Homeward Bound

Thanks for all your prayers, positive thoughts and well wishes.
Yesterday we were down to 3 options: a kindhearted stranger to bring our paperwork along on the plane with them, our Moscow contact buying a very expensive plane ticket at our expense to fly the docs to us, or having the docs sent by train and rescheduling our flights to Monday.
Obviously the first option was the most preferable albeit the least likely to happen. Well, I’m happy to say that miracles really do happen! We got the call at midnight last night that some kindhearted soul was bringing our paperwork and at 6:30AM our coordinator in Astana phoned to say she had the docs in her hands. So now we are madly packing and we should be in the air by 5:50PM Winnipeg time today (Wednesday). And after a 24 hour journey we should be arriving in Winnipeg at 5:30PM on Thursday. You are more than welcome to come to the airport if you would like to. We will be arriving from Toronto on Air Canada flight #267 at 5:33PM on Thursday, October 8th.

What a year it’s been for us. We went into 2009 thinking that we would get a call to go to Kaz most likely in the winter of 2010. So while we were waiting we decided to go along with our church on a life-changing trip to Africa in February. Then in May we got the call that our letter of invitation had arrived. Surprise! A few other families from our agency got their invites around the same time, although they were invited into Kaz within a couple weeks. I began to worry a little bit when it turned out we were only invited to arrive in August. I’ve heard of other families whose departure day was close and then their agency phoned to tell them their invitation had been postponed. But we decided to just trust the process and have some faith so when July 21st rolled around we got on the plane to Germany and prayed that there wouldn’t be any last minute changes. We had an awesome time in Salzburg, Munich, Heidelberg, the Rhine Valley & Frankfurt and before we knew it we were on a plane to Astana. I kept telling Ken “I hope they know we’re coming.” I was totally envisioning being stranded in Astana but within about 10 seconds of clearing customs I heard someone call my name and there was our coordinator Bayan. At this point it was midnight so we had a short sleep at an airport hotel and in the morning we were whisked off to Borovoe and then finally to the baby house in the afternoon. And then we finally met our Cooper – once he finally awoke from his nap. To think that he was very quiet, shy and unsure of us that day. Sometimes when it’s a little wild around here I wonder where that calm, quiet boy is. 😉

I won’t bore you with all the details right now but after some waiting, some hurdles, some more waiting, completion of some major steps, some more waiting, a few more hurdles…here we are 2 months &
3 days later getting ready to come home.

There are so, so, so many people to thank I’m sure that we’ll forget someone so please know that we appreciate the support of each and every one of you.

Mom & Dad Neumann – Thank you for your support in every way imaginable. Without you this whole process never would have happened – literally. Cooper is very excited to come home and meet his Nana & Papa.

Jeff & Trisha – Thank you for taking care of (& loving) our dear Scully. We loved hearing all her updates and it makes us happy to know she has a second home where she is so comfortable.

Greg & Marcie – Thanks for taking care of our house for over two months. That is a huge job and we so appreciate all the time and energy you’ve taken to do that.

Marla, Trac & the boys – Thank you for calling so regularly, for giving good advice and even for posting our blog and forwarding the comments to us. Thanks also for all the hand-me-downs. Cooper is already putting them to good use. We are looking forward to him having some new cousin playmates.

Chris – Thanks for always, always being such a reliable (& willing) on- call dog sitter.

All the Kaz adoptive parents (particularly Jila and Julian & Sara) – Thanks for all the support and advice. When you’re halfway around the world and you’re confused or bewildered about what’s going on it’s very reassuring to hear from people who’ve been there & done that.

Our adoption agency in Canada, our social worker and all the people who worked for us here in Kaz – without you there is NO way we would have been able to navigate this complex process on our own. A big HUGE thanks!

To anyone who gave us a phone call – Thanks for lifting our spirits and letting us hear a familiar voice from home.

To all our regular faithful blog commenters – Thanks for being so loyal. We looked forward to your comments to brighten every one of our days.

To anyone who left a comment – Thanks for giving us a pick-me-up on days that at times were monotonous or stressful.

To our anonymous readers – Thanks for taking the time to read about our journey. We hope you enjoyed it even a small fraction as much as we did.

To all our family & friends who kept us in your prayers – Thank you, it made a HUGE difference.

To all the strangers who kept phoning us and keeping us on the line babbling something in Russian even when we told you we couldn’t speak Russian – Thanks for keeping us such good company 😉

To Cooper – Thanks for letting us be your Mom & Dad. We’ll try very, very hard to do a good job.

As for the future of this blog, we are probably going to keep blogging at least a few times a week. Hopefully we’ll have some interesting stories to tell you. Well we hope to see most of you in person very, very soon. Paka for the final time from Kazakhstan!