Packed and ready to go get our boy!

Well, we have packed our bags, lined up the dog sitter (thanks Shawna),and are ready to go. Inspite of packing for 3 and playing courier for a family who adopted from Umit 2 years ago, we are way under the weight limit. I may have to do some more shopping in order to keep stuff from moving around in the suitcases for the trip home.

One of the in-country coordinators had a baby and we happen to know one of the families she worked with. The family asked if we would deliver a baby gift for them. We were a little concerned at the size of the gift at first but once we got everything pack we had plenty of room.

It is around 7:30am on Saturday in Taraz currently. We should arrive their around 9am on Monday morning. So in about 48hrs we should be reconnected with our son and find out when we officially get to spring him from Umit and bring him back to the hotel with us. I still can't believe we are that close. It seemed like this moment would never get here.

We will definetly post while in Taraz but I'm not sure if we will be able to from Almaty since I don't even know where we are staying. I would hope that internet access would be easier in Almaty since it is a big city but I won't know until we get there.

Next post either Frankfurt or Taraz!

How much do the bags really weigh?

We can laugh about this now but at the time it was quite frustrating. We managed to get everything in our 2 suitcases with room to spare. Then we weighed them. The one bag was under the weight limit and the other was over. So we moved things around. Now they are both over. We re-arranged items several times, took things out and put in our carry-on and could not seem to get both under the weight restrictions. I knew we were in trouble when we took items out of a bag and it weighed more than it did before. We were using one of those hand held scales that you hook on to the bag and hold it up. Well, it ends up Mr. Muscle was jerking it a little to hard and it was making everything seem heavier. When we tried on last time and slowly lifted the bag it ends up both are about 3-5 lbs under the weight limit instead of 5-7 lbs over! We re-checked several times just to be sure.

We are now officially packed and ready to go. Next post will be from Heathrow in London if we can link into the internet.

Nine days to go...

With just 9 days until we leave preparations are in full swing! Friday I met with the Bank to finalize arrangements and over the weekend we started gathering items we need to take with us and putting them in one place. So, I guess you could say we have our staging area in place. In some respects it doesn't look like a whole lot but we haven't even begun to get clothes together, complete our travel medicine kit or gather our toilettries together. Some of this will go with us on the first trip and some will go on the 2nd/3rd trip.

This is mostly items to keep us occupied while traveling and when not visiting at the baby house, items to use at the baby house, a start on our travel medicine kit, a start on the electronics, some gifts and a few things to use for packing. We hope to figure out tomorrow what we still need to buy and get the shopping done by Wednesday evening. Time to compare the excel checklists of what we want to take against what we have already and what we have done and what we still need to do. Fortunately I can say the last part is pretty much done now. We have the must have and important items completed. Everything else is incidentals by comparison. Friday we take the pooches to grandma and grandpa's house on the eastern shore where they will stay while we are gone. Then back Saturday evening so I can be at church bright and early on Sunday morning. We sing at both services on Easter.