Thankful

The Dierlam family was extra thankful this year because we had family here to share Thanksgiving with. Sarah was here for the entire break and we had Scott's parents here for a few days. The break started off by celebrating Scott's accomplishments and we all attended his promotion ceremony at the Pentagon. I can't believe that we all got to go into Sec Gates office and have a personal tour. It was something I'll never forget and I am grateful to have such a remarkable husband.

Here are a few photos from Scott's special day and preparing for the feast.

Home from Russia

We're back from Russia and finally on the right time zone with our sleep. It was much harder this time to come back and get our routine in order. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning for a few nights and I was exhausted at school!

My students were so cute when I returned and I missed them a lot. I brought back candy for them and they loved it. They wanted to keep the wrappers and glue them into their journals. It's nice when children are so appreciative of the little things.

We can't post any photos of our new little boy. And I sure will when we return with him in January. At least that's when we hope to have our court date.

Here are a few photos from Moscow!

Goodbye Rylie

After spending a nice weekend at West Point watching the Air Force football game, we came home to sad news. A phone call came from our new agency. We will no longer be able to adopt Rylie. Scott and I were devastated because this will be the second child that we've lost.

After many tears and trying to see what direction we should take, Scott and I have decided to try and travel to Russia one more time. If possible, we will travel there this weekend and look for another child. We'll have to work fast with tickets and the Russian Visa.

We can't begin to understand this news and can only hope that this means that we'll have a child home by Christmas. At this point, we are numb...

Run Like A Girl - Nike Half Marathon

I got up early today and laced up my running shoes for another race. This one was a half marathon and I wasn't sure how my body would feel about running 13.1 miles. Well, it went very well and it always feel good to run. I try to tell myself that many people in the world would love to run or even walk-that's what keeps me going.

I haven't written for awhile because we've switched agencies and our process seems as if it will start at the beginning. We also have a new company doing a NEW home study. This is the largest test of patience I have ever felt. I know that Scott and I will get it done, we're just tired and wish that it felt as if someone was in our corner helping us out. If I didn't have faith that this is all in God's hands, I don't think that I could move on with this adoption.

We have to take the photos of our little girl off of this site. You'll see new ones as soon as we get her.

This will be an extremely busy week with new paperwork and we hope it all goes well. We'll also know about how much longer this may take before we travel. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

A Small Taste of Germany

Last week as I was perusing the local Northern Virginia magazine, I saw an ad that caught my eye. It had a photo of a man holding something I haven't eaten in almost 2 years...a Doener sandwich! For those of you wondering what one is, I have included photos below. Some of you reading know exactly what this is because you visited me in Germany and fell in love with them. My friends from Nebraska had to have one before they boarded the plane back to Omaha and my parents loved them too.


When I saw the ad, I was immediately taken back to my local Doener guy in Landstuhl. I would stop by the parking lot at the market and buy one at least once a month. He had a little restaurant on wheels. It was a mom and pop shop and his entire family squeezed into the little trailer.


Scott and I decided to finally try them out and made the hour drive to Leesburg. The little restaurants must be the way that they serve them all over Germany and this man brought his to America. It was great seeing all of the German food on the menu and I really wanted to try everything. We each got a regular Doener and sat outside on the cute German fest tables.

Well, the sandwich wasn't nearly as good as the original ones. We both didn't care for the sauce and the bread was a little dry for me. We still had lots of fun and I'm very glad we ventured out and tried an old favorite. It did bring back great memories from Germany and I can't wait to get back there some day and see all of my friends!


Yes, I have my full set of braces now and YES, I can't wait to get them removed in January. Eating food is a pain and I don't know how young kids deal with it.

200 miles!

I haven't written in a long time because school has taken over my life. Now that open house is completed, I can rest easy and fall into a nice rhythm. Being a teacher is an incredible job and it takes many hours of work outside of the classroom. My day begins at 8:00 and I usually don't leave the school until 7:00 p.m. I always feel as if I abandon Scott because I am around all summer and I seem to disappear for 9 months. I'm lucky to be married to such an incredibly patient man.

Scott and I are getting ready for a race that we'll run together on October 11th. I haven't run a race with him and I can't wait to spend time together doing something we enjoy. I also signed up for a half marathon for October 19th. I am not a runner at heart and it really took over my life when my friend and I decided to "try" and run a half marathon. After I painfully completed that(with my friend literally pushing me to the finish line), it got a little crazier. We signed up for a full marathon! I can proudly say that I finished it and that...I NEVER want to run that far ever again-ha! Shorter distances are my comfort zone and I'm completely comfortable with that. I'm just glad that I CAN run. So, run I will. I started logging my miles on July 4th and I can't believe that I've run over 200 miles!

The news on the adoption is pretty dismal and I really would love to start sharing some good news about it. It looks as if another agency will have to take over our case and we're just praying that this isn't a lengthy process. We keep praying for little Luda and hope that we can still bring her home. Here's the word this week from our agency...

At this time the director advised us that she has no additional information to share. She is waiting to hear back from another agency, the other agency that may be able to assist us in completing our adoption. We regret that this process is becoming more complicated for you.

We appreciate all of the positive thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming!

Running for Others

On August 31 I completed the NIKE+Human Race 10K. I ran this 10K to support the UN refugee camps and help raise awareness of the plight and the potential of refugee children. All of the runners combined raised half a million dollars so far!

It‘s easy to take our education, sport interests and technology for granted, but millions of kids miss out on these important elements of childhood.

Refugee children have often suffered enormously, leaving them severely traumatized. The trauma is not left behind when they finally make it to a refugee camp. Some refugees are born and live out their childhood in camps, often with no access to sport or recreation. Did you know the average refugee spends 12 years in a camp?

I was amazed when I learned some of the facts about how these children have to live. I thought that I could easily do my part by running in a 10K. I hope this reaches the hearts of many and we raise enough money for these kids to have a future filled with hope.

Here are my results for all to see!

Ready for Students

I have been so busy this past week setting up my classroom and getting ready for 24 new students. Yes, the numbers went down and I'm so happy with only having 24. That means that we'll have a little more room to spread our bodies out. This part of the year always seems overwhelming because there is so much to get done. I'm the kind of teacher that has to set my room up before I can even look at lesson plans for the first week. Now that I have that accomplished, the fun begins!

This year we are using the theme, "Oh, the Places We'll Go!" and I think it will be a hit with the students. We will discuss reaching our goals and how this is a journey that each student takes. We have compasses for the first day of school and it will be used as a reminder of the "direction" they are headed. Dr. Seuss has so many great quotes that go along with this and I'm using many of them this year.
Here's one of my favorites:
"Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way. " - Dr Seuss

Here's how I designed our classroom door.


I have such an incredible job! I get to be with inquisitive children all day. They ask so many questions and they all want to learn so much. I don't think that I was like that at all when I was in school. I just went to school and came home. Kids are so different now. I can't wait to see what my class will be like this year.

Here's my classroom-all ready to go!



No new information on our adoption and I can truly say that I'm very happy that my mind is completely occupied with my classroom. I may email our agency this week and see what I can find out. Another family from our agency may be traveling next week to pick up their child. That would be great news for all of the waiting families. I'll let everyone know if we hear anything.

Another Tiny Step

Can you find Scott in the photo? Look way to the left...he's the one without a hat.

Yesterday we heard more on our case. At this point, any tiny bit of information makes us feel comforted. Our case worker had this news for us:

"The Ministry of Education in Moscow has provided a letter to clarify how cases will be allowed to proceed. You'll also see mention of the databank release letter; I'm not sure if you know what this refers to or not so I'll explain -- it's an official piece of paper from the federal databank office in Moscow that states your child has been on the databank registry listed as an orphan, for the correct length of time and it "releases" her for international adoption. It's usually one of the last pieces of paperwork that the judge gets before setting a court date."

Our letter needs to be resent because it had an error. This sort of news doesn't really surprise me anymore and it all sounds very good. What I took from this is that we WILL be traveling to get Our Precious Girl and that's all that matters. We're not sure when the travel date will be and until then, we'll just keep praying that she is happy and knows that we're coming soon.

I'll begin setting up my classroom next week and I'm super excited! I have a great team to work with and this will be our second year in the 3rd grade. It's always nice when you change grades and you get that first year completed. Now I know the curriculum and I'm ready to have some fun!!

I told you that Scott was in the Middle East last week and I'd like to post a few photos from his trip. He gets to go to some amazing places!

Summer is Winding Down

The house is very quiet today and there's a wonderful breeze blowing through the kitchen. I flew Sarah home last Friday and the house always seems empty without her here. She's such a ball of energy and we're always doing something. We ended her last week here with diving lessons and vacation bible school at night. She really had a great summer. Only a few scratches on her chin and not nearly as many bug bites as last summer.

It was also nice to finally have Scott home after being in the Middle East for over a week. He always comes home with great stories and a deeper appreciation for the USA. Now it's just the two of us again. We cherish the time we have alone because we know that will be changing in the future.

We haven't heard any adoption news about our case and we don't think we'll hear anything for a few weeks. It's been over a month since we received the news about our agency. The courts in Moscow gave them 3 months to remedy the situation and we're hoping that it all gets worked out quickly.

With all of this waiting, I've really amped up my running. I try to run 4-5 miles every day. It's such a great way to clear my mind and I'm always relaxed when I finish a run. I'll be running in a race on October 11th and I'd like to run a 9 minute mile. At least that's my goal for right now. I put a new widget on our site to show my running progress. I thought that this would motivate me because everyone could see if I was running or not. I love the Nike+ running chip!

I have 2 more weeks left before I head back to my classroom. It's going to be an exciting year with the adoption happening somewhere in the middle of it all!

Here are some highlights from the summer...

Bike Riding in DC

We found a great family sport to occupy our time while we wait to hear any news on Rylie. We now all own a bike and we love to go on adventures together. This weekend we ventured down to DC and we took the bikes on the metro. It was so easy and we wondered why we hadn't thought of doing this sooner.


If you've ever had to walk to all of the monuments around DC, you know that it's very tiring. The bikes today were easy, fun, and actually kept us very cool. The weather was gorgeous and we saw all of the monuments in under an hour. That NEVER happens. We also went to the Smithsonian castle and saw a special exhibit on the Olympic medals. I was most excited because I absolutely love the Olympics. They had many medals from past athletes and they also had some of the torches. It was all very cool!
Here are a few photos from the ride...

Court date???

Yesterday I wrote to our agency and asked about our court date. Scott and I were happy to hear that they are still working on it. The director told us that our Russian coordinator was going to go to the court in Krasnodar today. We hope that this means that we'll hear some news next week.

Keep those prayers coming!

We've been keeping busy by going to the pool daily. I've taught Sarah how to dive and she really perfected it this week. Look at this photo...


Summer in the sun and having fun!

Finally Meeting Our Girl

May 26, 2008
As you can imagine, Scott and I didn't get much sleep over the weekend. We wondered what our daughter would be like?...Would she like us?...Was she healthy? These are just a few of the questions that adoptive parents think of. Because we don't have the opportunity to bond with them from birth, it leaves you with many unanswered questions. We were both excited to finally have this day arrive!

We were picked up from the hotel at 7:30 and driven to the orphanage. Along the way, we picked up an additional translator. She would help with the medical records and family history. Our first impression of the orphanage was very positive and it looked nice. We were escorted into a large living room and we met the orphanage director, doctor, teachers, and assistants. The room seemed to quickly fill up. We had to have another interview with the local inspector before we could officially see her. This interview was again very serious and we answered all of the questions thoroughly.


Next, they brought her out! She was so shy at first and she was surrounded by so many strange faces. She began showing us that she had a good memory by reciting a long poem. Next she sat by us and the doctor went over her medical history. It was all very good and they told us that she had speech delays. That is very typical with children in this situation. Her social teacher talked with us next and told us that she was a leader, she was quick to learn, and that the kids love her at the orphanage. We looked at her background file next and found out that her family couldn't provide for her and that she had been in the orphanage for 2 years. All of this was great news and we were ready to spend time with her.

We started by coloring and getting closer to her. She loves to hug and she wanted Scott to run after her. She loves Scott and looks at him with such affection. She called him PaPa from the very beginning and it melts my heart. She has a wonderful laugh and she never seems to stop smiling. What a great fit for the Dierlam family. We also found out that she is left handed. By the end of the day, we were in love with this special little girl and we looked forward to spending more time with her over the next 3 days.

The Interview

May 23, 2008

On Friday after our coordinator coached us with a few questions, we headed to the Department of Education. Our meeting was to take place at 4:00. We parked the car and it felt like it was 100 degrees outside! Scott had on a suit and I wore a black dress both of which were VERY hot. Valentina ran in and found out that our meeting was being held up and we wouldn't meet with the Minister of Education until 5:00. We all stood in a parking lot and talked because running the air conditioning in the car wasn't possible.
We ended up waiting until 6:00 for the appointment and we were both nervous and at this point, very sweaty.

When we walked into the building, we were told to wait again because the top floor wasn't air conditioned and we would need to wait a while longer before they were ready for us.

Our first impression of the Minister of Eduction was that she looked very unhappy and serious. Besides having our coordinator with us, we also had an interpreter that provided simultaneous translation. It was confusing at first to understand which person to look at because so much was going on. The minister asked each of us specific questions about why we were adopting. I felt as if she grilled me a little bit more because she kept asking why I needed to work. She even came back to the question after asking several other questions and I wasn't really sure if I was answering it "correctly" for her. All in all, the interview lasted about 40 minutes. It was more detailed than I had imagined it would be. I just know that we both felt relieved when it was over.

When we finished with the questions, she went on to show us the first photo of Our Little Girl. It was a black and white picture and she looked very sad. They told us some information about her life and how she came to live in the orphanage. We told them that we would like to see her and a meeting was set for Monday. We had the entire weekend to wait and we were both ready for a BIG nap. Exhaustion had set in by now and we were over our first big hurdle.

Day 3-Finding Food

Scott and I both woke up in the middle of the night, partly from excitement and the rest from being in a completely new time zone. Today would be our big appointment with the Minister of Education. She would be interviewing us and deciding if we were capable of parenting a Russian orphan. To calm our nerves and get out of the hotel before our 4:00pm appointment, we decided to find some food. I think I had already written about the fact that not one single soul speaks English here. We've traveled many places and always felt like we could communicate with people...not here. They looked at us as if we were from another planet. Not many Americans come to Krasnodar I guess?? It was 87 degrees when we started our little walk into the city for a bite to eat. Remember I told you about the traffic...well, try crossing the road when the cars are driving like crazy. It took us a few tries before we found a "safe" place to get across the road and we were on our way.

After walking for about 3 miles, we decided that we were too hot and too tired to go much further. We also found a modern grocery store and decided to go for it. I'm always very cautious when entering a new place. I like to stand back and watch how it all works before I go in head first. Our first attempt left us confused because a guard told us that we couldn't go in the store. This was all done with hand motions and we quickly walked away. We couldn't quite figure out why we weren't allowed in the store??

We walked another block away and decided to go back in for another try. There must have been something we were doing wrong. After another observation, we found that we weren't allowed to bring a backpack into the store. Aha! We watched people use little lockers to store their bags and in they went. We tried again and this time found success!! I looked back at the guard and he had a little smirk on his face. I'm sure that we entertained a few locals during our stay there.
Here's a photo of what we bought...

It's all VERY nutritious!


We had a blast looking at all of the new and different items in the grocery store. Now it was time to walk back and enjoy our feast. We were starving at this point and couldn't wait to have our cheese and crackers. The weight of the food and drinks made for a long walk back to the hotel. By this time of day, it was now 95 degrees and we didn't bring any shorts.

At 3:00, Valentina called and told us she would be at our hotel shortly to prepare us for the interview. She would have to do a few "mock" interview questions with us and make us feel at ease with the process.

First Days

On May 21, Scott and I finally boarded the plane for Russia. We left from Dulles headed to London at 7:50am. It was a 7 hour flight and ran very smoothly. British Airways has fantastic food and we both tried to sleep as much as possible. The next flight was from London to Moscow and it's a 4 hour flight and it again, it was a great flight. By this time you've probably figured out that it's May 22 and we've been flying quite a long time. It's nice when the flights are chopped up and you can walk around in between times. It was 4:50am when we landed in Moscow and there wasn't a lot to do. Moscow is an interesting place to land because they have 4 airports and this makes for an interesting trip. You may land in one airport and depart from another. In our case, we didn't have to worry about that and we were very grateful. Our agency told us that couples need to have 4 hours when they land in Russia because of the infrastructure there. We only had to wait for 2 hours before our plane took off for Krasnodar. This time we were flying with Siberian Airlines. The planes were brand new and this made Scott very happy. We had heard some pretty bleak news about flying Aeroflot and we were happy to see those bright green flying machines! At 7:10am, we were off for our 2 hour flight and we were closer to seeing our daughter.

After picking up our luggage, we were off to find our Russian host family. We were greeted with a firm handshake from Anatoli, our driver (and husband to our interpreter, Valentina). He knew us right away, I guess we look very American-ha! Let me tell you at this point, Scott and I were in awe of the beauty of the women here. We were surrounded by tall women that looked as if they stepped out of a magazine-amazing! Anatoli took us to his car and we were off to meet Valentina. We barely made it to the car when he asked us why we weren't staying with his family. It was quite a shock to be greeted with this and we quickly were apologizing. It felt a little awkward after that and we managed to give a good explanation for staying in a hotel. Twenty minutes later, we were at Valentina's house and she presented us with a HUGE meal! We had no idea this was coming and we had just eaten on the plane! As new guests, we didn't want o offend her and we sat down to eat. We started with soup because each lunch meal begins that way in Russia. It was 90 degrees when we landed and I did not want to eat hot soup. Of course, we did and the soup was very good. Valentina is an excellent cook and I loved all of the soups she made for us throughout the week.

When we finished eating, we spoke briefly about our schedule for the coming week and she had Anatoli drive us to our hotel. Driving in Russia is CRAZY! Not one driver stays in their lane and they manage to make 6 lanes out of 2. The cars are tiny and look as if they could fall apart at any moment. I think Anatoli was one of the craziest drivers out there. He got us to places quickly and I could tell that he loves to drive. It took about 2 hours to get to our hotel because of the chaotic traffic. Anatoli helped us check in and we were pleased to finally fall into a nice bed for some much needed sleep.

Our First Trip!

We finally received the news on May 9th and we were on our way to meet our daughter. Scott and I were filled with a sense of excitement and relief. Our day was finally here! Scott was so great about getting our Russian visas together and arranging for our flights. I had SO much to do with preparing my classroom for a week without me. My class was on the verge of taking their "BIG" standardized tests and I was going to miss two of them. This is difficult for a teacher because you work all year to get them to this point. I knew that my students were ready and I felt very good about leaving my 26 little ones behind. They have all studied so hard and now they will do their best.

We were given less than 2 weeks to prepare our visas, get plane tickets, and hotel reservations. Again, looking back, how did we accomplish this? Scott is wonderful at remaining calm and getting things accomplished. I thought I was calm, that is until I met Scott. He diligently called hotels and made arrangements for a safe journey to Krasnodar.

Besides getting my classroom ready, I was also in the middle of coaching a girls running team and we had a race to finish on May 17th. I remember running the race and running straight home to begin the packing. We had gifts to buy for all of the people we would come in contact with in Russia and we were almost finished packing.

We could hardly sleep the night of May 20th because the next morning we would be off on the trip of a lifetime. I don't think either of us slept much. We would leave from DC to London and then continue on to Moscow. After a 4 hour delay in Moscow, we would fly 3 more hours to Krasnodar. All of the hard work was finally coming to fruition...

The Process Continues

When we finally settled into our new home in Virginia, we got right to work with our "new" paperwork. We now had to redo all of our original paperwork because we were now searching for a child in a different region of Russia. Each region requires slightly different paperwork and they can basically ask for anything.

We were given a different social worker (our previous one didn't return from maternity leave) and we dove head first into submitting new fingerprints and FBI background checks for the state of Virginia. We also had a social worker come and inspect our house. This is a large part of the home study process. They need to see your entire house and know that it will be safe and comforting for your child. We also had to make a floor plan of the house that included smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. We are set in case of an emergency! Also with the inspection comes an interview. She was making sure that we would be "fit" parents and that we understood what we were getting ourselves into. Adoption is a big risk because you never really know the truth about the child's background.

After all of the paperwork was completed, we waited...
Waiting is our middle name. You rush to turn papers in and you hope to hear something. Sometimes it's weeks before you hear any news. There's a fine line with pestering your social workers because they are the ones helping you. We've learned the ultimate lessons in patience. Scott and I balance each other out in such a great way. Some days, I'm the one going crazy and he calms me down and other days it's the complete opposite. Scott is my rock and he definitely has more patience than I do.

We got the word several months later that our paperwork had been sent to Russia and we were ecstatic! We thought that the process would run smoothly now and we would be off on our first trip to Russia soon. December seemed like a great month because we were spending time with family, Sarah was coming for Christmas and we would be traveling soon.

I'm sure you're guessing that a road block was on the horizon. When we phoned our social worker, she told us that Krasnodar was reorganizing their Department of Education. It could be a few months before we travel. Ugh!! This process is truly a roller coaster ride and we were coming to an abrupt halt. We made ourselves busy and hunkered down for a long, cold winter. In the meantime, most of our paperwork was expiring and we began the journey to renew it. This meant more fingerprints, FBI, blood drawn, chest x-rays, financial statements, and of course the psychologist! Also, when we receive all of this paperwork it goes through it's own process. Each paper has to be notarized, sent to be apostilled, sent back to us, and then off to FedEx!

The winter did thaw out and we received the call we'd been waiting for in MAY!!
More to come...

The Process

I thought that I would take a moment to reflect on the adoption process. Many people have asked how it all works and why it's taken so long. For others who have adopted, 15 months may seem very short and for others, very long. Each couple has their own story to tell.

We began this process when we found out it wasn't possible for us to have our own children. We were immediately drawn to the idea of adopting. There was a meeting in NJ that we attended the very next week and it just felt right to be there. The agency talked about older children needing to be adopted and we hadn't thought of that before. Both of us left feeling good and that we had a direction to move in. Our next meeting was at a couple's house that adopted a 6 year old girl from Russia. As we drove away, we knew that this was meant for our lives. I remember feeling pure joy in knowing that we would have our family.

We began this process having no idea about the amount of paperwork required to have a child. The file sitting beside my desk is bulging and it can't hold much more without bursting. The first steps were filling out applications, having friends and family write references about us, getting FBI clearances, medical evaluations, and a thorough home study. We also made copies of passports, driver's liscenses', marriage certificates, employment letters, and birth certificates. Each set had to be notarized and then sent off to be apostilled by the state in which they were produced. Are you tired yet? We certainly were! They also looked at every aspect of our finances and we left nothing to hide. Our agency now knows more about us than our own families! We were now ready to accept a child.

In the summer of 2007, the first child given to us, was also quickly taken away. When we were in Thailand, we received the news that she had been fostered by a Russian couple. Scott and I were deeply saddened by this news. It felt like we lost a child. We both felt it was a blessing to be on vacation because our minds were kept busy.

When we returned home, we had a big decision to make. Did we want to continue with adoption and what direction to go in? We decided to go with "blind adoption" and leave the rest up to faith.

This is a great place to pause because this is where our lives took a big pause. We were moving to a new state, new jobs, and a new life!