Two Wings and a Prayer

Bob left this afternoon to go and finish up the adoption! We are so happy that Mariada will be home soon, but I bet you’re wondering what could go wrong now. Well it's the passport, it should have been completed over a week ago and as of yesterday it wasn’t. I know it’s crazy, they have tickets to return on Friday and we are praying hard that they can get it finished by then. Bob will land tomorrow afternoon and is planning to go to Fier first thing Monday morning and I have a feeling that he will not be leaving without her passport! They could then do the embassy thing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and be home Friday. Can you believe it?

So please say a prayer that it all falls into place. Having Mariada home for Church next weekend would be so wonderful!

I know, I know

It has been forever since I posted, but really ever since I got back I have been overwhelmed with stuff. I went from sitting around waiting in Albania to having tons of stuff to catch up on here in Michigan! I was home for a few days and then jumped on another plane out to see Sara in CO. She is in her own heaven out there, so happy to be skiing everyday and has really found her grove. Her skiing has become so much stronger this year! She did take a fall on her training run and was out of the races for the weekend, but her coach wanted her to stay on the skis so we got to pleasure ski with her for a few days and honestly she is so strong, her dad and uncle Kirk thought they would show her up a bit, but she flew by them like they where standing still! I thought they where both going to faint!! So funny. It was great to see her and it was extra special that we stayed with Kirk, Cindy and Emily, always great to spent time with dear friends!

So update on Mariada. She is staying with the BCS house parents. We talk at least once a day and she is doing well. Of course she is bored with the waiting and I can totally understand. We have the birth certificate and continue to wait for the passport. Bob will be going back on Feb.6th to wrap-up the embassy stuff and we hope to fly them both home on the 12th!!!

I signed Mariada up for in-door soccer that starts on the 15th and she can't wait. We are so ready for her to be home! UGH the waiting....

A Good Day

Good news, Fredi got our court decree today, which means that we can now start working on getting Mariada's new birth certificate, passport and Visa to come home! I am still going to return on Wednesday, because it is looking like passports are taking up to three weeks now in the town of Fier. You have to get the your passport from the town you were born in and Fier has a backlog from the New Year, here's what they are telling us, like I said before New Years is BIG here and many many people came home for it, well they are all staying until they can get the "new" passport so this has created a back log, and under normal circumstance they would let an adoption passport skip to the front of the line, but these people are all trying to get back to Greece or Italy for work, so they won't let us skip. That's what we are being told, so even though we have the decree they still think it will be a month until Mariada can come home. Again so frustrating, I just keep telling myself, God's time, not our time.

I have Internet today! I am going to try and post some pictures hopefully the connection will allow the upload, fingers are crossed!



Burtrint the stairway into the castle.

The Chapel it to once had a beautiful mosaic floor.

Much of the ruins are now under water.

Mom and Maraida standing above the Blue Eye.

The city of Saranda as seen from the Saranda castle.

Decision Time

We had to make a very difficult decision today. The Judge told us that we would have our decree on Wednesday the 13th, if the courts are open by then. Then we could start the process of the other paperwork. Mariada was born in a different town than where the orphanage is, but the process many years ago should have been to transfer her paperwork, well that didn’t happen, so I had asked them to do that during these past seven weeks, they messed it up and now her paperwork is back in her birth town, the big problem with that is that no one has ever requested adoption paperwork from this town and no one has any idea how it’s going to go, if they would rush the passport etc. Our dear friend Fredi made a few phone calls on my behalf and it sounded like they would not, apparently they have a “new” passport here in Albania and they take two weeks. The situation in Shkoder continues to get worse, yesterday the US embassy ordered all Americans out of the city, there is now a check point going into he city so I wouldn’t be allowed in. Long story short, my original flight home is for the 13th and Bob and I have made the decision that I will be taking it. Mariada is going to stay with the house parents at the Bethany complex here in Tirana were she will be safe from any flooding and they have a 12 year old son and 14 year old daughter so although we are all upset about it, it’s the best solution we can come up with. Staying for another month is too long for me to be gone and Bob and I (and originally Mariada) need to get out too see Sara. I also have missed everyone one of Ben’s swim meets (he broke a school record) and Dad Gezon is awake most days, so it would be good to see him. And of course our sweet Lucky dog is still fighting his cancer. And last but not least I miss my husband, this has been our longest time apart and it’s much easier in theory.

I think we are still in shock at what a bumpy road it has been but we are happy that we are in the last few weeks. Soon we will all be home forever.

The Weather is not on Our Side

Thursday the fifteen days was up. This would normally be very good news, its means that you now have the piece of paper that allows you to start other paperwork so that you can go home. But for us it meant that the Bethany people called me to have a face to face meeting. Yeah, I knew very bad news was on its way. What has happened is so unbelievable you couldn’t even think of it for novel. Apparently the rain in Shkoder did not stop because I left, and the snow in the mountains has also decided to melt, causing the damn to over flow and cause great concern for possibly blowing out all together. This news has frightened the local court house into closing until they decide it is safe to open! This means we don’t get the piece of paper that we need to get the other pieces of paper to come home! No, I cannot believe it, now it’s a who do you believe game. Some people are telling me that the court will open in a day or two, yet others say it will be a month. I am somewhat at a loss as to what to do, I can’t stay here for another six weeks, and if it does take a month for the court to open that’s what I’m looking at.
Ugh, I can’t believe this.

Day Trip

Today is our last day in Saranda. We are sorry to leave this very pretty place, but I am happy that soon we will be on to the next step to come home.

We went out sightseeing today and I am sorry to tell you that I left my USB cord up at the hotel and I will not be hiking up the hill to retrieve it for today's post! But if you really want to see pic's right away just google, everything we saw can be found on-line :)

First we went up to the castle that over looks the town of Saranda, it a pretty view but most of the castle is now a restaurant bar so it's not the same as the Skhoder castle. After that we drove out to what is commonly known as The Blue Eye. It's the start of a river and it's really cool, the pictures I took don't even come close to showing you how cool it is so google may be better. The spring is 50 meters deep (according to our guide) and it's the prettiest color blue, I forget how fast the water is coming up but it was neat. Then we went to the ancient city of Burtit, this was my favorite, it's a city from before Christ's time that was excavated in the early twenties and is still being dug up. You hike all over into the diff rent sections, if you had a boat you could see even more of it. It's over a square mile and so neat, they have uncovered the amphitheater, a baptism area with a beautiful mosaic floor, a chapel and the main castle, a few graves, just really awesome. We had a late lunch and my Mother and Mariada are taking naps while I came to the (smokey :( cafe to catch-up.

Sorry about the pic's will post in a couple of days! Tomorrow we drive back to Tirana, hope it's a sunny day, it's a pretty drive!

Hello from sunny Saranda!

Wow, have we been busy. Tuesday after the orphanage party we called Bethany to arrange our drive down to Saranda that they said they would do for us. But they changed their minds about that so Fredi feeling bad about us missing our chance to take our trip quickly saved the day and arranged for Mandi, a friend to drive us. The only thing was that we had to get to Tirana that same day! So we packed up and cleaned and hoped in a taxi and showed up in Tirana about seven that same night. We stayed at our boggy friends Cydil’s place again. This quite frankly was WONDERFUL! Then early the next morning we were on the road. We have been enjoying Saranda very much; I love the fact that it has more than 310 sunny days a year! It has been in the 70’s everyday and the town sits right on a bay, it’s beautiful. I have not been able to use my computer though, we do have an Internet café right next to our hotel, but it’s so slow that I can only get Skype to work, and it was closed for the New Year. Speaking of New Years, here in Albania well it’s huge, New Years’ Eve is crazy, Saranda is built into the side of a mountain and it’s mostly condo buildings, but that does not stop people from blowing off thousands and thousands of fireworks! Some off the balconies, but mostly from the street, and since we are on the 4th floor we had the pleasure of them blowing off right about face level! It’s crazy, easily the most dangerous thing I have seen them do yet and thats saying something! But it was fun. Then New Years Day EVERYTHING is closed so we found one little café that was open and the guy took pity on us and made us a few sandwiches I have no idea what was on them but whatever, we were starving and they where good. We have a few more days here and we hope to take in few sites on Monday, then head back to Tirana on Tuesday, my mom leaves on Thursday and that is the last day of the 15 day waiting period, so on Friday we can start the paperwork to come HOME!!!


So far we like Saranda very much!

The view from our hotel room, that the Greek island of Corfu, but Mariada isn't allowed to go without a Visa, so we'll stay put.

This doesn't do it justice, but it's an idea!