Not Just Another New Year's Eve

This has been a very busy week for us. Our visas arrived today! Yippee! Waiting on the visas seems to have been a stressor for many adoptive parents. Glad that is one less for us to worry about. Here's a list of what we've been up to:

1. We bought backpacks to take on our trip. We will each have a backpack as our carry-on and we will pack essential items in them - those things we can't live without in Russia:
   -Copy of our dossier
   -Important travel documents
   -Dress clothes for court
   -Miscellaneous hygiene items
   We will let you know how they work out
2. We are starting to gather items to take with us and organize them on the bed in our spare bedroom. Currently, it looks like a cyclone hit the room but I am convinced this is the only way to get everything organized in time.
3. We bought long underwear - everyone says we will be glad we have them.
4. We also bought hand and toe warmers, just in case. Our search for adequate boots is not going so well. We've found many stylish boots but not very warm - we will continue the search this weekend.
5. We bought some fold up slippers to wear at the orphanage.
6. We have been working on a photo album to leave with our little girl. We are almost finished, it has 17 photos of us, family, our house, and our pets. We still want to add captions in both English and Russian (a bit of a challenge but I hope we can finish it).
7. We are trying to plan some activities for when we visit our little angel. She is 9 years old and we hope we can break the ice and spend some quality time with her. We were told we will be able to visit her three times when we are there. Here are some ideas so far:
   -Bubbles
   -Play-doh
   -Coloring books and crayons
   -Drawing tablets and markers
   -Etch-a-Sketch
   -Puzzles
   We sent a photo of our cats to be made into a puzzle through Creative Memories.
   (We hope it arrives on time)
   We thought it would be fun to put it together with her and then leave it with her.
8. This weekend we will shop for boots and a coat for Don.
9. We also still need a few gifts for the people who will be assisting us in Russia. We will try to finish shopping for those items also this weekend.
10. We have our cash but need to check the bills to make sure there are no marks, creases, or tears.
11. Our goal is that we have all shopping and errands completed by Sunday afternoon. Classes start on Monday so we will both be very busy with the new semester.

If you have any other ideas, we are very open to them. Please leave a comment.
Tonight is New Year's Eve, we have no special plans, just to relax.
Blessings,
Elizabeth