Happy December!

Okay, first things first - I must have mentioned Michael somewhere along the lines and I intentionally did NOT use their names right now so as NOT to confuse anyone...But, hey - I GOT CONFUSED! Okay - so here is the deal...Tyler is Tyler Michael - his birthname is Mikhail - and he is called Misha. We call him Misha, too - because, well...that is his NAME...for NOW. But when we got to court (hopefully next Tuesday) his name will be legally changed to Tyler Michael Fanelli. So - you don't need to remember his middle name! Zach is actually named Eduard. He is called "Edik" which sounds like Eric and since we have one Ed in the family, We are switching his middle name to "Eric" - so HIS name will be Zachary Eric Fanelli. Did I clear up the confusion? Hope so!

We are officially "set" with a court date on next Tuesday. That means that as long as the Adoption Center gets all of our paperwork back by next Tuesday morning, we are good to go. We get done with court and then we count down 10 days in Simferopal. Then we count down another 5 between getting their new passports and getting their VISAs from the US Embassy and their medical clearances...and THEN we hope we can get a flight outta here!!! It will be, of course, the busiest possible time for us to fly. We don't care if we come in on Christmas Day - WE WANT TO COME HOME!!!

We meet with the judge tomorrow for our first appointment - no idea why - we just do. Then next Tuesday, we have our court day with the judge, the 2 jurors (which aren't anything like our jurors) and the boys and their caretakers and us and Vasya...should be quite a crowd.

Tonight we went to see Tyler. I think he may be the snuggler of the two. It is hard to tell at this point but he seems a little more huggy than Zach. Of course...that may change the next time we talk to Zach. We had a good time with Tyler - only about an hour and a half but we made paper airplanes and tossed around balls and daddy drew with him again (Tom is getting to be quite the artist!). He still seems to be very IN to figuring out how things work. He also seems to struggle more with the language (English) than Zach. He just isn't as interested which will be quite a rude awakening to him when he hits the ground in Chicago and doesn't have Vasya there to interpret for him! I am still falling in love with these guys more each time I am with them. I am so ready to get them home (not to mention give them a nice warm bath with a lot of SOAP!!!) Of course that won't happen here in Simferopal because today, not only do we not have HOT water - we have NO water. It has been off all day. We HOPE it is on when we get back...but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if it wasn't.

We have found the other internet cafe that is about a mile from home. We will be walking here and hopefully we can post more often (today it is raining and Vasya drove us). We tried out one other and had no success doing anything so...this is the closet one that works!

Prayers...we can use them! And we appreciate them. Pray for the paperwork still - we need it by Tuesday a.m. at the very latest. Pray that things go well with the judge (they OUGHT to - his "expediting fees" are pretty high). Pray that the money holds out - so far, it is. We know we have at least $1000 worth of costs for the US Embassy and another $500 each for the orphanages. It will be close, but hopefully, it will be fine. Pray for Vasya - he talked to us a bit more last night and his baby turned 4 months old on the 30th. His wife and son had a hard time the last 2 months of her pregnancy and his son has some problems and has to see the doctor every month. Of course since he is here with us, he isn't there with them and you can imagine, that would be tough. He is a great guy - and he misses his wife and son.

Vissyo!