Oliver Maxim is officially a Baer

Hello everyone! At 12:05 p.m. Moscow time yesterday, February 20, 2008, we officially became the parents of Oliver Maxim Baer! It has been a whirlwind week so far. Oliver is absolutely adorable and just the happiest little guy. We just love him to pieces. The judge we super nice but serious and asked us many questions about our 3 daughters and how they feel about having a baby brother, etc. She seemed pleased that I am a stay at home mom. When she asked me if I would love him as much as I do Brynn my eyes immediately filled with tears as I said "I already do". Today we were handed a pile of official documents and his Russian passport so we are ready to head to Moscow. However, the sad news is that we will not be heading back to Moscow until Saturday and will not get custody of him until then either. It makes us sad that he will be in the orphanage another day than we had planned but some things cannot be helped. There have been many things happening while we are here that I may someday share but we are not even sure how much of this trip I will choose to share with Oliver in the years to come. We want him to know what a happy time in our lives this is for us, not the stress and frustration we have experienced. When we walk in the orphanage and see his smile, all of it goes away. God has truly blessed us and we are grateful!

We are at the Ritz Carlton Kirov (Vyatka) again and have been downgraded to a regular room with deluxe twin beds this visit! We have made a great discovery....that the smoke comes in from the bathroom vent! So if you close the bathroom door only the clothes at my Chinese laundry smell really bad! The room is worse than last time, supposedly there is a waiting list for rooms here! I wish I could upload a picture of Oliver but this computer is not capable! I will be certain to post pictures as soon as we return to Moscow!

We have eaten in the same cafe everyday so far. Don and I are wishing for a new menu and we have ordered many things outside what we are offered, beef, chicken or fish. I love the Greek salad and my new find today was the fish soup! We have really only been eating the one meal a day plus the occassional granola bar. We have been getting an intersting mini breakfast in the hotel cafe the last two mornings. No matter what you order off the limited American menu you get two over easy eggs with chuncks of ham thrown in. Very interesting. The yogurt is great and I stocked up at the 24 Yaka next door tonight along with bottled water. We are getting a bit braver venturing out!

Tomorrow our wonderful, wonderful translator, Lena is taking us shopping. We truly think of her as a wonderful person and enjoy her! She has truly been our rock the last few days. The other families in our group are great as well but we are all under a bit of stress and tempers can run short but really we are just a team! Tomorrow is shopping and visiting the orphanage and Saturday is an orphanage day with the 8:00 p.m. train to Moscow, we arrive in Moscow Sunday mid morning! We have a free day Monday and then busy days Tuesday and Wednesday.

I will post more later much love to all!