Baby Shower #1

Brandon's friend Kathleen and her mom Sue hosted a ladies tea and baby shower for her on Saturday afternoon. Both my Mom, Edith, and Brandon's Mom, Pam, were in attendance, as well as some of the ladies in our extended family, and her close friends. It is moments like these that again humble us because we realize what wonderful friends and family we have to support us. Brandon had a wonderful time, and we thank everyone who was able to come and share in the experience and preparation for Alina's homecoming.

I, on the other hand, occupied myself by working on the baby's room with my father-in-law, Rick. We put up crown molding, which is now ready for me to paint this next weekend. Once that is done and I move the rest of my baseball card & memorabilia collection (aka "clutter") out of her closet, I think her room will be just about ready. Given how much stuff we received at the shower, and the already increasingly limited storage space we have, I realized that I am going to have to be a little more critical of the items that make it to the "keep pile". Who knew the amount of accoutrements a baby has to have? It's unbelievable!

Cousin Andrew

Yesterday at 1:59pm, Alina gained a cousin. My brother Keith and his wife Debbie welcomed their 3rd son, Andrew Nicolas. He was about a month early, so he was a little light for the typical Rice kid. He weighed in at 5 lbs 3 oz, but was still 19 inches long. Considering his Dad is 6'5", and his Mom is like 5'10", you know that he'll be a tall one.

It was great to go to the hospital last night and experience the first few hours of Andrew's life with him. It was a wonderful experience, and I am so grateful that Brandon and I were able to share that time with Keith & Debbie. It really hit me that this is something that I won't get to experience with my own child, so I soaked it all in. It's not that I am not disappointed that I won't have that experience with Alina, it's just different. Parents who don't adopt will not have the same experience that we will, and I think they are missing out, too. We will get to experience something that not a lot of people out there will do, and for that we are truly blessed and lucky.

The other thing that was cool was to see all my nephews with their Grandma (my Mom). She was so excited to hold Andrew, and to have Daniel (Greg's son), Nate & Caleb (Keith's oldest sons) surrounding her. I looked at that and marveled at what a great group Alina will soon be a part of, and that she will be the sole princess. It's going to be a cool ride.

The Last Step

In order to get a court date set in Russia, one of the last things we have to do is to get an evaluation done by a psychologist. We met with a psychologist last Friday, and it went well. We basically just had a conversation so the doctor could get to know us.

As a follow-up, she had to give us personality tests. Brandon took hers on Monday, and I go in tomorrow to take mine. The test consists of over 500 questions, and they are all True/False. Once she gets the results back, she will be able to write up our evaluations and we can send those on to be reviewed and eventually sent to Russia to be translated for the courts. So now the big wait begins as we will no longer have any paperwork to complete on our end.

This has certainly become a much harder wait than we ever could have anticipated. For the first couple weeks, I think the void of missing her was masked a bit by the excitement of our trip to Russia, and our visits with her. But now that the buzz from our first trip has started to subside, our second trip cannot come fast enough. We hope that our paperwork will get to the courts in Russia soon because July and August are apparently big vacation months there, so we hope that doesn't present any further delays to bringing our angel home sooner rather than later.

Sad News

This week, we had to say goodbye to one of Alina's grandmothers. Glenda, Brandon's stepmom, passed away at the young age of 56. She was so excited about meeting Alina, and had apparently already picked up a couple items for her. We are so sad that she will not be able to meet Alina in person, but we are thankful that she was able to see pictures of her, and knew that she would be coming home soon.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Brandon's Dad, Lonnie, and with our extended family.

Pictures & Video

So many of you have asked how we are coping with having to leave Alina behind in Russia. Well, it certainly isn't easy, but it has helped that we have been extremely busy getting paperwork together for the courts plus pulling together her room at our house. We also bought Brandon a new vehicle this weekend and sold her Beetle. It was a very sad day in the Rice household as Brandon loved that car, but it just wouldn't have worked with a toddler. So we bought a low-mileage, "pre-owned" 2005 Honda CRV.

The other thing that helps is that we took several pictures of her and about 45 minutes worth of video during our visit. So we look at the pictures pretty much every day. Her adorable face already occupies several select locations around our house, plus each of us has a small photo album that we carry with us (Brandon's in her purse, and mine in my laptop bag.....fine my man-purse).

We showed the video to my Mom last night and she mentioned that I seem to be on camera with the baby more than Brandon is. I think it's because Brandon is not a huge fan of being video taped, but she and my Mom concocted a story that makes me sound more like an attention hog (what, me?). I did get back at her about her camera-work, which can only be best described as very "Blair Witch". For those that didn't see that movie, the camera is all over the place and by the end of it you felt like you had been on a roller-coaster ride you were so dizzy. So great that we will keep these memories and share them with our daughter so that some day she can make fun of us, too.