Ahhh Summer...

I am not sure what says summer better than swinging on a tree swing through the sprinkler... Today is our "last day of summer", school starts for the kids tomorrow. We'll celebrate tonight with a special dinner and dessert and wake up early for the big day...1st and 3rd grade...these are to be very significant years for us indeed!

It has been exactly 4 weeks since we boarded a plane to travel what felt like a million miles to meet little Ivan. Today has been a hard day for me. I think because it feels like an ending to such fun summer things, and the eve of great beginnings with school for the kids tomorrow, but no word at all on our process to bring Ivan home. The news we have gotten has been that there are more things needed before a court date can be assigned to us. Our in-country contact refuses to reply to our communications, furthering the confusion and mis-communications. I feel frustrated. I feel tired. I feel like there is a ticking time-bomb counting down the days and minutes to more (actually EVERY) expired documents, expired double entry visas, a country at war that must 'invite' us back, and a judge in Nizhny leaving for a month-long vacation.

I am striving for hope, but it is not coming very easily to me these days. I feel a physical ache, a literal pain in my chest when I look at a photo or video of Ivan...I miss that little man. And while that emotion accompanies an ache in my heart, it also represents such good things to me. I miss him because I met him, I held him, shared Cheerios with him, saw where he lives, watched him play, listened to him laugh, saw his adorable contagious smile, and now I miss him.