Home and rested

We are home, arrived home about 9:30pm Saturday night. LONG day of travels on Friday and Saturday. We are feeling good, it was great to kiss our boys and have a nice long hot shower!

Here we are in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. BEAUTIFUL!

Plans are being made for the return trip to pick up Taryn. Looks like Julie will travel back to Moscow the weekend of October 10/11/12th, and this time Grandma Sue is going! Yes, Dad is going to stay home and run the house, while Julie and Sue go get our girl!

We will post more when we know exact details, but no matter what, we will be home with our daughter, at the latest, by October 17th.

The boys are really excited with their Russian souvenirs and some Russian rubles we brought back. We are all very anxious to complete this final journey to begin our life with this precious little girl.

Thank you all for watching our blog, we love keeping all our family and friends informed.

'till next time...

We are parents again!

This is a short post. We are doing well. Today is Friday here in Russia and our court went well yesterday. We are parents to Taryn finally! We were unable to convince the judge to waive the 10 days and so we will have one more trip back to Moscow to pick her up in 10 or 14 days.



We were unable to see her on this trip. Too complicated to get to her. The orphanage doctor said she is doing well, happy, and ready for mama and papa. She also brought us some pictures of her. She looks good.



We have had a very good trip. We are well taken care of and everyone is doing their best to make us comfortable.



I am sorry to not post more, we have not had any internet access while in Cheboksary, and today we are signing paperwork and getting ready to leave on the train at 5pm today russia time, or 9am today US time.



We will be home on Saturday for sure.



Love to all and thank you for your prayers. See you all soon.



Love Rick and Jules

Rick and Julie in Moscow

Hi everyone, right now it is Monday. In Michigan it is 9:49am, I think. In Moscow it is 5:49pm. We have been up for 24 hours. Our flight from Atlanta to Moscow was 11 HOURS, direct. We flew Delta, 1st class. It was a wonderful flight. Great food, down comforter blanket and down pillow for each passanger. Rick was able to sleep more than Julie. Julie watched 2 movies and played solitare on the individual seat tv. We arrived in Moscow at 10am Moscow time and were picked up by an Adoption Associates employee, Natalya. She is very nice and drives crazy, like all Moscovites do! We spent TWO and a HALF HOURS in traffic! Unbelieveable. Middle of the day on Monday and the traffic was so thick. Natalya brought us to our Marriott hotel and got us checked in. We immediately went to sleep. We each slept for about 3 hours and are right now getting ready to go adventure outside for some food and maybe walk down to Red Square. Not sure how much we will see at this late hour. We have to see several doctors tomorrow for medical evaluations (required of all adopting parents, apparently). So then from there we plan to do some sightseeing with Natalya and then she will take us to the train station for boarding a train to CHEBOKSARY. We will ride the train all night and arrive in CHEBOKSARY on Wednesday morning. Not sure when we will have internet again. We are in the hotel in Moscow tonight only, then depending on how court goes, we will just have to see.
You can email to us on our yahoo email account: rickmcguirk@yahoo.com

Thank you for checking our blog. We hope to post good news again soon. Rick & Jules

Traveling to Russia!

We were informed on Tuesday, September 16th, that Rick and I would be traveling back to Russia for court!
We leave on Sunday, Sept. 21st and will be in court on Thursday, Sept. 25th.We are unsure as to how long we will be gone at this point.

Russia has a 10-day waiting period after court and if the judge does not waive this 10 day waiting period, we will fly back home after court, wait for 8 or 9 days, then fly back to pick up our daughter. I know, three trips... but we would not be able to stay in Russia for the entire wait time... too hard. If the judge does waive the 10 day waiting period, then we will come home with our daughter. At this point, we don't know how to plan.

We are excited, scared, nervous, anxious and more... all bundled up. Our dream is finally becoming a reality. SOON!

Our kids are staying home with Grandma Sue, Whitney (our most wonderful babysitter) and another relative, "Lola" (Grandma in Filipino) Sonja. Sonja is Julie's grandfather's wife. Sonja lives in Muskegon with Julie's grandfather, Jim. She is coming to Mt. Pleasant to help for a week or so. We have had many offers to help with kids and school and practices from many wonderful friends. We know our kids will be in good hands, while we travel to fulfill our dream.

So, we are hoping to be able to post on our blog while we are traveling. We will be in Moscow for 2 days before traveling to Cheboksary, where we will stay for court. Most likely while we are in Cheboksary, we will not be able to post; no Internet services for tourists. So, while in Moscow, we can access the Internet, and will try to post.

Thank you to all of you for watching our blog. We are anxious to complete this journey and start "Livin' the dream" !

Until next time...

Witnesses of the CMU vs. U of Georgia game

Rick and Julie went with group of Central Michigan University alum and the athletic department to watch CMU play the #2 college team in the country, the University of Georgia Bulldogs, Saturday, September 6th. We had a fabulous trip and supported those chippewas as they played a tough team. CMU left the field with a score of 56 to 17, and those Georgia Bulldog fans were some of the nicest people ever. Very friendly to us chippewas. The CMU athletic department treated us like royalty with a quick flight to Atlanta, a one night stay at the Hilton, Northeast Atlanta, a trip downtown Atlanta for dinner, tailgating before the game and of course, seats at the game that were just awesome!

Here is a couple of pics we took of our QB, Dan LaFevour on the field in motion and here is a shot of the SOLD-OUT 90,000 + spectator stadium. It was just a sea of RED. Wonderful school spirit those fans had and it was so awesome to be there and witness such an incredible event. GO FIRE UP CHIPS!

(Double click on pic to enlarge).

Adoption Update

Hi everyone! Cool nights are here and school is back in session. Football and soccer practices have begun and the nightly homework will be here soon. While we are so busy with our daily routines, not much has changed with the adoption of our daughter, Taryn. No contact has been made to us from Russia or the adoption agency. We had all of the required paperwork for our court date done and sent to Russia in July. So now we wait... wait... wait.

We are hoping and praying to hear some news any day now and go over and get her. We promise to update the blog as soon as we get some news.

The conflict with Russia and Georgia seems to be over for the most part now, and our agency assured us, even when they were fighting, that the conflict had no affect on our adoption or our travel to Russia for the adoption.

So, the bedroom for her is almost ready (she is sharing a room with Tyler) and she has plenty of clothes to get started with when she comes home... we have picked up some dollys and pink toys for the playroom and a pink toothbrush too!

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, we appreciate each of you that continue to ask if we are any closer...

Every day that goes by we know she is getting older and it pains us to think about her all the way over there, alone and sad; while we are here, ready for her and excited to get her.

God will lead us to her and when the time is right, it will all happen; we pray for her every day and pray for a smooth trip there to get her and to bring her home to complete our family.

Until we post again...