horrific Moscow traffic it takes at least an hour to drive there, the journey home took almost 2 hours! I have been in many busy cities across the world but there is NOWHERE like Moscow for traffic jams, roughly 20million people living and driving in a city built for a fraction of that number, yikes!!!

The visit went brilliantly again today, it was pretty warm outside so they let us take Will out for a wee walk around the park, there aren't enough staff to spare anyone to take the children outside normally so it was quite the adventure for him, first 5 minutes or so all he could do was look around in amazement, he was particularly fascinated by the leaves, there are lot of trees in the park and the ground was covered in fallen leaves, as we walked we kicked them up in the air with our feet, he couldn't take his eyes off them.

When we first started out we tried to put him in a buggy but he was having none of it, moaned and groaned until we picked him up then he was happy, for a child raised in an orphanage he is very used to being picked up and carried around, which is not normally the case, when we mentioned this to one of the doctors she told us he was one of the favorites among the carers and loves attention, when they walk past him he tries to grab a hold of their coats on the way past and get picked up, don't think he will struggle for attention when we get home!

One more visit tomorrow then home early on Sunday morning, next two months are going to pass pretty slooowly...

Philip, Amanda, Leah & Will.

Court Building

Room for Adoption Hearings

First pic of Amanda and Will................ sorry

Mosow Traffic at 9pm.... when things are much quieter.

Finally....

2011-10-06T17:41:00.001+01:00

After all the frustrations and delays of the last week today could not have gone any better, many prayers answered!

Started early with a visit to the notary for an hours worth of document signing, then unto the ministry for our formal referral offer. After the last of the formalities were over then it was off to the baby home.

One hour later, almost out into the countryside we arrived at the home, met with his doctors and then finally we were ushered into a little room and a few minutes later Will arrived. He is fantastic, amazingly happy, smiley baby very active and incredibly curious about us and all the little toys and rattles that kept coming out of our bag.

Hes almost 12 months old, brown eyes and unbelievably curly blonde hair. He is crawling and pulling himself up he looks like he's not far off walking, it also goes without saying that he is the cutest boy in all of Russia!

Our visit with him lasted for an hour and after a few moments of natural, 'who on earth are you people and what strange language are you speaking' he really warmed to us, he is obviously used to being played with and carried, the doctor told us he is one of the favorites among the carers!

You are going to have to be patient for a few more days to see some pics as we want to get home and show all our pics and videos to Leah first, after that i'll put a few on the blog.

Such a relief to have finally met him and for the visit to have gone so well, God is good!

Philip, Amanda, Leah and Will!

PS: Oops, just realized I accidentally posted the title before I finished writing the blog, i'm not that cruel!!

Outside the Baby Home

Very fit babies in Russia!!

Grounds of the baby home

Tomorrow is the day!

2011-10-05T21:21:00.001+01:00

Looks like we are good to go, after 7 whole days in Moscow doing very little we are finally getting on with things, we have an appointment 12pm tomorrow afternoon with the ministry officials then shortly after that it unto the baby house to meet Will!

With Leah we were told not to post any pictures to our blog until we had been through court, not sure what the rules are for Russia but I'll find out, start praying if you want to see pics of Will tomorrow!! ;)

Tired of walking so we ventured into the heart of Moscow today on the Metro, our basic plan of tapping strangers on the shoulder and pointing to our metro map and grunting in a Russian accent seemed to work pretty well and we only got on the wrong train once during the whole day which wasn't bad considering the total journey from our hotel and back again meant that we had to take 6 underground trains in total!

Few pics of our adventures below, till tomorrow...

Philip and Amanda

Quick visa update, its good news!

2011-10-04T11:50:00.001+01:00

Just got an email from Masha to say that they have been able to get our visa sorted, just need a quick visit to a notary on Thursday and we should be good to go.

Thanks for all the texts and messages and to all who have been praying, it's really appreciated by Amanda and I.

Keep praying that we will have no further complications and that our sanity holds out and we can finally meet Will on Thursday!!

Philip and Amanda

More delays...

2011-10-03T18:49:00.003+01:00

Just got another email from Masha our coordinator. It seems the ministry official we were due to meet tomorrow has been called away on urgent business and now won't be available for our meeting until Thursday the 6th.

I've been able to change our flights and delay our return to Sunday however our visa expires on Thursday.

Masha is going to try to find out for us if we can extend our visa while we are here though when I search online this doesn't seem to be an easy thing to do.

Pray that Masha is able to sort this out for us and that we are indeed allowed to stay in the country an extra few days and that we will, eventually, meet our son...

Patience, patience...

2011-10-03T14:51:00.001+01:00

I really wish I was writing about how wonderful it was to finally meet our son today, instead I'm writing to tell you about yet more frustrating delays!!

Masha phoned us this morning to let us know that as our meeting with the ministry was at 5pm on Friday afternoon there had been no time to get our documents across to the right department that day and that the documents only arrived this morning meaning that it would be Tuesday before we could have our meeting!

It means that the earliest we can see him now is Tuesday afternoon, we also have a very busy day on Wednesday with notary visits, formal application at court, etc, meaning a short visit on Wednesday as well then home early on Thursday morning.

Seeing our son for only a couple of hours was not what we expected this trip however we know that Gods hand is in control and that His timing is perfect! Court mandates that we must have at least 8 visits before our hearing so this means that rather than a flying second visit we must be here a full week before court, visiting him every day before we are eligible to have our hearing. This time will be much more important for him and us than an extra few days now when it will be almost 2 months before we see him again, still disappointing though....

With nothing else to do today we ventured into Moscow for a wee walk around the shops, in summary, Moscow is veeerry expensive...

Hope for better news to report tomorrow!

Philip and Amanda.

Block of flats near our Hotel, build on stilts during the Soviet era, just to see if it would work!!

Nice sunny day in Moscow, sanity levels receding!!

Christ the Redeemer Cathedral, the artwork inside is breathtaking!

Ministry meeting tomorrow?

2011-10-02T18:13:00.001+01:00

Ok, after what seems like weeks in Moscow the big day is nearly here! We must wait until tomorrow morning to hear if the ministry will schedule a meeting with us that day in order to formally give us permission to start the adoption process and finally meet our son. There is a possibility that the meeting won't take place until Tuesday but we pray that won't happen and we can actually get to the real reason for being here!

Medicals went well on Friday, after a hearty breakfast of juice, porridge, bread, sausage, eggs, cheese, fruit, boiled potatoes, fried chicken and a wee cake we were ready to head out. (Amanda may not have had as hearty breakfast as I did!) The building itself was very plush, plenty of marble, paintings, wood panelling, etc, back in Soviet times it was a private hospital for high ranking government officials and their families. Some are indeed more equal than others!

Over the course of the day we were x-rayed, had blood taken and were generally prodded and examined by amongst others a,

Dermatologist
Pulminologist
Narcilogist
Oncologist
Physiologist
Immunologist

and also two other 'ologists that I can't quite remember now.

At the end of the day we got the all important piece of paper which we need for court and the only thing which came out of the whole experience in less than perfect health was my wallet!

We find out in the morning if our meeting will go ahead tomorrow, pray that all goes well.

Update tomorrow!

Philip & Amanda

Medical Clinic

St Basils Cathedral in Red Square

Amanda and Katya (our translator)

Stage one complete.

2011-09-29T16:48:00.000+01:00

Nice leisurely start this morning after our travels last night, surprisingly familiar breakfast in the hotel restaurant, though can't remember the last time I had roast pork and sprouts with my sausages and eggs in the morning! After breakfast we ventured out for a walk to explore the area and get a few supplies. Finally 4pm came round and we were able to head out for our meeting with the ministry officials so that we could formally begin the adoption process. We met in a very 'Soviet' building and handed over a huge quantity of paperwork, answered a few questions through our interpreter and thankfully everything seemed to go very smoothly.

Tomorrow we are heading out to a local clinic to have our medicals, these are a requirement for court. Over the course of the whole day we see 8 different doctors and have blood samples and X-rays taken. We have been warned to expect a long, boring day.

Weekend we have nothing to do and will hopefully head out to a few of the tourist spots around Moscow, Red Square, Kremlin, etc.

Finally on Monday we will have our follow-up meeting with the ministry official and then at last we get to the real reason we have come all this way, seeing our son for the first time!

Thanks to all who have been praying thus far, keep praying that the rest of the trip will progress well.

Philip & Amanda

Made it to Moscow...

2011-09-28T17:58:00.001+01:00

It's 3.02am and we have just arrived at the Hotel Bega! Drove past the Kremlin on the way, any lingering doubts that we were really in Moscow kinda vanished then!!

Will post more tomorrow, just wanted to let everyone know we've arrived safely. Feels very surreal at the moment, lots of memories of our time in Kazakhstan flooding back!

We are meeting the ministry officials tomorrow at 4pm, pray all goes well.

Philip & Amanda.

Part of the Kremlin

Our Hotel

On our way to Russia, yes really!

2011-09-22T00:27:00.000+01:00

Ok, that was a little quicker than expected!

Got a phone call on Monday night from our agency in Russia telling us that they had a referral for us in Moscow and could we make it out next Wednesday. Once the initial shock wore off we very quickly agreed and have spent the last couple of days frantically trying to get visa's, flights and hotel accommodation, etc organised. Few issues with our visas but I think everything should sorted out now.

Leah is incredibly excited, firstly because we are going out to Russia to start the process of bringing home her new wee brother and also the fact that she will spending the 8 days we are away staying with both sets of Grandparents, Brooke and Molly's house and Charlie and Olivia's house and being spoiled rotten!

So... heading out to Moscow on Wednesday to meet our son for the first time, we'll keep you posted!!

Keep praying!

Philip, Amanda and Leah

Documents in Russia... Patiently waiting...

2011-09-15T22:31:00.000+01:00

A few minor delays, a few redone documents, few last minute changes, standard adoption procedure really but all our documents are now finally in Russia, nothing more for us to do other than wait and pray!

Our agency has told us to expect a 1 to 3 month wait for a referral and once we get details of a child we should travel out roughly a week later. Three trips this time and it could be up to 3 months between travelling out and meeting him for the first time and the third trip when Leah, Amanda and I travel out to bring him home! Very surreal to think that we will meet our son for the first time soon...

Meanwhile, since our last post Leah has started school and loves it so far, it really helps that she knows so many of her class already from our Sunday School and last years playgroup.

I'll finish this edition with a few pics of Leah in uniform.

Next post will be confirming when we are travelling out for the first time, hopefully we will be posting soon!!

Philip, Amanda and Leah

Leah's first day.

In the park after a stressful first day!

Leah's Ballet Pose.

Documents nearly in Russia!!

2011-08-23T23:17:00.003+01:00

Since our last post we have finally got our full adoption dossier completed and notarized in Belfast, then sent off to the FCO office in England to be legalized, then back from the FCO 2 days later with word that 8 of our docs couldn't be legalized, then spent a few days tracking down replacement documents, then back to the notary in Belfast, back to the FCO, back to us and then finally out to our agency in America, phew!!

Our agency will spend a couple of days reviewing our dossier before sending it out to Russia. After their workers in Russia have checked it over we have been told to expect a referral in one to three months, back to patiently waiting....

Keep you posted on any fresh developments!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Its been a while...

2011-08-10T22:21:00.005+01:00

Can't believe its been almost two years since our last blog post!!

Leah is now 4 and starts P1 in only a few weeks, she is doing fantastically well and is just a delight, she has the lovely combination of being a 'girly' girl, into her princess dress's, sparkly shoes, bling, dressing in mummys clothes etc as well as running, jumping, climbing as fast and as high as possible with no fear whatsoever! When people said 'the time will fly', 'they grow up so fast', etc you just nod and agree but don't really believe it! I can actually confirm the time DOES fly and they DO grow up at 100mph right before your eyes...

All the pain, blood, sweat, tears and frustrations of our adoption journey are now far enough in the past that we are well on the way to adoption number two. We decided pretty early on our return from Kazakhstan that we would adopt again and after a couple of years on the waiting list and another exhaustive period of assessment we have finally completed all the paperwork from the UK side and our adoption dossier is almost ready to go out to Russia.

We will hopefully get details of a referral in the next month or so and possibly be out in Russia within the next couple of months, its a three trip process this time and we trust it will run a little smoother than our Kazakhstan experience, (we hope)!!

Will keep you posted, in the meantime I better update the blog with a few pics of Leah.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah with Jacob and Charlie

Leah on the log ride at Disney

Leah and Olivia at the Zoo

Anyone still out there?!

2009-11-30T22:13:00.004Z

Wow, been a long time since my last post!

Not sure is anyone is still out there but I'll give you a wee update anyway!

Leah is now two and a half and is doing great, shes is talking really well, has an absolute obsession with Disney Princesses (Cinderella in particular), has boundless energy and is a load of fun. She is also unbelievably girly, I had hoped for some tom-boy tendencies but she is into dress's, beads, singing and dancing and definitely not football.

Despite her girlyness however she is also a bit of a dare devil, wants to climb everything in sight and she loves me throwing her in the air as high as possible and pushing her around in her car as fast as my legs can carry me, very tiring being a Dad! :)

Anyway... unto the pics, I promise I'll update at Christmas....

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Cheeky Smile

Meeting Cinderella in Florida

Out for a drive with Jacob

Playing with Rosie

Leahs best Cheesy Smile!

Belated Birthday Pics

2009-07-24T23:10:00.005+01:00

Ok, ok, I know its a little late! Sorry to all those who have mailed wondering when the promised pics of Leahs birthday would arrive but hopefully they have been worth waiting for!!

Leah is great as ever, sleeping in her own 'big girl' bed now and out of nappies (diapers for our American friends)! She is also becoming very girly, LOVES wearing mummies shoes, necklaces, bracelets, etc. She is also a big Disney fan and has almost worn out our Cinderella DVD, i'm also hearing the 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse' themesong in my sleep!!

Anyway enough rambling and unto the pics.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

I am 2

Out with my buggy

First camping trip with mum & dad

Playing with Rosie

Keeping cool

Leah is Two!!

2009-04-22T22:59:00.005+01:00

Wow! Its been a long time since our last update, time flys at 100mph when you're having fun.

Our little Leah turned two on the 21st April, it seems like a long time ago now when we met a little 9month old bundle wrapped in a blue blanket. She is continuing to do fantastically well and seems like she is learning 5 new words per day, its getting hard to get a word in edgeways in my house these days! :)

We are having her party on Saturday so look out for a few new party pics in the next week or so.

Be back soon, enjoy the pictures!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

"Paint the picture Leah, not your face!"

Cheeky Leah

Leah out shopping with Jacob

Leah and Charlie making sandcastles in sunny Portstewart

Leah and Phoebe

One Year Anniversary!

2009-01-29T22:08:00.004Z

One year ago today we first met Leah and all of our lives changed forever! Its hard to believe that it has been that long already, as you can see from the following pics she has changed quite a bit in the last 12 months!

We didn't believe it at the time but its true that looking back now all we can remember are the good times and wonderful moments from our trip to Kazakhstan, all the nasty and stressful ones have thankfully faded away.

Enjoy the 'before and after' pics! ;)

Philip, Amanda & Leah

First day with Leah.

Exactly 12 months later!
.

Leah Update - January 2009

2009-01-13T20:53:00.004Z

Happy new year everyone!!

Its hard to believe that in another couple of weeks it will be a year to the day since we first met Leah! Its been an amazing year and watching Leah grow and develop has been wonderful.

She is really into helping out at the moment and loves pulling everything out of cupboards then putting it away neatly again, she also loves cooking in her kitchen and pushing her baby around in her buggy. She also loves 'looking after' her wee cousins, sticking their dummies in their mouths whether they want it or not and also chasing them with wet wipes to clean their faces!!

She has such a lovely, funny personality and keeps us both amused. Apart from when she is teething (11 at the last count) she also sleeps fantastically well, 12 hours a night as well as a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day! We'll enjoy it while it lasts...

Anyway without further ado I'll get to the good stuff, more photos!

Cya in a few months!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Cheeky face

Not quite awake leah on Christmas morning.

"Why has my new car got no wheels?!?!?"

Yes, I can feed myself!

Awh

Leah Update - September

2008-10-03T17:07:00.005+01:00

Ok, I know its been a while!!

To make it up to you I've posted some pics from our trip last month to Disneyland Paris. We had a fantastic time and Leah loved every minute of it. We went with my sis Avril, Jeff and their wee boy Charlie! In all honesty the trip was just for the kids, the adults didn't enjoy themselves at all!! wink, wink ;)

Leah is continuing to delight us, she is running everywhere as fast as her legs are carrying her and is starting to copy things we say, as well as her normal gibberish, she even has a Ballywalter accent which is very cute! She is also 'helping' Amanda in the house... by helping I mean trying to climb into the dishwasher when its open, pressing all the buttons on the washing machine and dragging all the clothes out when she gets a chance, that sort of thing!

She is also growing like a weed, clothes that are big for her one week will be too short two weeks later, good job christmas is coming ;)

Promise i'll be quicker with the next update, please stop with the angry emails!!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Getting Ready to Go

Had to be done!

Tinkerbell!!

Getting something to eat

"Let me help you with that dummy Charlie"

New Leah Pics - July

2008-07-30T18:07:00.004+01:00

Hey all you Leah fans out there!!

We went for a nice family break to Limavady last week, there were 14 of us altogether, 10 adults and 4.9 children (my brothers wife is very pregnant). The babies loved the pool and soft play area, the ladies got to go to a spa for the day and the men got in a few rounds of golf so everyone was a winner!!

We are also more famous than we realised, we were enjoying an ice-cream in Portstewart when a very nice young lady from Scotland came over to our table and asked if we were Leah's parents, she recognised us and Leah from our blog!! Quite amazing but very nice!

This months pictures are from Belfast zoo.

See y'all next month!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Taking a breather outside the monkey house.

Checking out the penguins with her cousins.

Posing with Mummy

"ha ha ha, good one Josh"

Amanda's mum and dad with all their grandchildren

New Leah Pics - June

2008-07-01T23:36:00.004+01:00

Can't believe another month has flown past so quickly! We've now been home for three months and Kazakhstan is a distant dream. Leah continues to delight us and seems to learn something new everyday, she is standing pretty well without support now and can manage 3-4 steps before falling over, give her another month or so and she will be flying!

Few pics from our recent visit to Isle of Man. Next months pics are from our trip to Belfast Zoo, watch this space!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Amanda swapping babies with her sis.

"this stuff's weird"

Leah pushing Anna around!

Out for a walk with Caitlin and Anna

Leah loving the matching outfits!

New Leah Pics - May

2008-05-20T16:32:00.004+01:00

Hey out there, did you think I'd forgotten about you?!?

Leah is doing wonderfully well, she is very close to walking and is getting funnier, nosier and more adventurous every day!

She is also getting a lot more vocal, as well as 'dada, mama, baba' and her usual repertoire of gibberish she has also added 'hiya' and 'bye bye' in the last few days!

Leah is the happiest baby in the world, whether she is playing with her toys, playing with us or flying round the house at 100mph in her walker she is constantly laughing and smiling. She is truly an answer to prayer!

Hope you like her latest pics, i'll do my best to update the blog every month or so.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

"I love swings"

Taking a walk with mummy and daddy

Posing with mummy

Ballywalter Beach

"I can feed myself you know!?!!"

One year old.

2008-04-30T12:53:00.003+01:00

Bad news for all you ‘caterpillar shuffle’ fans out there, Leah has learnt how to crawl properly! She was making her way across the living room floor yesterday when she suddenly decided to give the whole ‘one knee in front of another’ technique a try, her top speed has now doubled!!

She is also getting very good at walking while holding our hands, we took her to ‘Clarks’ at the weekend to buy her first pair of proper shoes, however her wee feet are still too small so she had to make do with a pair of jelly shoes from Adams! She is also pulling herself up unto her feet on the furniture and when she is feeling particularly brave tries to balance without holding on, her current record before her bum hits the floor is 0.5 seconds!

Have to say a BIG welcome home to one of Leah’s wee mates from our baby room Nora, she was reunited with her Mum and Dad, Bill and Dana Spyker last week and now starts the rest of her wonderful new life in Chicago.

As promised, though a little later than expected, please enjoy the following pictures from Leah’s first birthday extravaganza last week!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Visiting Great Granny D

11.9 months old!

2008-04-18T15:34:00.004+01:00

Hey all you Leah fans out there, you can stop sending me angry emails now, more photos are on the way!!

We never thought we would say this a few weeks ago but life in Kazakhstan is becoming a distant memory, it now feels like we have known Leah for her whole life!

She is improving every day and since our last post she has put on a few pounds, learnt how to say ‘mama’, is starting to get her first tooth and is beginning to walk with our help, her impression of the John Cleese ‘funny walk’ is hilarious!! She gets so excited seeing and doing new things for the first time, she’s a lot of fun to be around and after only 3 months of knowing her we have already forgotten what life was like without her.

Like a lot of orphanage children she is a child of routine which is great, if we get her into her cot at the right times each day she will sleep right through the night as well as 2-3 hours in the middle of the day. We have learnt from experience that she dosen’t appreciate it when mummy and daddy try to change things, even by only 30mins!!

Her first birthday is in 3 days time so watch this space for some birthday pics next week!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Visiting Granny D's House

"Charlie said I could borrow his dummy, honest"!!

Ist week home

2008-04-05T20:13:00.004+01:00

It’s been exactly a week since we got back and its starting to sink in that we are really home!!

Leah has settled into a routine remarkably quickly and has been sleeping in her cot every night, which was something we were worried about. She is sleeping fantastically well and last night slept from 9pm till 7.30am with no interruptions!! She is also eating loads, she tackles bowls full of mince and potatoes that I would struggle with!

Its impossible to express how good it is too be home, we're loving the simple things like peanut butter on toast and sleeping in our own bed at night!

I'll update again in a few days time with more pictures, in the meantime enjoy!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Arriving at Belfast City Airport 16 hours after leaving Almaty

Room full of family at the airport

Leah and some of her cousins

Leah and her cousin Jacob bullying Granny D

Playing with my new toys!

Home...

2008-03-31T09:14:00.003+01:00

Just a short post to let you all know we made it back safely to Northern Ireland on Saturday night, it was a long day and a half of travelling and the three of us have not quite caught up on our sleep yet.

Leah was remarkable on the plane and cried for a total of 10 mins out of 11 hours flying time! We landed late on Saturday evening and were met at the plane by an airport official who ushered us into a little room where all our family where waiting for us, again for a little girl who only had 3 hours sleep in the previous 36 hours Leah was absolutely fantastic, smiling and laughing at everyone.

We thought when we eventually made it back our overwhelming emotions would have been relief and joy to be home. While this is of course true it still feels strange to be really here with Leah, I don’t think it has quite sunk in yet!! Our family feel the same and mum mentioned last night that she has to tell herself when she wakes up that we are really home!!

Give me a few days and I’ll be back to update you with a ridiculous amount of photos of Leah in her new house with her new family, I promise!

Its good to be home….

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Almaty airport, 55 degrees C warmer than we arrived!

Very tired Leah landing in London

We're going home!!!

2008-03-28T12:37:00.003Z

It gives me enormous pleasure to announce that at 4pm afternoon I was able to collect Leah’s passport, complete with freshly printed visa!!

*pause for cheers and applause*

It obviously wasn’t straightforward (nothing ever is in Kazakhstan) but with the help of Karen at Stormont back home and the consulate staff here in Almaty we were able to pick up our visa 24hrs after we applied for it. God has been with us every stage of the journey so far and certainly did not let us down at this final hurdle. Thanks to all who have been praying for us!

Also got good news about the Nel’s, they got their visa yesterday and will be flying home today. Luke should be taking his first lungful of South African air about the same time as we land in Belfast.

Leah has come a long way in the last 8 weeks, from the quiet little girl we met who couldn’t sit upright, made no eye contact at all and had no power in her legs to the happy, nosey, noisy girl who today took her first few steps while holding her mummies hands. It’s been a very long, intense, indescribably frustrating journey but ultimately so incredibly worth it!

See you tomorrow Northern Ireland!!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

p.s. John, as Leah's father I want 25% of the revenue from the lil-leah merchandise!

Leah posing with her new passport

“I’ve told you before, I’m not nosey”!!!

Leah showing off her new trick

View from our apartment

Made it too Almaty

2008-03-27T13:01:00.002Z

Rollercoaster ride to the end!! Yesterday we got a lot of good news on the ‘visa trail’ Nadia came through big time with Leah’s passport, she managed to get it processed in Ust on Tuesday then flown to the consul registration in Astana then flown back to Almaty all on Wednesday!! We also spoke with someone in the visa section who told us they wanted to help us and would process the visa within one day, woohoo!!

So, we arrived at the visa office bright and early on Thursday morning, full of hope and optimism. It didn’t last long, true to UK form we found out there was a massive amount of extra documents required that we didn’t have, we also discovered that they could only process a ‘visit visa’ in one day which would only allow Leah to visit the UK for 3 months!!?!! A settlement visa on the other hand would take a lot longer to process.

Cue a frantic 2 hours when we got as many documents copied and faxed to us from Nadia in Ust and also back home, I also wrote a few documents on my laptop and printed them out at an internet café round the corner, we also visited the vice-consul and pleaded our case for an early visa. After all this we went back to the visa office and submitted what documents we had, we must ring them tomorrow morning to see if they have been able to give us a visa in time for our flight on Saturday. It goes without saying but PLEASE PRAY!!! God’s timing has been perfect for us all along and we know He won’t let us down now!

On the plus side the last few days have been the first that we have really felt that Leah is our daughter! While we were in Ust it still felt like we were just visiting her but actually leaving Ust with her and flying to Almaty was a wonderful, surreal experience, thankfully Leah was an absolute angel on the plane!! It feels so nice to be back in a modern cosmopolitan city again, our apartment is situated right in middle of a massive pedestrian area teeming with shops, restaurants and cafes, all three of us enjoyed a nice stroll last night.

We are also learning more about her personality every day and we can safely say she is ‘no dozer’ as they say in our part of the world! She is as crafty as can be and is not slow in letting you know exactly what she wants, I feel we may have our hands full! J

Philip, Amanda & Leah

“Who are you calling nosey”!?!?!?

“Seriously, do I look stupid in this teddy bear outfit”?

Leah in her new buggy/cot/playpen

Almaty Baby!!

Our new apartment. Left tower. 15th floor. Features working lift!

Last day in Ust...

2008-03-25T08:07:00.002Z

Today is our last full day in Ust-Kamenogorsk, almost 8 weeks to the day after arriving! Tomorrow we fly to Almaty, one step closer to home!

Today is also the day we find out if Leah’s passport has arrived, if it has then we will go to the British visa office in Almaty on Thursday morning and attempt to start the visa process for Leah with a photocopy of her passport while the original is in Astana for 2 days.

It’s difficult to properly reflect on our time here yet, it has definitely been the most intense and amazing experience of our lives but I can safely say that we are all looking forward to the Blue skys of Ulster!!!!

Once we get any information on Leah’s passport and visa we will let you know, our flights are booked for the 29th but making these flights will depend on staff at the visa office being prepared to start the application process with a photocopy, please pray!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Out for a walk.

Leah chewing

Happy New Year Kaz

2008-03-23T08:32:00.003Z

22nd of March was Kaz new year and Ust-Kamenogorsk celebrated big style, the main square in the town was taken over by Urts (traditional Kazak dwellings, big fancy tents basically), boys wrestling on stage, men ‘singing’ and playing dumbras (big guitars), women in traditional dress and tens of thousands of people. It was also the scene of the ‘first official outing of the Davidson Family’!! Can’t tell you how good it was to get out the apartment with Leah, the weather was fine and she was nice and snug in the buggy we borrowed from our coordinator, it almost felt like we were just away on holiday together.

Leah continues to be great and we have learnt so much more about her and her strong willed personality over the last four days, she has already settled into a routine here and is eating, sleeping and playing really well. She falls asleep around 8pm and sleeps till around 12am when she wakes up for a drink/nappy change, she then sleeps to 4am, gets another drink/nappy change and then sleeps right through to 7.15am.

We are also learning which cry means what and have also picked up a few tricks which are helping to calm her down and get her to sleep. We know that all along God has had a particular plan for us and this prolonged time together with just the three of us may be more valuable than we will ever realise.

We are still waiting for her passport to arrive but are fairly sure it will happen on Tuesday, we will then fly to Almaty on Wednesday and attempt to start her visa application process with a photocopy of her passport while the original is in Astana at t he consul registration section, if this is successful we should be able to fly home on Sat 29th March.

We are also happy to report that Luke is feeling a lot better and should be released from hospital on Monday.

Pray that all the documents will finally be in place to allow us to come home on the 29th.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Ust Town Square

Inside a 'Urt'

Outside our luxury apartment (5th floor, no lift!!)

Leah's 'funny face', same one mummy used to pull 28 years ago!

Happy Leah

Apartment Life.

2008-03-20T05:38:00.003Z

Good news and bad news!! Which do you want to hear first?!?...

Ok, good news… Since we took her back to the apartment on Tuesday Leah has been fantastic, she is better than we could have even hoped for! She is sleeping really well and food entry and exit is going according to plan! We have also seen wonderful progress with bonding since it has been just the three of us back here, she gets so excited when either one of us come back into the room after being away for a bit.

Ok then, now the bad news. Leah’s passport has STILL not arrived it may come today but we won’t know till later on, either way our flight home on the 22nd is now impossible. Our best hope is now somewhere around the 27th - 29th March. Also little Luke was taken into hospital yesterday with an extremely high fever, he is much better now but will have to stay there for at least 5 days.

The walls have been kinda closing in on us over the last day or so, we are cooped up in a small apartment, paranoid that Leah will get sick again and longing to go home! Its hard to understand why its taking so long but as we look back over this whole process we can see clearly the hand of God guiding us according to His time not ours, if we had come out here when we expected then we would have never met our Leah so we have to believe that He is still in control and that all this is happening for a good reason, as I have already mentioned one positive thing to come from this time is how much Leah’s relationship has improved with us even over the last two days!

This whole process is not for the faint hearted but ultimately so very worth it!!!

Farewell to Bill & Dana Spyker who return to Chicago today, remember you three promised to come visit us in N Ireland soon!!!!!!

Pray that her passport will come today and we can fly home next week.
Pray that Luke will recover soon.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

The Spykers, Nels and Davidsons

Much Better...

2008-03-17T12:36:00.003Z

Since our last post we have moved to an apartment, its wonderful to have a little more room and be able to cook our own meals, its also a lot cheaper than the Shiney River. The Nels moved at the same time and are in the same block as us, they’re on the second floor and we are waay up on the fifth! Luke is a lot happier in his new roomier surroundings and we’re sure it will be better for Leah as well.

News on the Leah front is also good, thanks to all who have been praying for her! Her first night in hospital was pretty terrible for her, she didn’t eat and didn’t sleep the entire night, she was also, um, how can I put this delicately…. all backed up for about 3 days!!

Thankfully she is a lot better now, she slept well last night for the first time in 4-5 days, she also napped through the day. She is eating really well again, we found out that she LOVES mince meat and mashed potato! Apparently I was reared on mince and spuds so she must be taking after me!! We are still hoping that she will be able to be released tomorrow, the only thing really bothering her now is her gums and she still has a bit of a cold.

22nd is a possibility for our return to Northern Ireland though there are still a few outstanding documents which we need for this to happen so we would appreciate your prayers that the necessary docs will be here in time, to say we are looking forward to going home is to make an understatement of quite epic proportions!!!!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

p.s. Congratulations to Amanda’s Mum and Dad, Marie and Billy on their 40th wedding anniversary. We are only 33 years behind you!!!

“I’m sick and all mummy can do is text”!!!

Turns out nappy changing isn’t that hard after all.

“Which one’s Charlie again”?!?

Spoke too soon...

2008-03-13T16:55:00.001Z

Leah obviously didn’t read the script!! She was meant to come back to the hotel where we could begin our life of idyllic bliss together, she may have even managed a ‘night night mummy and daddy’ by her second night!!

However, what actually happened is she contracted a viral infection almost immediately, had a fever of 39 degrees (for the benefit of our Americans readers that’s very high) and was admitted to hospital again this morning.

We were worried that it was a reoccurrence of her ear infection which would have meant more anti-biotics but thankfully this is not the case, the doctors are actually quite happy with her, her temp is normal again and she should be out by Monday.

The first night with we knew something was not quite right but we put it down to the fact that she was in a new place with new people caring for her. The next morning however we knew that is was something more serious, she didn’t sleep, didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to play and the only thing that would stop her from crying was when we rocked her in our arms, even when she fell asleep as soon as we stopped rocking she would cry! 48 hours of taking it in turns to rock her was kinda tough. She has also only had one dirty nappy in the past 3 days which is probably a major reason why she is so distressed, the doctors are aware of this and will be able to help her.

Amanda is able to stay with her in the hospital which is great for Leah, I wanted to stay also but was told it was not allowed, they were actually amused that I wanted to, “Kazakhstan men would not want to do such a thing” they said!!

I can visit for over 6 hours per day which is not too bad, pray that all will go well for Amanda and Leah. We would like to go home now thank you very much, there has been a slight delay with Leah’s passport but it looks likely that we will be flying back home on the 22nd March.

Pray that Amanda and Leah will be preserved and protected in a strange place for them.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Liberation Day!!

2008-03-11T14:37:00.004Z

been a long time coming but at 1.30pm this afternoon we were finally allowed to take Leah from the baby house back to our hotel!!

There were a lot of ‘firsts’ when we made it back to our room, the first time I’ve ever changed a nappy (ok it was only a wet one, I’ll leave the nasty ones to Amanda for the time being till I feel up to it), first time we got to feed her, first time we got to bath her, we couldn’t wait to wash away the orphanage smell!

We then got to spend about 30mins staring at her in her cot while she was sleeping, we were worried she might disappear if we took our eyes off her! At last we truly feel like her parents!!

As I’m typing this she is rolling around our hotel bed playing with her toys and making happy gurgling noises, I don’t care if it sounds a little clichéd but all the trials and heartaches of the last 3 years or so are just melting away!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Where on earth am I!?!?!

At last!

Mmmm, that new baby smell!

Just checkin my emails before bedtime.

Hospital - day 4

2008-03-09T13:43:00.001Z

Its been over 6 weeks since we landed in Kazakhstan, a winter wonderland with beautiful sights and harsh temperatures. Spring has now well and truly sprung and the snow has disappeared revealing the grubby and slightly depressing reality underneath.

There is a non too subtle metaphor for our trip floating around there somewhere but lets move unto a more uplifting subject, Leah!! She was wonderful today, we were allowed to visit for 40mins in the morning and afternoon and on both occasions we were greeted with the smile she normally reserves for the Kazak dolly in the baby house or ‘Leo’ the lion! She is back to being as good as she has ever been and we can’t wait for Tuesday when we can at last bring her home with us!

We must make special mention again of our agency and their staff out here. We have been using Enroute who are affiliates of the ‘Frank Foundation’ and we can honestly say they have been nothing less than fantastic with us. Without Nicole our contact in the US, our coordinator Nadia, translator Raigul and the one and only Victor this would have been an even tougher trip. If anyone reading this is looking around for an agency or if you have already chosen Enroute/Frank Foundation we can tell you that you’ll be in good hands with ‘Frank’.

Pray that Leah’s good health will continue and that she will be able to come back with us on Tuesday.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Love the hat!

Hospital - day 3

2008-03-08T19:01:00.004Z

We were praying last night that when we visited Leah today we would be encouraged by how much better she was, thankfully God answered our prayer and we found Leah pretty much back to her normal self this afternoon, I think the nurses who are looking after her were pleased to see how happy she was to see us.

If it wasn’t for the fact that this is a holiday weekend in Kazakhstan and the doctor who can allow her to leave won’t be back till Tuesday she could probably leave tomorrow, as it is we will have to be patient and wait another 3 days before we can finally take her home.

Congratulations to all the American families who arrived a few weeks ago, they had court on Thursday and Friday and were all successful! A few more of Leah’s Kaz cousins finding homes!!

Hope you enjoy the few pics from today with Leah in her orphanage clothes.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah’s home for the last 3 days

Get me outa here!!!!

I love zips.

Leah's Nurses at the Hospital

Hospital

2008-03-07T15:23:00.000Z

An easy process this is not!!

Dear friends, blog readers across the world, let me give you a brief summary of the last couple of days.

On Wednesday (the day we should have been taking Leah out of the baby house for good) we spent the entire day chasing paper and only made it to the orphanage after 4pm, when we saw Leah we knew right away she wasn’t good, you could feel the heat coming off her from across the room!

Thursday morning our visit was cancelled but we were told we could see her after 2.30. At 2pm our translator Raigul came to the hotel and almost beat our door down as we opened it she blurted out “bad news, Leah is in Hospital, you can’t visit her for 5 days”. After the initial shock had worn off we managed to get out of her that she was no worse but they were concerned that she was not getting well fast enough in the baby house so they had sent her that morning to the hospital were she would get better a lot quicker, we asked to be taken to see her right away but our coordinator here had not even been told where she had been taken but would find out first thing in the morning. Obviously no one had thought the child’s new parents might want to know where there daughter was!!

Thursday evening was spent trying to come to terms with the fact that just the day before we had been named as her official parents and now 24hrs later we had no idea where our daughter was or how she was!!!

Friday morning we found out that Leah was staying in a hospital just 1 mile away from the baby house but we couldn’t visit her to the evening. After an eternity 5pm came and we briefly visited Leah in the hospital, thankfully she is on the mend. Her temperature is back to normal and she has been moved to a recovery room for the next few days, she will be well enough to finally take her back to the hotel on Tuesday. The hospital itself seems to be very clean and well run, we had hoped to be allowed to stay with her in the hospital but this is not possible, we should at least get a longer visit tomorrow.

The last couple of days have been trying to say the least but we know that God is in control and that very soon we will be winging our way back to Northern Ireland!! This whole episode has made us long to be home even more, we take it for granted that we live in a country where we expect to be treated in a certain way and that if we are not happy with a situation you can at the very least complain about it and try to get the problem resolved. Here its more a case off ‘like it or lump it!”.

As I’m typing this blog I’m humming the national anthem and can’t wait to kiss the tarmac at Belfast Airport!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Luke's day of escape

2008-03-05T16:01:00.006Z

Today was Luke's first taste of freedom, it was great to see him finally out of the baby house and back tearing up his room at the hotel, he is blazing the trail for Leah!!

Long day of chasing paper today, we finally saw her new birth certificate and adoption order naming us as her parents, it was nice moment in the registry office when the registrar called us forward and asked "mama" to sign here and "papa" to sign here!! ;)

We think it was a wise decision to leave her in the orphanage for a few extra days, she was obviously not well today and this was day two of her five day treatment cycle, her first day back at the Shiny River will be strange enough for her without her being unwell also. We may be able to get her out on Sat/Sun but we will have to wait and see.

In further family news its Avril's birthday today, happy birthday sis, we've got you a niece for your birthday, hope you like her!! Unfortunately she is non-returnable!

Pray that Leah will recover quickly.
Pray for Bill and Dana and also Amy (pictured below) who will both be having court tomorrow.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah with something in each hand as usual.

mmmm, chinese food!

Last Day of Appeal

2008-03-04T15:37:00.000Z

Another ‘arrrrgghhh’ moment this afternoon, we were told that Leah had not sufficiently recovered from her ear infection and they would need to keep her in the baby house for another 6 or 7 days. We understand the reasons why and off course it’s the best thing for her to stay where she is until she is better, especially when she will be leaving Ust on a 9 hour flight soon but even so it was kinda tough to take today. If we had a cat I’d be kicking him around the hotel room tonight!!!

Thankfully Luke is well enough to come out tomorrow so it will help to see him around the hotel although the news about Leah has dampened the mood a little for Jeremy and Elaine also. Ah well, at least we can continue to visit her and as far as she is concerned nothing has changed, if she had been back with us a few nights and then got sick it would have been much worse.

On the bright side, as of 12am tonight the appeal period is over and we are officially the parents of Leah Jane Irina Davidson!!

Pray that Leah will recover quickly and that we can bring her home soon.

In other exciting news Leah has got a brand new cousin, a healthy new baby Stanfield girl!! Congratulations to Amanda’s sister Annette, Jonathan and the new big sisters, Caitlin, Anna and Megan.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Appeal - 3 days to go

2008-03-02T14:33:00.003Z

Its getting close now, we had thought we could take her home on Tuesday but we found out today that it will actually be Wednesday before we can get her, only 3 more days to go!! She has never been outside in her life so we can’t wait to see her face when she gets her first taste of freedom.

We had a really great day today, even on our 34th day with her she is still improving and doing new things with us. We also got to change and dress her for the first time this morning, it was funny to see her reaction when she realised we were the ones who where getting her ready, it was like, ‘what are you two doing here’!?!

Its strange for us spending another Sunday away from Cardy Gospel Hall, Sundays are normally so busy for us its weird having so little to do here, only a couple more weeks to go!!

Keep praying, we are almost there!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Happy Mothers Day Mummy!!!

Leah xo

Best Mothers Day Ever!!

Leahs buddys.

My shoes are on the right!

Appeal - 5 days to go

2008-02-28T16:52:00.003Z

Leah is pretty much back to her normal self now, only 5 days until we can bring her back to the Shiny River and we can’t wait!

Today we went out to the ‘Daniel’ supermarket to stock up on supplies before she comes back, its kinda weird after all these years to be actually buying nappies and baby food.

But hey, I know all you want are more photos so here ya go!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah and Mummy

Leahs buddy Luke

Kiss from Daddy

Big boots

Leah and Leo

Ski Trip!!

2008-02-26T15:21:00.005Z

We visited Leah yesterday morning and thankfully she’s feeling a lot better. She is still being treated for an ear infection and the doctor would prefer us not to see her again until Thursday. The doctor also said she was sure Leah would be well enough to come back to the hotel with us in 7 days time!! We can’t wait.

With no visit today Ragul and Victor took us to a beautiful ski resort in the mountains for a spot of skiing. It was fantastic!! In any other part of the world we would have had to complete long and boring training sessions before we would be allowed anywhere near any slopes. Thankfully this is Kazakhstan after we hired our skis we basically did whatever we liked. Amanda had the good sense to stay near the bottom of the mountain on the beginner slopes. I headed straight for the ski lifts, after all, how hard could it really be!?!?

Skiing is the ultimate ‘looks easy when you know what you’re doing’ activity, I discovered at the top of the mountain that’s its not as easy as it looks!! Half-way down though I started to get the hang off it, nothing like seeing a corner coming up at high speed to motivate you to learn how to steer!!!

We all had a really good time and though we would have preferred to see Leah it was great to finally do something different! Check out the pics and vids at the bottom of the post!

Thanks again for all your comments, texts and emails we really love reading them, especially when you tell us how lovely Leah is!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Amanda, Ragul & the Nels

Amanda on the slopes

View from the top

The red coats in their natural habitat!

The ski lift of Doom!!

Appeal - 10 days to go

2008-02-23T10:27:00.004Z

Children in the baby house are a lot quieter than children brought up in normal homes, they learn fairly early on that crying, shouting and making a lot of noise is not going to get them any more attention than usual, also they have no-one talking to them, reading books with them, “look at the doggie, what sound do dogs make?” “Woof woof”. You know what I mean.

Today was the first time that Leah has really made a lot of noise, almost our whole visit she was jabbering and talking away to herself and us. It was lovely to hear. I told her if she managed to say “dada” before “mama” I would buy her a car for her 17th birthday!

We also got some bad news about our visits for the next few days, as I’ve already mentioned there is a virus going round the whole orphanage at the moment. Leah has been on antibiotics for a few days and has almost recovered but a lot of the other babies are just starting to get sick. The high doctor has decided that there will be no visits allowed for the next 3-4 days to give the babies time to recover. It’s a sensible and understandable decision but for the next few days the hotel will be full of people not getting their ‘baby fix’, it could all get a little ‘Lord of the Flies’.!!

Don’t worry about the supply of pictures running out in the mean time, we’ve taken an insane amount of pictures and video clips already, slightly over 6 gigabytes at the last count!!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah Talking!

Another family pic.

Appeal - 12 days to go

2008-02-21T12:46:00.003Z

In true ‘Davidson Girl’ fashion Leah celebrated becoming a Davidson on Monday by contracting a virus and ear infection, we have only been able to visit her for a short time, once a day up until today when we have been able to visit twice again. She is a lot better now but still not her normal self. We’re counting down the days till we can take her back to the hotel.

I’m going to try to move rooms before Leah gets back to the Shiny River, we are on the first floor, directly above the restaurant. On the plus side its only a short walk to get our grub, the down side is the fact that every other evening we are ‘treated’ to some of the worst live music/singing I’ve ever heard in my life, they make me sound good!!

By popular demand we’ll leave you with Leah and the ‘caterpillar shuffle’

Philip, Amanda & leah.

The Caterpillar Shuffle

Poor sick Leah

Appeal - 14 days to go

2008-02-19T09:28:00.003Z

Wow, 800 page views yesterday, that's a little above average!!!!

We have now entered the annoying but necessary stage known as the 'Appeal period'. After the court decision Kaz law states that there must be a period of 14 days when anyone can come forward and appeal the courts decision to grant the adoption. We are not concerned about this and in the past the period was normally waived but for the last year or so they have been stricter in enforcing it. Once the 14 days has elapsed Leah can finally leave the baby house and come back to our hotel for a week or so while all her passport, visa docs, etc are sorted.

The court process itself was very straightforward, we entered the room and sat down till we were called forward by the judge. Once we were called he spoke for a few minutes explaining our rights and why we were all there. We then gave our petition to the court, basically asking permission to adopt Leah and explaining our reasons for coming to Kazakhstan. Then the lady from the MOE and the High Doctor from the baby house spoke about how wonderful we were and how that it would be in the best interests of he child to be adopted by us. After all this the judge asked the court appointed prosecutor (who is there to speak for the child) if she had any protests to make, thankfully she had none. We then all stood up and left the room to allow the judge to reach a decision. 10 years (4mins) later the door opened again and we all filed in for the verdict. The judge, resplendent in his purple robes stood and very formally announced that the court of the Republic of Kazakhstan, sitting in the region of Ust-Kamenogorsk had decided to grant our petition to adopt Leah. All in all it was a quite fantastic experience!!

Jeremy and Elaine from South Africa had court right after us and thankfully it went well for them also. We all went out for a slap-up meal in a fancy Ust restaurant afterwards with our wonderful translator Ragul and the one and only Victor. They both made very touching toasts at dinner wishing us good lives, health and happiness with our new children. We were slightly concerned that while the rest of us were drinking fruit juice Victor was toasting us with Vodka however we think it actually helped his driving as its difficult to imagine anything that would make our bus rides with victor more terrifying!!!

Phew, that was long winded, well done if you made it this far. If you just skipped straight down to look at the photos, shame on you!! I'm looking at you john!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

After court.

Happiest child in Kazakhstan.

"I love the dolly!"

Kiss from mummy.

Court!!

2008-02-18T13:22:00.004Z

21st April 2007 Irina was born, 2 months premature. 18th February 2008 she became a Davidson!!

Waiting outside the court room was terrifing but once inside everything went so well, but lets talk about that another day, lets get to the pics!!

Also if you want to see anymore you better leave lots of comments!

Philip, Amanda & Leah Davidson.

Mummy, Daddy & Leah

Blue eyed girls!

Daddys girl!

Leah's Caterpillar book.

Leah's fav chew!

Pre-Court Post

2008-02-18T06:14:00.002Z

Just back from our morning visit to the orphanage, we've now got 3 hours to kill before Victor picks us up to take us along to court. We are anxious understandably but are sure that it will all go well, thanks to all who are continuing to pray for us.

The orphanage is getting a little more crowded now, 7 families from the USA all arrived last night to adopt from the baby house, some of them we have 'met' already from yahoo groups and blogs, its nice to finally meet them in person!

T-minus 5 hours till Leah pics hit the blog!!!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 20

2008-02-17T14:00:00.003Z

Phew, tomorrow is the big day!! We were practising the court speech last night in the hotel room unfortunately my master plan of giving the speech in exchange for Amanda changing one years worth of dirty nappies isn't going to work, both parents have to speak in court. Amanda can't wait! Leah was in fantastic form today, she must be on her best behaviour in case we change our minds tomorrow!

Appreciate your prayers.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

By popular request!

These little guys meet us every morning outside the orphanage.

Mural from the baby house.

Bonding - Day 18

2008-02-15T12:28:00.004Z

18?!? Did I really just type Day 18??!?

Ah well only 3 days now to court! Leah was really good again today, can't wait to be able to show you all some pictures of her! She is starting to move around now, when we first met her she was quite weak but the difference in her strength in a couple of weeks is amazing! She hasn't quite got the hang of this crawling lark yet but she gets around by getting up unto her hands and knees, then flops forward on her belly, up unto her hands and knees again then another belly flop until she gets her hands on what she wants, we call it the caterpillar shuffle, very cute!

It also snowed today for the first time since we've been here, the place is looking very festive!

Keep praying that all will go well in court on Monday. We will see the judge 3.30pm here which is 9.30am GMT.

Hope you're all looking forward to the photos!! ;)

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Leah's Favorite book, just like her Uncle John!!!

Workmen brushing up snow, poor guys!

Bonding - Day 16

2008-02-13T08:06:00.002Z

“God has a plan for our lives”. Its an easy thing to say but a lot harder to trust and accept when we’re living through the disappointments and setbacks that life throws at us. We have been on this journey for over three years now and on many occasions have tried to understand why God has allowed us to experience so many delays and trials during this whole process.

Even recently when things seemed to be going well we experienced more delays, we were committed to travelling out to Ust back in October but for some reason the LOI didn’t arrive, we were sure we were going in November but no news. We thought there would be no way we’d still be in Northern Ireland for Christmas but more disappointments and delays. Surely the first week in January then!?! Still no LOI, why was God letting this happen…

We found out today that Leah was only made available for adoption within 3 days of us arriving in Ust, if we had arrived even one week earlier, if we had come out when we wanted then we would have never met ‘our’ Leah!!! It is very humbling to see God answering our prayers so clearly in guiding us to the child we were meant to have.

Many people go through their entire lives not knowing why God has moved in a particular way, living through disappointments and trials without knowing the reason why! God in His goodness has let us know exactly why we were unable to come to Ust until now!

Does this mean we will never doubt God again and that in the future our faith will be perfect??!? Would be nice to think so!

5 days to court.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 14

2008-02-11T14:34:00.000Z

Short update today, exactly 1 week to go until court. I'm about to write a short speech which we have to address to the judge explaining why we wish to adopt from Kazakhstan and our commitment to look after Leah, etc. I'm going to deliver the speech in exchange for Amanda changing all the smelly nappies for the next 12 months!!!

Leah was great again today though we are all beginning to feel the effects of the relentless routine of the days here, the adults as well as the children!

Thanks for all who are continuing to pray for us, we will need it especially in the coming days as the court date approaches, pray that the whole process will go smoothly and that the passport, visa, entry clearance, etc stage after court will also go well.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 12

2008-02-09T14:18:00.000Z

Another day of bonding over, at this point we are in a bit of a daze, trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of visiting Leah, eating and sleeping, we have pretty much lost all track of time, its still 2008 isn't it?!?

Let me review our day for you,

Woke up at 8.30am, enjoyed a weird breakfast of cereal followed by minced meat wrapped in pancakes along with bread, sausage, cheese, cucumber, fried potatoes with onions and lots of red sauce, all washed down with fizzy water, fruit juice and a couple of cups of coffee. My typical breakfast at home is a slice of toast and peanut butter around 10.30am!

We leave the hotel at 10am and visit Leah from 10.30 till 12.

Back to the hotel, snack for lunch and catch up on the mountain of emails that have arrived the previous evening.

Picked up again at 2pm and visit Leah till around 4pm, hand her back and head home to the hotel.

We usually stop somewhere for dinner on the way back to the hotel then once we arrive back catch up on the rest of the emails, skype some family and friends, update the blog, do a little reading then watch a DVD then go to sleep.

Wake up at 8.30am enjoy a weir........ You get the idea, its all a bit 'Groundhog Day'!!!!!

Back to Leah news, we made her cry today!!! We are pretty excited about it!!

OK, I know that's usually not something to brag about but when we were leaving after our afternoon visit she was handed back to the carer as normal but when we did our usual waves from the door and she realised that we were leaving her she started to cry, woohoo!! That's the first time that has happened, I think she may be starting to realise we are something more than just very nice carers with fun toys!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

The doll that fascinates Leah

Winter Wonderland.

Manhole cover, 8" under the ice!

Bonding - Day 11

2008-02-08T11:34:00.002Z

We have a date for court!! Unfortunately the courts in Ust seem quite busy at the moment so the earliest date they could give us is the 18th February. The first date we could have had court would have been the 12th so its a bit later than we had hoped for but as long as it goes well we don't mind.

Leah was a bit grouchy today, her mouth has been giving her a lot of bother recently and she spent most of the time with us today trying to get everything into her mouth for a good old chew! She still managed to smile everytime she saw the doll though.

We have come to the conclusion that Victor is an ex-tank driver who still thinks he is in his tank! The places he takes his little grey mini-bus is quite unbelievable, we thought he had managed to get it completely beached on a snow bank but he still managed to come out the other side with all four wheels more or less on the ground!!

Also in 'red coat news' I'm sorry to report that its still pretty warm out here (by Kazakhstan standards) so don't expect to see a reappearance anytime soon!

Keep praying, especially with court looming, we fully expect to get paranoid and crazy in the run-up to our court appearance!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 10

2008-02-07T12:16:00.000Z

Good news for all you red coat fans out there!! Its been a balmy minus 10 for the last few days here in Ust but the temperature is forecast to plummet over the next few days, possibly as chilly as minus 40!! Not only will I be wearing my awesome red coat again, I will probably have the entire contents of my wardrobe underneath as well!
.
We had a bit of a scare with 'missing' documents last night, we suddenly got the news that documents we will need over the next few weeks were somehow gone! We got in touch with home right away and were on the phone up until 1.30am our time trying to arrange for new copies be made, making arrangements for these to be notarised and legalised, and DHL'd over to Ust, etc. We were also praying that God would provide an answer. After a few hours of sleep and picking over breakfast at the hotel we got the wonderful news that just as mysteriously as they had vanished the documents had re-appeared! A great relief and a speedy answer to prayer! It served as a good reminder to us who is really in control of the whole situation!

Leah was her usual wonderful, happy, nosey, smiley self again today, we can't wait to get her back home to Ballywalter.

It also appears Leah is going to be a 'girly' girl, there is a big doll in traditional Kazak dress in the bonding room, each time Leah's eye catches it her head snaps round for a closer look and a big smile appears on her face. When we lift her up close to the doll she gently reaches out her hands and strokes the dolls face very carefully with her fingers and then pulls a strand or two of her hair with her finger and thumb, all very slowly with a real look of wonder on her face... its very cute!

I've also added a few pics from the window of the mini-bus on our way to the orphanage, we are so wrapped up in what we are here to do its easy to forget what a beautiful country this is.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 8

2008-02-05T14:43:00.000Z

Can't believe we are into our second week of bonding, we can already see big changes in Leah, whenever we arrive at the door of her room she greets us with a hugh smile which is lovely to see! The carers also told us that she is getting to know the times of our visits, when we are due to arrive she looks out for us and cries if she is put down into her playpen.

I just have to pay tribute again to the staff who look after the children here, they are wonderful with them all, so kind and caring, considering the sheer amount of kids they have there the attention they give each one is amazing!

We will hopefully be given a court date soon, we expect it to be around Wednesday of next week. We can't wait to get it out of the way then we can start thinking about home and also put up a few pics of the cutest girl in all of Kazakhstan. She is actually 23.5% cuter today than she was yesterday!!!!

We are thankful for all your prayers and praise God that he has led us to Leah, keep praying that the rest of the process will continue to go smoothly.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

With Jeremy & Elaine from SA

Bonding - Day 6

2008-02-03T15:42:00.000Z

Short update today, the visits with Leah went really well again, she is definitely teething now, everything she manages to get her hands on goes straight into her mouth for a good chomp! Items which have been chewed today include, her teddy, her rattle, my thumb, her own fingers, her dummy, the clip which holds her dummy to her bib, her book, packet of hankies from Amanda's bag and finally her teething ring!!

We would like to take her home now thank-you very much!

Also we just started watching 24 for the first time tonight, WHY DID NO-ONE WARN US !!?!?!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Typical Ust 'road' 10% tarmac and 90% ice!

Lot warmer than when we arrived, only minus 12 now!

Out for a snack, mmmmmmm

Bonding - Day 5

2008-02-02T11:10:00.000Z

Leah has a new friend! A very nice couple from South Africa arrived yesterday and met a beautiful boy called Luke. They are staying in the same hotel as us and we will travel together each day to meet the babies. For those who were asking we spend 3 hours in total per day at the orphanage, from 10.30am to 12.00pm and from 2.30pm to 4.00pm. This is loads of time for them, they are ready for sleeping after 1 hour with us.

Leah would also like to take this opportunity to extend her greetings and best wishes for her Auntie Mairead and big cousin Caitlin's birthdays today, she regrets she will not be able to be there in person but hopes you will both understand!!

Her cold was a LOT better today and she was much happier, she is also starting to put a lot more weight on her legs. She can't quite get the hang of this crawling business yet, she can get onto her hands and knees but then can't work out where to go from there! She'll get the hang of it before long, she is already doing better than her Uncle Gary who spent his first 2 years shuffling around on his backside!! God has really answered our prayers in a wonderful way with Leah's health and development, we can already see improvements in the 5 short days we've been with her.

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 3

2008-01-31T17:30:00.000Z

Just in case anyone thought we were joking when we said we experienced an earthquake in Ust last night check out the following link, 5.1 on the rictor scale!!! (thanks for the link Sandy) http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008mua7.php

Another great day with Leah, we think she has somehow gotten cuter since we saw her yesterday!! She was fighting sleep almost the whole time today, she still has a nasty cold and is definitely not used to this much attention.

Also want to say a big thank you for the huge amount of texts, emails and comments on the blog, its a big help for Amanda and I to know so many people are thinking about us and praying for us. Please keep it up!

And another thing, sorry we gotta disappoint you but it is going to be another 2 weeks before we can post any pics of Leah, we would love to be able to fill the blog right now with her pics but we have been advised not to until we get through court over here, if it would soften the blow I would be happy to post some pics of myself, let me know if this would help!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Bonding - Day 2

2008-01-30T13:31:00.000Z

Being in Kazakhstan has been an earth shaking experience, figuratively speaking obviously and now after last night at about 1.30am literally as well!! We actually experienced an earthquake, it felt like a freight train racing past our bedroom window at high speed, though since we are on the 2nd floor this was unlikely to have been the cause of the quake! They are apparently not uncommon in this part of the world but last night was the biggest rumble for a few years.

But onto more earth shattering events now, we had our second day of visits with Leah today, I can safely say, without a hint of new parental pride or bias that she really is the cutest girl in all of Kazakhstan, once you see the pics in a day or so you will wholeheartedly agree!! Apart from a stinker of a cold she was in great form again today, she is very nosey and is interested in everything, her two favorite things today were Amanda's hair which she grabbed anytime it was close and my watch which she did her best to tear off my wrist! She is also starting to teeth and every little book or rattle we have for her goes straight into her mouth. We can't wait until we are able to bring her home, unfortunately we have another 6 weeks of hoops to jump through first.

We're just back from a walk to the 'Daniel' supermarket and are slowly thawing out, the funny thing about walking in minus 30 is the first 5-10 mins you think 'pfft, this is easy, whats all the fuss' the next 10 mins go like this, 'hmm, it is pretty chilly actually' finally the last 10-15mins, 'we may actually die out here'!!!

In Victor news he has exchanged the black suit for a shellsuit and medalion, most people would struggle to pull this look off...... he manages it! We wouldn't be surprised if Victor had something to do with the earthquake!! 0.o

Be patient, hopefully we can post some pics by tomorrow.

God is good, keep praying!

Philip, Amanda & Leah

Outside the Baby House

Feeding time for Leah's group

Roughing it for the next 6 weeks

Its a Girl!!

2008-01-29T13:01:00.000Z

We arrived at the ophanage today at 12pm along with a representative from the MOE, Nadia and our translator. We were anxious that things would go well but also confident that God was in control of the situation, we were also sooo aware of all the support and prayers for us back home.

After meeting the director (who was lovely) we were told they would be bringing two girls in for us too look at, this was something we were worried about as how on earth are you meant to 'pick' a child from a lineup?!? The youngest was 1 year old, we had been hoping for under 1 year but before we had a chance to react they jabbered a bit more in Russian and we were told she was actually 9 months old.

They brought her in, a wee bundle wrapped in a big blue cloth, we were smitten pretty much instantly!! After we had 5mins with her a bit more Russian was jabbered and our translator told us they were now bringing in the second one, we immediately said 'no thankyou' thankfully they agreed and we were spared our 'choice'!!

She is 9mths old, VERY inquisitive and active, she loved playing with the rattles and crackly toys we bought, she is also trying hard to get up and is already up on her hands and knees! Orphanage children are usually months behind other children due to the lack of stimulation they recieve so we were expecting a little floppy bundle, God is good, we had been praying that she would be thriving, healthy and strong and God has answered our prayers!!

We now just want to take her home but unfortunately our trip is only just starting, another 6weeks of red tape and hoops to jump through.

I know the first thing you did was scroll down to look at the pictures! Come on be honest!! Anyway, as you can see there are none just yet! We want our health trust to view and give their formal approval first, in a few days there will be loads for you to look at! Our family have them already but there have been severly warned not to release them just yet! (If they do they will have Amanda to answer to)!!

Thanks to all who have been praying hard for us, our prayers have been answered.
Praise the Lord!!

Philip, Amanda & Leah ! (been waiting for a while to type that)

Ust

2008-01-28T13:24:00.000Z

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ust-Kamenogorsk, the local time is 5pm and the temperature is minus 31 degrees, thank you for flying Air Astana"

We are really here, even as I type this we can't quite take it in, tomorrow we meet our daughter for the first time! We are meeting Nadia (our coordinator), our translator and driver in the hotel lobby at 11am and heading over to the orphanage to meet with an official from the MOE and the orphanage director, hopefully a short time after this we will meet the one who really matters!!

Also I need to pause here and make mention of the coolest thing we have experienced SO FAR in Kazakhstan, our driver Victor! He really needs to be seen in the flesh to be believed, he has got an entire mouthful of gold teeth, black suit over white polo neck and shaven head, he looks like a James Bond villain!

He should have been driving a Black Merc S500 with bullet proof glass but unfortunately he was driving a small grey 'mini-bus of death'. When you are driving on roads that are 60% hard packed ice and 40% tarmac most people would take it easy..... not victor, he drove as if James Bond actually was behind him, changing lanes like a slalom skier, approximately 5inches from the bumper of the car in front of him, if the poor drivers didn't have the sense to get out of his way quick enough he would over take, engine screaming and Victor shouting something in Russian out of his side window!!

It was fun!

We need much prayer for tomorrow, its not the sort of thing you can really prepare for, we just trust that God will continue to guide us and that we will meet the child He has planned for us.

Philip & Amanda

Almaty

2008-01-28T04:51:00.000Z

I always said I wouldn’t really believe we were going to Kazakhstan until we were munching peanuts on the Air Astana flight to Almaty, well, I guess we must actually be there!!

We landed at 7am local time (true to form we were delayed leaving London) the view from the plane was magnificent on the descent into Almaty, a crisp white landscape as far as the eye could see broken only by a stunning snow capped mountain range which lies between Kazakhstan and China. Mont Blanc eat your heart out!!

You know when you get off the plane after landing somewhere warm on your summer holidays? The blast of hot air that hits you as soon as you leave the plane confirms you are really there; the same was true for us as soon as the doors opened in Almaty, although as you would understand the blast of air was not exactly hot! We can confirm that minus 28 is quite chilly actually!!

Also we are glad to report Air Astana are more generous than 'sleazyjet', when we told them we were taking aid to an orphanage they reduced the excess baggage fee from 100quid to 24quid (no pound signs on kaz keyboard).

We are staying the night in Almaty and heading out to Ust tomorrow, the city and our hotel is much like we expected, a little bit grey and ‘soviet’ but nice! One thing Sue told us when we met her yesterday is very true, the inside of the hotel, shops, restaurants, etc are absolutely BOILING, it’s a very strange sensation walking out of -28 degrees straight into +26 to +30 degrees. It’s even worse the other way round!

I’m typing this from our hotel room, we’ve just had a few hours sleep and are heading out now to try to find some grub and an internet café, if these jetlagged ramblings make it unto the blog you know we’ve been successful.

We will meet our daughter for the first time on Tuesday morning, keep praying that all will go well, we also need to thank the Lord for answered prayer in getting this far!

Also we really appreciate all the text messages, its nice to know how many people are thinking about us, remember though we are 6 hours ahead of you so if you decide to send us a text at say 6.30pm your time, when Amanda’s phone goes ‘BONG’ its 12.30am Kaz time, not mentioning any names *cough, cough* AVRIL, *cough*.

Our next post should be from Ust!

Philip & Amanda

easyjet rant

2008-01-26T10:54:00.000Z

OK as promised yesterday, my easyjet rant!!

We arrived at Belfast international airport on Thursday afternoon to catch our easyjet flight to London, we had 55kg of luggage in 2 bags to check in, 30kg of which was clothes and toys for the orphanage, we are actually allowed 50kg of luggage EACH but if there is more than 20kg per individual bag they charge extra.

We hoped that when we explained at the desk that it was aid for an orphanage there would be no fee, or at least a small fee. How naive we were, for the extra 16kg they charged us...... wait for it..... £100!?!! £100?? That's almost as much as both our tickets combined!! The girl on the desk told us it didn't matter that it was for an orphanage they had to charge extra, her manager said the same thing when we asked him as well!! So there we where, at the desk faced with 3 choices,

1. Leave the orphanage bag behind.
2. Go home
3. Be gouged by easyjet, pay the cash and whinge at the girl behind the easyjet desk.

We chose option 3

So in future, unless the alternative is walking, I'm never, ever going to fly easyjet again!! The boycott starts here! -.-

In other news, we fly to Kazakhstan in 5 hours *gulp*

Philip & Amanda

Got them!!!

2008-01-25T13:06:00.001Z

After flying out yesterday literally on a wing and a prayer we have got the answer we and all of you round the world were praying for, we've got our Visa's, our flights have been changed and we are heading out to Kazakhstan tomorrow!! Yeah, we can hardly believe it either!!

Let me review the last few hours for you,

Worst nights sleep in our entire lives.
Hotel shower with only 3 settings within 1mm of each other - Freezing, Just right or Surface of the sun.
Arrived at the embassy at 8.30am to find 5 people already there in front of us.
Overhear conversations like ' it takes 2-3 days to get a visa here' and 'I've been coming every morning for a week and my LOI still isn't here' etc.
One and a half hours later get to the front desk to be given a lecture that we should have made an appointment.
Be told since it was for an adoption he would make an exception, come back at 12pm.
Ring Air Astana to change flights, find out their entire computer system had crashed.
Ring back 1 hour later and manage to change flights to tomorrow!!
Arrive back at embassy at 11.50 and wait for another hour and finally get our visa's!!!!

To say we are relieved is too make the biggest understatement since someone said 'I think this Internet thing might catch on'!!

God has answered our prayers in a wonderful way! Thanks to all who are praying for us and all the texts of support this morning, Keep it up, its really appreciated!!

Also just let me clear up the 'matching coats' thing, Amanda's coat is her own, the one I'm wearing has been lent to me by James Greer, if I get one more abusive text message about it I'm going to refuse to wear it in Kaz, get hypothermia and quite possibly die, if you can live with that keep on texting!!1!!!1!!! ;)

Haven't room here but look out for my 'easyjet' rant coming soon!

Philip & Amanda

London

2008-01-24T20:38:00.000Z

We've made it to London! I'm typing this from our hotel which is fantastic and only 5 mins walk from the embassy. We have also just received the cable number for our LOI from our agency, this means that it should be at the embassy already, woohoo!!!!

Also if anyone wants a good workout we would like to suggest the following,

Firstly you will want to get yourself a 30kg bag and a 10-15kg rucksack. You should then drag this around Belfast and London for 2-3hrs, make sure you jump on and off at least 2 trains. Finally arrive at a tube station with no working lifts or escalators and then drag all 90kgs up two flights of stairs, if this hasn't killed you then at least you should be a little fitter!!

Tomorrow is the big day! We will arrive early and hope there is no problems with our visa being issued. We will report back as soon as we have any news.

Keep praying everyone!

Philip & Amanda

LOI, yes really!

2008-01-24T00:55:00.000Z

OK..... Where to start?!? Its probably best if I blurt it all out in one go!

Our LOI has been issued!
Its already in Astana waiting to be sent to London!
We are hoping to get a copy emailed to us in the morning!
The LOI should arrive at the London Embassy by latest Friday!
We along with almost 60kg of luggage and aid for Kaz are flying out to London on Thursday!
We are going to the Embassy first thing Friday morning to try to get our Visa!
If we get our Visa we are going to attempt to bring our flights forward to Sat evening!
If this goes ok we will arrive in Almaty on Sun morning and Ust that afternoon!
We should then meet our daughter for the first time on Monday morning!

Yes, I know!! Its bonkers, you wait three years for something and it manages to take you by surprise when it happens!! There are still a few 'unknowns' in the above list but worst case scenario we come home again on Friday and try again for our Visa next week, the BIG DEAL is the fact that we finally have our LOI. PRAISE THE LORD!!

'I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope' psalm 130v5

We will update from our Hotel in London tomorrow, I've already checked that the London hotel and the hotel we will be staying at in Ust all have wireless broadband so keep watching! ;)

Pray that the LOI makes it to London on Friday and that we are able to get our visa's that morning!

Philip & Amanda

few more 'shoulds'

2008-01-23T00:25:00.000Z

First things first, my sister Avril just had a little boy this evening so welcome into the world Charlie Rogers!! We will be getting your cousin soon so please be patient...

We haven't anything more to update tonight other than a few more 'shoulds', we should get a copy of our LOI tomorrow and the original should make it to the embassy in London by Friday.

As we can't get an early enough flight into London on Friday we intend to fly over on Thursday evening and be waiting at the Embassy first thing Friday for our Visa. If it all goes well we are going to try to move our flights to Saturday morning!

Also thanks to Amy for the Shiny River Hotel link, its looks a bit nicer than the hotel in our picture, we have already found out that they have rooms available for the time we are staying.

We will hopefully be able to confirm tomorrow that we have actually got copies of our LOI.

We really appreciate all who are praying all round the world for us, keep it up, we're nearly there!

Philip & Amanda

Monday holiday

2008-01-21T00:02:00.000Z

This is the week we expect to get our LOI, our representative in Ust (Nadia) is hoping to pick it up today and fax a copy to our agency then take the original to Astana, it should then make its way by telex to London for Thursday.

However Monday is a holiday in the USA so we won't have confirmation that this has happened until Tuesday evening. We'll keep you posted.

We are now starting to believe its all happening and are beginning to make plans for being away for 6-8 weeks! We are trying to find out the best way to keep in contact with home, our hotel only has dial-up connection but we have been told there is an Internet cafe close to our hotel with wireless broadband, sounds like we are going to be having a lot of coffee out there! We also plan to buy phone cards and possibly a mobile phone for our time there, as well as a bit of time working I also plan to finish next years thirsty4god articles!
Quick plug, check out http://www.thirsty4god.co.uk/

The pic below is the hotel I think we are staying at in Ust, as Amanda's natural state is being cold I'm not sure if she is going to cope with minus 25C!!!

Keep praying, nearly there!

Philip & Amanda

Getting Close

2008-01-18T21:40:00.000Z

We have changed our flights to the 29th January. There is even a slim chance we could fly out on the 26th! However after all that has happened to us so far we won't get to excited until we are actually on the plane leaving Heathrow!

We would love to be able to be definite about our dates but we are as close as we can be without being 100% certain. Our agency have told us that our representative in Ust, Nadia, should be able to get our LOI on Monday, we should get a copy of it by Tuesday and the Kaz embassy in London should get it by Thursday which should mean that we should be able to fly over to London on Friday to get our visa. There are FAR to many 'should's' in that last sentence for our liking but we leave it with the Lord and trust that His timing will be perfect as it has been already.

Whenever God told Abraham he was going to have a son in his old age the bible says that he was 'strong in faith, giving glory to God' and that he was 'fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform' . That amount of faith would be nice to have!

There is a national holiday on Monday so we will post around Tue or Wed and let you know if the mysterious LOI has finally arrived.

Keep on praying.

Philip & Amanda

Ust Baby House

2008-01-15T21:37:00.000Z

After months of negative posts its great to be able to look forward to travelling out to Ust again! We should hear from our agency later this week about when we can expect to get our LOI, after all that has gone on before we won't get too excited yet but hopefully we should be heading off to Kazakhstan in the next two weeks or so!!

We've found a few pics of the actual baby house we will be travelling to so lets see if I can still remember how to post pics on this blog!

Keep praying that the MOE in Ust will issue our LOI quickly! As soon as we have a date for travel we will let you know.

Philip & Amanda

At last!!!!

2008-01-11T17:52:00.000Z

Its finally happened, after two and a half months of broken promises the MOE official has at last handed over our dossier to Alma this afternoon!!

Even as i'm typing i can hardly believe it! Alma will now fly our dossier to Ust tomorrow and hand it over to the regional office who will process our LOI.

The only slight disappointment is that our travel date of the 19th January is not going to be feasible, we will find out next week when our LOI is likely to be ready but our new travel dates should be around the 25th - 30th January. We are not to worried about this to be honest, we are just so happy that we have finally cleared the MOE in Astana!!

Thanks to all who are praying for us, keep it up we are nearly there now. It makes a nice change to be posting good news!!!

Praise the Lord for answered prayer!

Pray that the LOI stage will go quickly and that we can travel soon.

Pray that our child will continue to thrive and be preserved.

Philip & Amanda

Still on the rollercoaster

2008-01-10T17:47:00.000Z

Quick post to keep you all updated, Alma called with the MOE again today in order to get our promised dossier, she was told once again that she couldn't have it but if she came back tomorrow then it would definitely be handed over.

We were praying that if she didn't get the dossier this time then we would at least be given different information than the standard 'come back next week' line. Alma seems pretty certain that it will FINALLY happen tomorrow so we need everyone to pray hard that this will be the case.

We will update as soon as we hear anything tomorrow.

Philip & Amanda

New year, same problem...

2008-01-04T18:53:00.000Z

Happy 2008 everyone!

The Christmas holidays obviously did nothing to improve the mood of our MOE official! Alma met with her on the 3rd of January as she had been asked to and after waiting for over 3 hours she was told to come back on the 10th and she would be given the dossier then.

We are understandably dubious that this will happen on the 10th so we have asked our agency to find some alternative regions for us. There are two possibilities which we should get a little more info about next week.

This will at least give us some options rather than the current never ending waiting for Ust!

By next week we should be in one of the following categories,

1. The MOE official has finally kept her word and Alma gets our dossier on the 10th.
2. Alma is told to come back in a weeks time AGAIN and we decide to wait.
3. Alma has been told to come back but rather than waiting we decide to move regions.

We pray that the way ahead will be made clear and that we will have a direction to move in by next week.

Pray That the Lords will for us will be clearly seen and we will finally start moving forward again.

We will keep you posted, keep praying!

Still keeping the faith!!

Philip & Amanda

No Surprise...

2007-12-27T18:53:00.000Z

The holiday obviously didn't help the mood of the MOE official, she failed to give Alma our docs on the 24th but is now assuring us that she will hand over the dossier to our agency on the 3rd of January!

She still tells us that she will give permission to travel in January and if our agency can finally get their hands on our dossier by the first or second week of January then we will still be able to make our flights on the 19th.

If she fails to keep her word this time then we may have to think about moving to another region in Kaz, we don't want to do this as Ust is now our 3rd region and we have become used to the idea of traveling there!

We leave it with the Lord and trust that He will overrule in this situation and the dossier will finally be in the hands of our agency workers soon.

Hope everyone had a happy Christmas and trust you all have a good new year.

We will report back as soon as we get any more info, which should be around the 3rd/4th Jan.

Philip & Amanda

Fustration!

2007-12-17T19:22:00.001Z

We have just heard from our agency that despite the MOE contact promising that she would hand over our dossier before she left on holiday at the weekend she has once again went back on her word and failed to hand it over!

She has promised to release it when she returns on the 24th December and again stated that she would give permission to travel in January but after the last 2-3months it is very difficult to take her seriously. We hope to find out by the 26th/27th if our documents are finally in the hands of our agency!

Putting a positive spin on things she has again confirmed to Alma that she will be giving us permission to travel out in January, our agency are also confident that it will happen then, it would have been nice however to have some confirmation of this before Christmas.

We believe that Gods plan for us is perfect and that the delays are only to ensure that we get the child that we are meant to have.

Still keeping the Faith!

Philip & Amanda

Update

2007-12-15T01:20:00.000Z

Looks like we need to wait a few days longer before we get confirmation that our dossier is in the hands of our agency, Alma is due to meet the MOE official on Saturday and she will hopefully hand over our documents then, we won't find out until Monday so we have another nervous wait over the weekend but we are confident it will finally happen this time.

Hopefully on Monday our agency will be able to tell us that they have our dossier and it is on its way out to Ust for our LOI.

Keep praying!!

Philip & Amanda

Update

2007-12-13T00:28:00.000Z

Quite a bit has happened since our last post, we changed our flights to the next available date which was the 25th December, yes Christmas day!

We also got a little more info on the reasons why we've been delayed for so long, apparently there has been tension between the Ust regional office of the MOE and the central office. The main MOE office has been keen to throw their weight around and prove peoples documents only travel as and when they say so!!

Our dossier is one of a bundle of five which is currently being 'held' by this office!

The positive news is that the MOE official who will release our documents has told our agency representative that she will give them to her before she leaves on a business trip at the weekend, the only provision she will put on the LOI is that we can't enter the country until the new year!

So by the end of this week we hope to have an actual firm date for our trip to Kazakhstan!!

Its not quite a Christmas miracle but a January miracle will do just fine!

Pray that the MOE official keeps her word and that our dossier is FINALLY in the hands of our agency by the weekend.

Pray for the other 4 families who are in the same situation as us.

We will post as soon as this happens, stay tuned....

Philip & Amanda

Still waiting...

2007-12-07T00:13:00.000Z

Its been almost a week since our last post but unfortunately we are no further forward!

On Monday I got an unwelcome birthday present, namely the news that even though our dossier has been signed off it still hasn't been sent to Ust.

Why you may ask! Good question but unfortunately not one that the MOE in Astana is prepared to answer!

The one piece of good news is that from now on our dossier and our LOI will be handled by our agency staff so once it moves it will be easy to keep track off.

Alma, our agency representative in Astana, will be calling with the MOE again in the morning to try once more to get our dossier released, we will let you know how she gets on.

Obviously we are not going to make our flights on the 11th, we now hope to be able to leave on the 22nd December.

At this stage we just want to be out there for Christmas, we have been prepared for the last 2 months to spend Christmas in Kazakhstan so we now can't imagine spending it here!!

Pray that Alma is successful tomorrow and gets our dossier released.

Philip & Amanda

We're getting there!!

2007-11-30T17:30:00.000Z

Our agency have just contacted us to let us know that the MOE official has been as good as her word and has signed off on our documents, when she said 'before the end of the month' she REALLY meant it!

The last few weeks have been torture, we were prepared for the worst again but God has answered our prayers in a wonderful way!

Our documents will now travel on Monday out to Ust and the official there has already promised us that she will process our LOI immediately and get it back to Astana by Friday the 7th. Almat will then be sent his copy the same day which should arrive in the London Embassy by Monday the 10th.

This all means that we should be ready to make our flights on the 11th about 12hours ahead of schedule.

We still won't believe it until we are munching peanuts on the Air Astana flight to Almaty but we are definitely getting there!!

Praise God that after 3.5 months of limbo we are finally moving again.

Pray that our LOI will get to London in time for us to make our flight on the 11th.

We will keep you updated on our LOI progress throughout next week.

Thanks to all who are praying for us, keep at it!

Philip & Amanda

Its been a while...

2007-11-28T17:20:00.000Z

In our last post we mentioned that the MOE offical in Kazakhstan had promised to process our dossier by the end of the month, thats only two days away!!!

The only other news since we last posted is that earlier on this week the official repeated her intention to sign off on our dossier before the weekend!

We have had a few false dawns before so we are not getting our hopes up yet, we would appreciate your prayers that the MOE official is as good as her word and we can at last start moving forward.

Watch this space......

Philip & Amanda

Little more news..

2007-11-19T23:48:00.000Z

We finally got some positive news from the official in the MOE in Kazakhstan who is responsible for processing our dossier, apparently she has promised our representatives out there that she will process our dossier by the end of the month. For the last 3 weeks all we have heard is, 'be patient, it will happen soon', etc so its nice to finally hear a definite date.

Obviously our flights will need to be changed again and our new 'date' for leaving is the 11th December. Thank goodness for flexi-tickets!

We firmly believe that God is guiding us to the child He has for us, the timing is not to our liking but it will definetly be perfect!

We will post as soon as we get more news but the sequence of events which will hopefully be taking place soon will be as follows -

1. The MOE official in Astana will send our dossier to Ust.
2. The MOE official in Ust will then issue an LOI to travel to Ust and send it back to Astana.
3. The MOE official in Astana will then forward our LOI to the Kaz embassy in London.
4. We then fly out to London to get our VISA from the embassy.
5. Then we fly out the next day to Kazakhstan, woohoo!

Keep praying!

Philip & Amanda

Still Waiting...

2007-11-13T23:51:00.000Z

***Deep calming breath***

Ok, I can start....

We got word last week that there was yet another delay in proceedings, the official in the MOE in Astana is refusing to send our dossier to Ust for an unknown reason, at least this time however its nothing to do with the fact that we are from the UK and seems to be an internal problem.

Our representative in Kazakhstan is adamant that this is a very minor issue and will be dealt with quickly though having had so many knocks recently its difficult to be optimistic!

On a plus note she again emphasised how many children are available in this region, so much so in fact that the baby house is bursting at the seams and is unable to take any baby's from the maternity hospital! This makes it all the more frustrating that we are being delayed again for what is probably a very trivial reason.

We hope to have more news about our dossier/LOI at the end of the week and will post when that happens, if our dossier does finally get sent this week the MOE offical in Ust has promised to send our LOI out immediately so we should still be able to make our flights on the 24th Nov.

'It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord' Lam 3v26

Pray that our dossier will travel to Ust soon and that we can still make our flights on the 24th.
Pray that we will be guided to the right child for us and that she will be preserved until we can get there.

Philip & Amanda

Ust Info

2007-11-07T00:12:00.000Z

Still impatiently waiting for news about our LOI, we don't expect to hear anything for 10-14 days but that dosen't stop us checking our email every 10mins!!!

While we are waiting i'll post a little info and a few pics about the region we are heading too, Ust-Kamenogorsk (we can already spell it off by heart).

I got the following info from the official website, i'll also post a few photos from the baby house there before the end of the week.

Ust-Kamenogorsk city is the industrial, cultural and administrative center of the East-Kazakhstan region, city was founded in 1720 and is situated in the north-eastern part of the Republic of Kazakhstan, at the confluence of the Irtysh and Ulba rivers, the territory makes up 54,4 thousand hectares.

The average temperature in January ranges from – 17 to –26C˚ with an absolute minimum off – 55C˚, (brrrrrr). As of October 2005 the population of the city numbers 300 900 people.

Keep praying that we will get our LOI sooner than expected and can be out and back before the end of the year.

My sister Avril is still hoping for a Christmas Miracle :)

Philip & Amanda

New Flights

2007-11-03T01:08:00.000Z

We've changed the dates for our flights AGAIN!!! We are now booked for travelling out on the 24th November. Its very fustrating at the moment, days are feeling like weeks and weeks feel like months.

However we know that the Lords timing is perfect and that we will be led to the perfect child for us.

We now have a two week wait where we are unlikely to hear anything but we will update as soon as we get more news.

Keep praying that our LOI will arrive quicker than expected.

Philip & Amanda

The latest

2007-10-29T17:14:00.000Z

I've spent the last 5 minutes writing then deleting the opening paragraph to this blog entry in order to get the right balance between being too positive and too negative. My first attempt was, aarrrgghhh!!!!!!!!!

Overall we are heading in the right direction though as usual not as quickly as we would like, our agency rang us today to say that our dossier has arrived in Ust and we should have a rough travel date by the end of the week, we will not however be able to make our flights on the 6th November.

At this stage we are looking at travelling out around the 17th-20th of November, which would mean that our chances of being back for Christmas are practically 0%. This will probably extend our stay in Kazakhstan as the whole country seems to shut down for the first couple of weeks in January. On a more positive note our agency was able to confirm that there are multiple infant girls available in the region.

Once we have a better idea of when we will be travelling we will let you all know, KEEP PRAYING!!

'For with God nothing shall be impossible' luke 1v37

Philip & Amanda