A great home cooked meal with family.

We got home safe and sound late Tuesday night. We're still missing a suitcase but we made it in one piece. Last we heard our missing luggage was in London and will be sent to us via FedEx once it arrives in the US. Our heads have been spinning since last week with all kinds of ups and downs. We are so happy to be home were we could brush our teeth with tap water and sleep in the most comfortable bed EVER but we are still ever so tired and missing our Sophia. Our doggies were very happy to see us at first and then they seemed like they were mad at us. Several treats fixed that problem and it's all good now.

Last night Wanda (Melissa's Mom) slaved in our kitchen to feed us and several other family members. It was AWESOME!! Some of the best food and company we have had in a long time. We had lasagna and she made a special dish for me of shrimp oliver. There was no strange food anyplace in sight. I have noticed that since we've been home the neighborhood horses seem to mad at us. Do you think they know we ate there distant cousin? Just kidding.

Today we're both heading back to work. We are trying to save some time off for when Sophia comes home. We will keep everyone posted with news of Sophia's homecoming as we get it, let's all pray for a speedy one.

We're in Almaty

Just a quick post to let everyone know we made it to Almaty.

We visited Sophia two times today for an hour each. She was just great and giving us hugs and kisses. It was hard walking out of the baby house today knowing we would never return and our baby girl has to be there for about 7 more weeks.

After our morning visit we figured we would try to go eat at our favorite little cafe were we could get an egg omelet. We guess since it was a Sunday morning the hours are different then normal because they were closed. We ended up going to the coffee shop. The only problem is they don't have an English menu and the only thing we ever ordered from there is pizza. So we had pizza for breakfast.

Once we arrived here in Almaty we met with the escort to make plans for tomorrow. We asked if there was a McDonald's in town and he gave us directions to the McBurger which he said is very good. NOT!!! It was gross but a meal for tonight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

We are staying at the Hotel Kazzhol. It's like staying in a mansion compared to the apartment we just left. The price is only about $106 a night plus internet usage. We were scared because some blogs we read said they spent $400 a night for a hotel here. Thankfully our bags are stuffed to the gills or Melissa would what to go shopping with the money we "saved".

Melissa turns 35, again.

Today was Melissa’s 35th birthday. Not really but she stopped counting around 6 years ago so do the math. I told Melissa that she better not expect to many of these exotic far away vacation destinations like she had this year. I think that comment cost me a trip to Hawaii in the future. That’s okay with me because I could go for one of those Hawaii burgers that we had on Kauai.

For some reason when we visited Sophia at the baby house today she seemed to know that we are legally her parents now. She was really happy and a joy to be with today. Tomorrow we will have to say our goodbyes when we visit. We know this is going to be a really hard thing to do and the tears will be flowing. We keep telling ourselves that she has great caretakers who have promised to take really good care of her in our absence.

We went to dinner last night with our coordinator, Oleysa and the lady who works for the Ministry of Education (sorry we don‘t know her name). She is one of the key players in the children’s welfare and spoke highly of us at court. It seems like she goes to dinner with the couples after court and we think this keeps good relations between her and Oleysa for future families. We are so glad that we invited her to dinner now. She turn out to be such a sweat lady. On our first day in country we picked her at her office before we headed to the baby house to met Sophia. When we were riding in the car with her she had a file folder. There was a passport size picture of Sophia attached to it. This was the first time I knew what our baby would look like. Since that day we have been trying to get a copy of that photo and asked dozens of times and even said we would be happy with just being able to take a close up photo of it. When we were heading to the restaurant yesterday Oleysa gave us a black and white Xerox copy of the photo. It wasn’t very good but we figured at least we would have some sort of baby photo of her. The lady seen this and took the photo off her file and gave it to us and took the copy. We are so thankful for this. The photo was taken when Sophia arrived at the baby house in December of 2008. Between July 21 and this date she was in a hospital with pneumonia. This is the only known baby photo of Sophia. We love it.

We started to pack our bags already and we will be out of her tomorrow. We are unsure what we will have for internet connection the next few days so forgive us if we don’t keep up. We’ll do our best.<



Some of Sophia's caretakers. These women are amazing.


Us at dinner with Oleysa and the "lady" from the Ministry of Education.

Final Court

And the verdict is: ADOPTION GRANTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are very proud to say that as of 10:45 this morning our adoption was granted. We are officially the parents of Sophia Ivy Ceravola. We are so relieved that we are past this major milestone. Court was relatively easy. The judge asked everyone questions and we stood when we answered them. They were all pretty simple but it’s a nerve racking process. Thankfully the judge asked me (Bill) what name we were going to give this child because I swear Melissa would have said Twilight Cullen or something like that.

After court we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then changed clothes to go pick up Sophia. We had to take her to get her passport photo. She was a real trooper in the car and was really into looking into all the things going on around her. We then returned to the baby house to spend some time with our new daughter. So needless to say it has been a great day.

Tonight we are going to go out for dinner and have some drinks to celebrate becoming parents.

The decision has been made that neither one of us will be returning to Kazakhstan to pick up Sophia. We are going to have her escorted home. It’s a tough decision but there was some issues with our travel Visa’s and it would have been a much longer trip then we were prepared for so just to make things simple we went with the escort option.

Us with the Judge and the Baby House Director.


Us with Oleysa in front of the court house.


Taking Sophia out to get a passport photo.


First official family photo.


Twilight Girl.


Twilight Mom and Girl.

Ready for court.

We were on pins and needles around here the last few days. The only additional paperwork that the judge requested was two death certificates. The request for them were dropped of weeks ago but there has been no sight of them. That is until today. Our coordinator went out to the villages and picked them up. Can you say AMEN? It looks like everything is good to go for court on Friday. It should be a smooth process and we are expecting to hear adoption granted.

Tomorrow we will be wrapping up some final things around here like shopping and paying for our in country flight. They only take cash so we have to go there in person to pay. We will be leaving here on Sunday and spending two nights in Almaty and then were off to the US.

Sophia was a little under the weather yesterday. It seemed like she caught the colds that we have been battling here for the last month. Yesterday morning she just put her head down on Mommy and went to sleep for our entire visit. She has only done this two other times and she wasn’t feeling good then either. She really enjoys our visits and we know if she sleeps she’s needs it. Today she was feeling much better and was all go. She has been real funny with the Cheerios lately. She keeps picking the bottle up and hands it to us. If we start to open it she screams and throws her arms up and down. We love it just as much as she loves the Cheerios.

Nellie got married

One of our translators, Nellie got married to Maxum today at 5:50 p.m. She had told us to stop by and see her get married. We just happen to be in the area with an open schedule so we figured what the hay. Those of you who know Nellie will enjoy seeing her again. She made a beautiful bride. The ceremony took about 20 minutes and it ended with a champagne toast and the sharing of a box of chocolates. After the official ceremony we think they were going to a sit down dinner which we didn’t go to. We're glad we got to see a Kazakh wedding but we didn't understand a single word of it and our translator was a little busy.

Sophia was her usual adorable self the last few days. We just can’t get enough of her. For some reason today she was all into looking at her photo album of family members. It was like she was studying all the people and pointing to them. She really seemed concerned when she was looking at my side of the family. We tried to tell her their in New Orleans and not worry, but she didn’t understand. Just kidding. If she could talk she would have said she has the youngest looking Grannies in the world.

Enjoy the pictures and video, it’s movie night at the Ceravola’s, AGAIN.