The Process

We are getting asked this question a lot, so we wanted to try to explain (to the best of our knowledge) how things will go from this point on.

• Leave Saturday @ 5:00PM and fly to Frankfurt.
• Couple hour layover in Frankfurt and then fly to Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• Arrive in Almaty about midnight, local time on Sunday night.
• Meet driver/coordinator in Almaty who will take us to a hotel.
• There are no flights from Almaty to Petropavlovsk on Monday, so we will be in Almaty until Tuesday morning.
• Fly Tuesday morning from Almaty to Petropavlovsk.  (We are hearing that this leg of the trip is a journey all in itself!)
• Tuesday early afternoon - finally arrive in Petropavlovsk!
• Hopefully go to the Department of Education for a quick interview.
• Head over to the orphanage (baby house) for meet & greets!!!!!!!!

Once we have selected a child, the bonding process begins.  We will have a 14 day bonding period where we will go to the baby house everyday (except Sundays) to spend 2 hours bonding.

• Once the bonding period is complete, we have to schedule a court date.
• Go to court for adoption proceedings.
• If we are approved by the judge, then there is a 15 day appeal period before they can finalize the adoption.
• We will go home during this appeal period, right after our court date.
• Once back in Texas we will go back to work and work on getting everything ready for Pebble's arrival.  (Little Stone)
• 3-4 weeks laster after everything has been completed, we will travel back to Kazakhstan (Petropavlovsk) to pick up Pebble.
• We will then head to Almaty to do final medicals, get passport for Pebble and final out-processing type stuff.
• Head back to Texas as a family!

We had always wanted to take 1 long trip, but the way that things worked out with our agency and LOI, we are unable to do that now.  We will have to take the first trip and come back before our visas expire.  On our second trip, we will be able to use tourist visas.  This will probably end up working out better because there are always delays and Kazakh Holidays!

We hope to be back home, with Pebble, late May/early June...

--Cortney & Dustin Stone