Trip #2 Agenda

Going into trip #1, I tried to do a detailed agenda based on what we were told to expect. I'm not going to do that this time. What we were told to expect and what happened were different, so it is not worth me trying to explain what may happen day by day. It's Russia, so all of this is subject to change.

We do know this, we arrive on Sunday and leave for home on Friday. I don't expect anything to go on Sunday when we arrive. They will probably want us to rest. We'll probably go to dinner with some folks we will be traveling with, depending how everybody feels.

The rest of the week, well who knows! We hope to visit Jason Alexei as much as we can. We would like to spend some time exploring Vidnoye so we can get some pictures of the town the orphanage is located in. Something we will try to push for is a trip to Dmitrov, the town Jason Alexei was actually born. It is two hours from the orphanage, so we shall see. I don't know what our coordinators will say about that. I think we owe it to our son to try. If we have to be pushy, then we'll be very pushy about that.

At some point, we are going to have court. That is the primary objective. If we accomplish that, then the trip is a success.

Once court is completed, we'll go see a doctor for a rubber stamp medical exam for Jason Alexei. We could get to go on our first road trip with him that day. He'll live in the orphanage until we get him on the third trip, but he'll have to go to this exam in order for his passport and immigration paper work to get completed. We won't get to take him by ourselves, one of the workers from the orphanage will be with us. Nevertheless, if it works out we could get a lot of time with him that day.

Just an FYI for the blog addicts. I don't know how photo intensive the blog will be on this trip. It all depends on how things progress. Aspects of the trip won't be touristy as last time (like doctor exams and court hearings). Lots of the touristy stuff we did last time was intended to distract us while delays were occurring.

If you are new to the blog, you can catch up by starting with the February archives. The trip #1 reports start there and continue into the March archives.

That's about all for now. We are nearly done packing. We are just about ready to go. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.