Written referral and travel dates

What a crazy week it has been!  Last wednesday I got an email from Nina, our caseworker at CHI, stating that Happy Child, our facilitator, in Andrei's country says we will be getting our written referral this week so I'm guessing that'll be Wednesday.  I was told to go ahead to start making travel plans, and to pick a date we would be able to travel.  We chose to go the week of September 10th through the 14th to make it easier on Doug's mom who will be watching the girls.  Last Friday afternoon we purchased our airfare and so our travel dates are September 6th through the 17th!!!  It all seems so surreal but at the same time we are so excited to go meet our son!  We have already reserved one hotel in Andrei's town and waiting to hear confirmation of our hotel in the capital from a travel agency. 

We have a lot of traveling ahead of us.  Add that to the time change of 8 hours, we are sure to experience jet lag so this is why we are going a couple days earlier.  We will fly out of Omaha, to Detroit, on to Amsterdam into Andrei's country.  We will spend Fri, Sat and Sun trying to adjust to the time change.  Monday morning our faciliator, Happy Child, will pick us up and drive us to Targovishte which is 5 hours away on the other side of the country by the Black sea.  We will arrive around 1pm, grab some lunch, and then go to meet our son!  I cannot imagine the nervousness, and excitement of meeting our little boy for the first time.  I know I will have a hard time not crying so am pretty sure I will be wearing dark sunglasses :)

Please pray for us throughout this whole time for a smooth flight, and travels.  It will be very heartwrenching having to leave our son, Andrei, for a few months until we can go back to pick him up to bring him home.  We are now guessing that will be at the end of January or beginning of February.  Our hope is to for sure have him home before his birthday in March.

Thanks everyone for everything!

Edited to add:  We got our written referral late Monday night!