"Yah Nee Po Nee My O"

On the flight from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk, I more or less slept, but not before witnessing this hysterical event involving my husband and the Russian sitting next to him. It was so funny I was making notes as their "conversation" went on. This guy was obviously a friendly sort of fellow, as we hadn't encountered too many talkative Russians up to this point. As soon as he sits down, he starts talking to Doug in Russian.
Doug: "Yah nee po nee my o" (I don't understand.)

Doug didn't add "Pa ruski" after it, so I think the guy thought Doug didn't hear him and repeated everything again to Doug in Russian.

Doug: Huh? He then leans towards me and says, "Hey, can you help me out?"

I just laugh. I mean, this guy is way more advanced than I, and most of my Russian phrases center around babies and orphanages anyway. I whisper back to Doug, "Makes you wish you had studied those Pimsleur tapes a little bit more doesn't it?"

This guy is still talking Russian to Doug like he understands what he is saying. They finally both figure out they have a serious language barrier going on, and they start with name introductions.

Doug (beating himself on the chest): "Yo Doug." (I lean over and whisper, "I think it's suppose to be Yah Doug.")

Doug thinks the guy has told him that he is from Minnesota, but I don't think so. Call me crazy... I then decide to pull out my Say It Right in Russian book to see if I can't help with the communication. They are reducing themselves to hand gestures and "Bang-Bang" by now. Doug finds a picture of a deer in the book he's been reading and shoots it with his finger. Doug thinks they are talking about hunting, but I'm not fully convinced whether the Russian guy is or not. I'm trying to find the Russian word for teacher/educator for Doug, but this little book doesn't have that. This Russian guy gestures to take a look at my book. I know this isn't going to work because it's in English, but I hand it to him anyway. He flips through the pages. I think I hear him say, "Nee ho ro sho" (No good), and then he motions to throw my book out the plane window! Doug laughs! For those of you who don't know my husband, he has a very very very loud laugh, and on this quiet Russian filled plane, every time he laughed (which was quite a bit on this flight), 100+ people turned around and stared every time.

They move on to bear hunting. Doug is looking through my book looking for the word bear, but it's not that kind of book. It's not there. Doug looks at his new friend and says, "Got a match?" This guys whips out his lighter. I didn't know you were still allowed to have those things on planes anymore... I get my book back.

The flight attendants are now passing out papers. Doug picks out the Moscow Times...amazingly, it's in English.

Doug says to this guy: "Hey, it's in English!"
Russian Guy: "That's good!"

My hubby has a buddy!When I wake up from my nap, the Russian guy is sleeping. Doug tells me he has to go to work when we land in Krasnoyarsk and needs at least 2 hours of sleep. I have no idea how he got ahold of that information. He also told me that this guy kills grizzly bears. I'm not too sure about the accuracy of that information either as no one we talked to in Krasnoyarsk was aware of a grizzly population.

By the way, that same book that both of them were so eager to dispose of on the plane enabled us to ask for our check at the restaurants as well as order mustard--it's a survival guide--not a dictionary--and served the purpose for which I bought it well. On a side note about the mustard in Russia--it is NOT French's yellow mustard. It is some sort of mega super hot make your eyes water brownish mustard. It only took once and we never ordered it again!

Celebrate Me Home...

We can't post a picture of our little boy until the adoption is final, but until then...
Please join us in prayer for a quick court date so we can celebrate him home!! I know that he is being taken care of and that my God is protecting him, but still a momma and a daddy are longing to hold him, rock him, and tell him that God has such wonderful plans for his life. We are so blessed. Merry Christmas little boy!

Driver's Ed Anyone???

The car drive to and back from the orphanage was awful. I don't know how else to say it. The first day I was nauseated the whole time I was at the orphanage. I originally thought it was just due to nerves, lack of sleep, the odd smell of the orphanage, etc. By the end of day #2 I recognized it as severe car sickness. Our orphanage is within the city limits. Originally I was excited that we wouldn't be in a car for very long, but now I'm wondering if being out on the open highway might be the better way to go. Of course, you still have to navigate the traffic to get out of the city... By day #3 I was determined to have a good day at the orphanage, so I tried out my new bottle of Motion Ease herbal remedy. I avoided the Dramamine because I didn't want to be sleepy. I've never used Motion Ease before and never will again. You put a few drops behind your ears 5 minutes before travel and it's supposed to illeviate motion sickness. It does not work. Furthermore, the smell is hideous. I smelled like "hint of skunk", so combined with my nauseated state, the medicinal Flower Child odor emitting from behind my ears only added to my grief.

The street are overcrowded; the cars use the honk, floor it, and slam on your brake methods of driving. Cars are so close together going down the road it's like they could kiss one another. There are no real lanes of traffic. It's supposed to be one lane of traffic getting on the major highway, but it all reality there will be 3 cars lined up side by side trying to get on the road from the side street. Cars are parked in a somewhat parallel fashion along side the road and then all of a sudden there will be one car parked like its driver was in too big of a hurry to parallel park and left it sitting there sideways with the bumper sticking out into the road.

Automobiles have steering wheels on the left or the right side on them. That adds a whole new dimension to being able to see around the car in front of you. I've decided that the philosophy is "the bully car gets its way." You literally just point the car in the direction you want to go and people stop and let you go on your way. On our second day we were nearly to our hotel and I look up and see 5-6 cars attempting to do a U-Turn into the coming line of traffic. This is not a U-Turn like in the USA where one car at a time navigates the turn. No, in Russia they start out in a line and then pull abreast each other and circumnavigate this 6 car wide turn. Naturally, the oncoming traffic stops and lets them do this. I'm thinking in my nauseated state, "Thank goodness we're going to go to the corner and turn down the block." Silly me for thinking that. Within a minute we're part of the this phenomena.

Our translator said that if a wreck happens, it usually takes 6-8 hours for the police to respond. And then, it will usually take 24 hours for the car to be moved. Unbelievable! We were serenaded by Elvis (Elvis is very big in Russia we were told), KC and the Sunshine Band, and Rod Stewart--all in English--and our drivers did not speak English. I will ask our translator next time if they tune into the English stations for our benefit or is that all they have? I did notice that in the restaurants the music that was always playing was some kind of jazzy techno beat.
Here are a few pictures of the infamous U-Turns:

Ice Sculptures!

These were the ice sculptures that were being made in the park in front of our hotel. From what we were told they create this ice park for the holiday season, and it is so cold it stays for 4-5 months or so. They make slides that people can actually go down. We'll get to see the finished product on our next trip!

A tribute to Russia's space program/1st astronaunt:


One of the slides:

Back in the USA

I’ve decided that I am spoiled. I was never so excited to see my hotel room at the Newark Airport Saturday night with a big fluffy bed, soft pillows, thick towels, and and ice in my drink. We had pizza delivered to our room without pointing. It was a big step for us! (I didn’t realize until we got back to the US what a stress the language barrier had been.) The time change coming west has been a blessing. I forced myself to stay awake on the flight from Moscow to NY so I could sleep at night by watching the movie Grown-Ups three times on the plane. (It was the only one in English, without subtitles, and no blood or guts.)We got home last night about 30 minutes before our girls' Christmas program. It was so good to see them! I couldn't believe how much I missed them. Annsley kept telling me I looked so tall!

As I'm keeping the blog also as a memoir, the next few entries will be covering our various experiences on our trip. Today's entry covers flying. (Sorry it's so long...)

The Krasnoyarsk Airport is rather interesting—more like primitive. I would never venture there in a thousand years without our translator. Unlike the Moscow Airport there was no English here. The second you walk in the door, you put your luggage through a giant x-ray machine. We had a challenge getting our boarding passes as the ticket lady was new and was having trouble getting our bags checked all the way to New York. At one point she actually left her computer and was gone 5 minutes, I suppose talking to a supervisor. I could tell our translator was a bit irritated, and although I knew we weren’t in any real trouble as she wasn’t talking loudly or fast (something I noticed that Russians do when they are upset), Doug and I both got the wigs about being delayed. After soliciting the help of no less than 4 people, 30 minutes later we finally had our passes. The Russians behind us were not happy; in fact, by the time we got finished, no one was behind us. Translators cannot go through security with you, so she told us what to do and watched through the door until we got our shoes back on. They were already boarding when we got to the gate, and again we got on the shuttle bus to go to the airplane. It was absolutely freezing. It was already -27 and combined with the wind chill and not wearing my gloves, I thought fingers were going to fall off. They only let 6 or so people on the stairs at a time. Russians do not get in a nice line; it’s more like a herd of cattle going through a gate.

We were in the international part of SVO airport on the way back home, and it had a few more “comforts” than the domestic part of our terminal although it was all nice.We gravitated to TGI Fridays--finally something we recognized in nearly a week! SVO had recently been renovated, and the part we were in had just been finished earlier this year. And most importantly, all the signs were in Russian as well as English, so we were able to navigate it fairly easily.

Security was interesting. The security workers were dressed in ties or skirts and heels—very formal. The airports provide everyone with the little blue booties (the same ones we had to wear at the orphanage), and it is very orderly and quiet—totally opposite of what I would consider the security at US airports. There are plenty of chairs available for you to put your shoes back on—novel idea! When you get off the airplane at SVO (Moscow Airport), you have to go through passport control—one a time—it is not like in the US where you go as family. The guy takes your passport, scans it and your visa, stares really good at you, and then pushes the buzzer for you to open the door to the free world. I was totally surprised about customs. On the flight to Moscow, there were quite a few Americans on the plane. We, being the quick thinkers we are, quickly made friends with one of them. His passport was one of those which had to have extra pages added to it—we chose well! At the baggage claim he pointed to the customs doors for us. We walked through the customs area, ran our bags through the security system, and didn’t say a thing to anyone. There were a few military looking people, but nobody said anything. On the way back home, we walked through the customs area and nobody was there—nada--but we did have to show our passports to 4 different people before we got on the plane. Security was tight to say the least.

As far as Aeroflot goes, I was really impressed. In fact, the international flights were on the nicest airplanes I had ever been on. The flight attendants were like a throw back to the 1970s. The women had skirts and those cute little hats; the men attendants all wore coats and ties. The food was rather awesome as well. It was still airplane food, but it was really really good for airplane food. I think they served salmon at every meal ; I didn’t eat it but Doug had mine, so he was a happy camper. Everybody we encountered with regard to Aeroflot were really nice and most at the ticket counters in New York and Moscow spoke English. I slept most of the way from New York to Moscow and from Moscow to Kras. I missed 2 of the three meals, but if given a choice, I always take sleep over food. Doug is the opposite. He was telling me that I missed the party on the flight to Krasnoyarsk. The Russian kick boxing team was on that 5 hour flight, and they were having a celebration and passing the whiskey/vodka bottles around.

Some more observations:

A lot of the Russians shrink wrap (Saran wrap) their luggage. For only 250 Rubles we could too. Not quite sure the reasoning behind it, but they had a kiosk set up in the airport with a little guy who would cut out the handles for the passenger.

Russians do not talk in public. The airports and planes were all amazingly quiet.

The Russians enjoy each other's company at the table. Nobody ever seemed to be in a hurry and would sit at a table for a long time. The waiter was never in a hurry to bring us the check--we usually had to ask for it because we were about to fall asleep in our water. Did I mention the jet lag???

Visits #2 and #3

I have seriously underestimated the effects of our 13 hour time difference. The jet lag is astounding! It is all we can do to keep our eyes open past 7:00pm every night. Before leaving I had expected to write these really detailed posts about our daily experiences, but quite frankly, it's all I can do to quickly check email before shutting down the computer. By the way...THOSE HOMEOPATHIC JET LAG PILLS DO NOT WORK!!! It's 4:00PM right now, so maybe I can get something into the blog today before my eyes start crossing.

Our little boy has been so sick. He had a fever and a lot of congestion during our first two visits with him. After visit #1, I was rather hesistant to say the least. We saw absolutely no emotions from him whatsoever. No crying, so smiling, no babbling--nada. It was a bit concerning to say the least. Visit #2 was at a different time of the day. He still wasn't feeling very well; you could just tell it from his eyes. Again, we saw very little emotion from him until the end. One of the caregivers came into the room, and he saw her, and literally spun a 180 on his tummy to follow her around the room and he started crying. As soon as she picked him up he stopped. That may sound funny, but I was so relieved to watch that reaction from him.

Today was our last visit. His fever was gone and we were able to get him to smile and squeal! Yeah! He's so smart too! He loves following people with his eyes. With all our visits, we never knew when our time with him was up. The care giver just comes into the room and says, "Time to go!" I assure you, today was very hard on us when she came in to get him. Oh how we need a quick court date! We left a photo album of our family, his lion Taggy, and a disposable camera for his caretakers to take pictures of him while we wait for our court date.

I have so much more to write about our experience here, but I'm needing a nap! We've ventured outside our hotel a bit, but it's so cold we don't stay too long. They are building ice sculptures at the base of our hotel to celebrate the holiday season. I'll try to post some pictures of them soon. They are amazing! Paka from Russia! We leave the hotel tomorrow at 5:00AM to head back home.

Orphanage Visit #1

Here are my personal notes about our first visit yesterday. I apologize if it skips around a bit. I just copied and pasted from my Word Doc.

12/15/2010: We pulled into the driveway of Baby House #1. It was a very old building. Within a few minutes our boy was brought out to us. The caretaker immediately handed him to me and we all walked up the concrete stairs painted green. I was taken aback at how quickly they handed him to me. It was kinda like, “Here he is. Gotta go!” We were led into a small room with a rug and a few toys and chairs. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger etc. were painted on the concrete walls. One wall had bumble bees painted all over it. You could tell the orphanage attempted to make the rooms as bright and as kid friendly as possible. Our little boy never cried—even when Doug held him. He loved the toys that made noise—a boy! We brought out a sensory ball and he loved it. He kept gnawing on it. I think he may be teething as there was a lot of drool as well. He already has 2 bottom teeth! He’s a healthy little guy. He already weighs 19 pounds, so it’s evident that he’s been putting to good use all the calories the orphanage has been feeding him! He looks for sounds, he can sit up with assistance although it is not going to be very much longer when he can balance totally on his own. When something of interest catches his attention we watched him maneuver on his stomach to get it. He was trying to “skooch” forward to retrieve some items. After about 45 minutes, the orphanage doctor came in and went through his medicals. We really didn’t learn more than what we already knew and certainly there were no surprises, so I am thankful. As healthy as he is I wonder if the fact that he has Asian features is the reason a Russian family hasn’t adopted him. Doug held him in his arms and he fell asleep while I was getting the information from the doctor. Doug got to take him back to where they feed them. He said they had little high chair looking contraptions lined up with the babies sitting in them. They were eating some kind of mashed up beans he thought. The care taker was going down the line feeding each of them a spoonful at a time and moving on to the next baby. I want to hear him laugh. He is so solemn.

Sitting here typing this I’m thinking about yesterday’s visit. I know I was tired beyond tired beyond tired; it was a very surreal experience at the orphanage. I had butterflies in my stomach the entire time. I was nearly nauseated when we left the orphanage. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was thinking about doing the whole diaper thing again—maybe it was thinking if we don’t adopt him will he spend the rest of his days in these Russian institutions—maybe it was “What have we gotten ourselves into?” After 15 hours of sleep, I feel better; we are to visit him again this afternoon at 2:00pm.

The culture is so different here. Here are some of our observations:
(1) It is a free for all walking through the doors. The men do not hold open the door for women. They will literally run you over. Doug has held the door open for some women and we hear "Americanets" from some Russian men watching. Doug is currently watching people outside our hotel window. He's watching a women scrap the snow off the car while the man sits inside the car smoking his cigarette!
(2) Everybody wears black or gray. I look like a lollipop in my purple wool coat.
(3) The women dress very nicely. Alot wear short skirts--even in these freezing temps.
(4) Fur is everywhere--if they are not wearing a full length fur coat then the collar or hood is fur. This is almost without exception. The majority of women have fur hats as well.
(5) Russians do not talk in the airport. It was amazingly quiet in the Moscow airport.
(6) Liquor ads are everywhere!!
(7) Doug is in shock at the women walking around in their stilleto heels.

(My apologies about any misspellings. The spell checker has highlighted every word. I think it's trying to do it in Russian...)

We have several hours before our next visit, so I think we're going to go exploring. Should be interesting to say the least!

Snapshot of Day 1

We've arrived! Our plane landed at the Krasnoyarsk Airport at about 5:45AM Wednesday morning. The airport does not have terminals that the planes pull up to and you walk down a sky walk inside. No, we got the experience of walking down a flight of stairs like some kind of president into some of the coldest air I've ever felt and then taking a ride inside a frozen shuttle bus to the baggage claim. We got to our hotel and had enough time to shower and eat breakfast before we were to be picked up to go to MOE. Breakfast at the Hotel Krasnoyarsk was not only delicious but very filling. Can't wait to venture there again!

The driving is absolutely crazy around here. I'd heard stories, but you have to experience it for yourself to truly appreciate it. Thankfully our orphanage is not outside the city so car time is minimal. I'll blog more about that and our experience in the Moscow airport later. Stick around for that--it'll be worth it! LOL

Our appointment with the Ministry of Education went well. We were asked a few questions and granted to permission to visit our little guy. We then headed to the legal department to obtain information on his mother and father. Doug loves our coordinator. She told us not to take our coats off because we don't have time to waste. She's a "let's gitter done!" kinda of lady. I'm frantically taking notes and then we're off to the orphanage as quickly as possible so we can have as much time as possible before he has to take a nap.

We drive to our baby's orphanage. It's clean but very old. As soon as we put on our little blue booties over our shoes (Doug's tore and had to ask for another one. The comment our coordinator said was, "Made in China!") a care taker brought him to me. We walked up a flight of stairs to a play room and had about 40 minutes to play with him. I'll blog more about that visit as well. I'm just trying to get an update before my Advil PM kicks in. It's 1:00AM here as I'm typing. The doctor came in and went over his medicals.

After our visit, our translator and coordinator dropped us off at Moma Roma's for lunch. We were given directions on how to get to our hotel from there and we were on our own. We got lost. Well sort of, we just didn't walk far enough. It was freezing, absolutely freezing, but everyone walks around here. High spikey heeled boots--it's amazing!! I was the only one without head gear. (I hate "hat head".) However, after my experience walking 4 blocks, I will not make that mistake twice and I will have something on my ears. I emailed Dr. Davies some questions and more photos and we're waiting to hear back from him. I tried to stay awake yesterday afternoon until dark, but I only made it until 3:00. Doug made it only to 2:00. We crashed and burned in our clothes on top of the bed. We're now awake, but I have big plans to go back to bed in a few minutes.

Thank you for all your prayers.

Hello From JFK!

It has been a whirlwind the last few days. I didn't get everything on my list completed like I wanted, and truly I felt like a chicken with my head cut off. Quite frankly, it was a relief to be in the car leaving. Annsley cried when we left and Kennedi, I think, was rather oblivious to what was fixing to happen. She's really the one we're concerned about as she gets to be a momma's girl when she gets tired, but we've asked God to fill our girls with peace, and we know they'll both be OK. It's the grandmas we're really concerned about!

We got to our Dallas hotel last night at midnight, got up at 4:00, and still missed the 5:00 shuttle. The hotel guy was really nice and called for another shuttle to come pick us up. DFW was a madhouse to say the least. I guess there were tons of flights rerouted or cancelled because of the snow storm. We got to Newark at 11:00AM, caught a shuttle to JFK,grabbed some Asian food from a counter with two women who didn't speak any English, and waited for the Aeroflot counter to open.The terminal Aeroflot is located in is the same as China Air, Japan Airline, Turkish Air, and "if you can pronounce it you can go there" Air. Doug and I are like the Clampets going to Europe--we are truly out of our Texas element. I feel like whipping out the BINGO game and playing "what language is this?" We'd clean house!

We don't take off until 7:00PM, so we wait some more. We arrive at Moscow tomorrow at 12:15PM and then have a nice little 9 hour layover in SVO airport. I haven't told Doug yet that we'll be on our own at the Moscow airport--why send the little boy into a fretting frenzy early? Out caseworker as well as several adoptive parents told me it was no big deal to navigate the Moscow Airport, so we--rather I--opted out of our agency sending someone to help us transfer. Our flight arrives and the leaves for Kras in the same terminal, so I think in 9 hours time I can find the connecting gate. I've got Krasnoyarsk spelled in Cyrillic just in case I can't find someone who knows English to take pity on us--it can't be that bad--right? Right? We leave Moscow at 9:15 Tuesday night and arrive in Krasnoyarsk at 6:00AM. I'm tired, ready to sleep, and feel like I'm getting jipped with my sleep with regard to the Krasnoyarsk flight with the 6 hour time difference. We're supposed to be picked up at Krasnoyarsk and then we'll head to MOE and then on to meet our little boy! The next time you hear from us we'll literally be half way around the world.

Progress?

I thought I was kicking my "to do" list in the rear this morning, and then I turned the page in my little notebook. It was a fleeting victory. All I can say absolutely without a doubt there is no way I could get everything ready for this trip if I had not gone ahead and finished or bought things earlier this summer and fall. The adapters, the universal power strip, the pictures taken early for the visas, the photo album I made to leave with the orphanage, and the list goes on. I am so thankful I did as much as I could early. Also, a note to PAPs out there...I just thought we were dropping money early on in our adoption journey. It is flying out the window now. It about takes my breath away--not because we weren't expecting it, but because of the huge chunks and how fast it's going. Just be prepared for that!

I am tired--very tired. I don't know if making the decision to travel in less than 8 days adds a new dynamic that given 14 days to travel doesn't have, but nevertheless I'm tired. My eyes have been burning for 6 days straight by 8:00 at night. Tonight I'm going to try out my new purchase from other day--Advil PM.

Everything is done except booking a room at DFW airport Sunday night. I spent today getting all my paperwork, notes, maps printed off the computer. I made a currency exchange rate chart so I'd know if I were being charged $400 for an apple at the local grocery store. I have an international calling card now just in case SKYPE is a bust.

Our visas arrived this morning! Not what I was expecting--my convict picture is not a part of my visa stamp--thank the Lord! Oh the horror of having to whip that out every time at customs. I'm now wondering if it's on a pin up wall at the Russian Consulate under the "Watch List." And no, I'm still not showing it to anyone. I have been extremely impressed with Travel Visa Pro. I have nothing to compare them to and maybe other companies give their customers a free ticket to Brazil for using them, but TVP sent our passports back in these really nice plastic passport covers. I also have a coupon for $10 off next time I use them AND I have a coupon for some lucky recipient for $15 off each visa for referring you to them. If you're interested in it, let me know. First come, first serve. I'll put it in the mail to you tomorrow if you leave your address. After tomorrow, I'm not promising anything.

On the agenda tomorrow: pick up chocolates, buy a warm winter hat, pick up some snacks to take on our trip, and grocery shop for the grandmas who are keeping our girls. I still have not thought about packing and cleaning my house. Maybe tomorrow night? Nothing like living on the edge.

Frozen Tundra

OK, so at the time of this writing, it is -18 at 10:00am in Krasnoyarsk with a wind chill of -43. That will make your nostril hairs freeze I just know it. I remember one winter in college when it was -80 in Alaska, and I don't remember how cold it was in Oklahoma, but it was hovering somewhere -20. I had to walk particularly far one day to my car and I remember my nose hairs freezing and my lungs hurting from breathing that cold air. As I am writing I am seriously concerned about my toes not having to be amputated from the cold. I'm thinking hand warmers. Would those be considered contraband? I was originally thinking I would be packing all my cute stuff. Now I'm moving on to survival.

Well, it's official I suppose. We get to enter Russia. Travel Visa Pro sent me an email this afternoon with the FedEx tracking number. I've been imagining the clerk at the Russian Consulate staring at my convict picture and perhaps praying for me. Did he have such concern about someone of my caliber entering his country he took my picture of the sad American to the lounge and get a vote on whether to approve this application? Was he wrought with indecision? Did he take pity on my husband? Did he think, "What's a good lookin' fella like that doing with this San Quentin graduate?" I suppose we'll never know...

Today I bought a travel alarm clock, have a working wrist watch for the first time in 3 years, and bought some Frebreeze. Tomorrow I will go after the travel toilet paper, snacks, and battery powered electric socks--do they even still make such a thing? Apparently I'm going to need our local boot shop to fashion me a holster to house the giant 9 vote battery needed to supply enough energy to keep my feet from falling off.

I perused Aeroflots's website last night. To avoid a pricey penalty, your one piece of luggage cannot exceed 50lbs on the flight from the US to Moscow. However, on the domestic flight you are limited to 44lbs. So, unless I plan to ditch some items in Moscow, I've got to pack for the 44 lbs. I refuse to pay a penalty--especially on this first trip.

Our agency has recommended we have 1-2 gifts on our first trip to give to those we won't see again ie: MOE person. I went to Schakolad Chocolate Factory--I can't believe we have a place like this in my little West Texas city--and they are making up a box of chocolates for me to take. On the bars they are writing "thank you" in Russian for me. I don't think I have to worry about them melting on this trip...

I reserved our hotel room at the Hotel Krasnoyarsk yesterday. I'm not sure what kind of room I really got--they had everything from twin beds to singles to superior singles to studio a, studio b and studio c. I got the cheapest room for two people with one bed. I kept waiting for the confirmation email. Finally found it in my spam folder today. It was sent there because it was in Russian. I am so fixing to be over my head!

My house is a wreck, I haven't packed one single item--I don't even have a "spot" where I'm gathering items. Help!

Coming Up For Air

Where do I start? Flights are booked as of this morning--we leave Sunday night--yes, in 5 days. We were basically given 4 different travel dates we could pick from; the latter two options would include travel on Christmas Day and the flights were outrageous and conflicts out the wazoo were in the mix as well. So, we pushed and pushed to make the earlier travel dates a reality. The flights were not very cheap; I had every Tom, Dick, and Harry travel agency on the internet looking for flights or calling me. I finally on a whim went directly to Aeroflot's website, and was able to book our flights out of Dallas for $600 cheaper than what anyone or anything could quote me! Yeah! Needing to get to Dallas (6 hours away) we booked separate fares on American. To leave from our little international airport was adding $1000 per ticket to nearly every quote we could get. That is insane! When I got the confirmation email from Aeroflot this morning, I had to go celebrate and ate mexican food at Abuelos with my little nephew who was in town. I think it was the first time I had eaten more than 5 bites of food since we accepted our referral. I have been such a basket case since we accepted our referral I haven't been able to enjoy the thought of getting the opportunity to go meet this little guy. Maybe I can now that we have the flights booked. We still need to book hotel, but if I can't find a great price on my own, our agency will get it booked for us.

Also, this afternoon I went to our bank to order some Rubles to have on hand to make quick little purchases in the airport. In front of the foreign currency teller's window is a beautiful Christmas display. It's not good. I have Kennedi with me, and her downfall is shiny, gold, and sparkly things. This life size tin reindeer is gold, shiny, and has Christmas lights outlining it's entire body. It is pulling an equally life size Santa sleigh. Standing next to the deer is a 12 foot giant Santa. It's more than Kennedi can handle. Both girls are checking out this Santa. Not good. The deer is being precariously balanced on these narrow metal stands. I get both girls to stand next to me. I turn my back for a second--it's always a second isn't it??- and out of the corner of my eye I see Kennedi head back for Sasquatch Santa. Her foot hangs on the reindeer's front hoof and down Prancer is coming. I catch the thing before it crashes to the floor. I put him back upright, but now his tail is lying on his back and his antlers are hanging around the jowels of his cheeks. (Thankfully those body parts weren't broken, but the Christmas elves will have to put him back correctly.) And yeah, they're gonna remember me because nobody in this town orders Rubles, and I have to go pick them up later this week.

And finally, the tale of the quest for visas. We accepted our referral on a Thursday morning. Our caseworker thought we could travel the 13th if we wanted to go quickly. So, the hunt to get visas here was priority #1 that day. I filled out the apps online; I had to go dig out our old resumes to finish it! We had to put our current employer info, but also the last two places or employment, phone numbers, supervisor names, etc. There were places for listing your higher education--again address, phone numbers, majors. It took me forever to fill it out. The amount you pay for your visa is determined how fast they are processed. In order to get it the next weekend, we could choose the 3-5 day option or overnight. Doug was ready to live on the edge, so we opted for the cheaper 3-5 day option, but the only way that would work was if I got it to FedEx that afternoon. I printed out the apps, grabbed the passports, and my fresh out of jail visa photos; I printed a shipping label from my FedEx account (which I would highly recommend for anyone in the adoption process--they give you a 10-15% discount or something like that) and sped to the FedEx Office. I got there 15 minutes before the truck was coming to pick up. I would like to point out that thanks to my keen insight, we had our visa pictures waiting on us to use. If we had to take the time to get them made, we would have been forced to go with the $500 per expedited visa option. According to our visa company, (we used Travel Visa Pro), they are supposed to be here Thursday morning. I will say though it takes a bit of faith and throwing caution to the wind to put your highly sought after on the black market American passport in the mail to a guy in Houston who speaks with a strong foreign accent.

Lastly, to prepare us for the Siberian winter we are about to experience, our central heat isn't working. The repair guy isn't coming until tomorrow, and we've been without heat for 2 days now. It's been down in the 20s at night this week, so our house is frigid. We kept the fireplace going all night long; Doug would set the alarm every so often and go put more logs on. I felt like I've been stuck in a Little House on the Prairie time warp with a gazillion blankets on our bed. How did those people live out here in their little grass sod houses????

To commemorate our Siberian Olympics at our house, I leave you with a picture of the Ice Palace from Dr. Zhivago:

Yowza!

Some amazing things have happened in the last week:

(1) I shaved my legs for the first time in 3 weeks (don't ask!)

(2) I think my 4 year old knows more Russian than her father. She walks around the house with his MP3 player practicing. You can hear her say out loud, "I" "Yah", "Good night" "Spa-Coin-a Noche" It's so cute. She repeats the English word and then the Russian. I've reminded Doug, since acquiring skills in the Russian language has been steadily dropping on list of priorities, that he needs at least to be able to say, "I don't understand Russian" and perhaps more importantly if he should ever be separated from me "Where's my hotel/airport?" I laugh at my self pride in knowing my 50 or so words/phrases--like I'm gonna tell the translator her services won't be needed--It reminds me of when I was in college with Spanish as my minor. I thought I was hot stuff in the Latino world and decided I'd sit down to watch a Spanish soap opera to hone in my skills. I'm the one who got schooled! Let's see...got a bit off topic there...

(3) We have an early Christmas present! Yes, this is the big enchilada!! We have accepted a referral of a beautiful 9 month old baby boy today!!! Our case worker surprised us with a call a week ago last Wednesday morning at about 8:55 AM to tell us she was emailing us some pictures. She was surprised too as she wasn't expecting to hear from Russia until at least December. She didn't have any medicals to send us but thought she'd get something perhaps on Thanksgiving Day. Let me just tell you, it's pretty darn hard to keep your mouth closed when all your family you see over the Thanksgiving holidays asks if you've heard anything about the adoption. We knew nothing about this little boy and just wanted to keep it to ourselves until we knew for sure. (Sorry Gram, Momma Carol, Papa, Uncle Doug, etc--yes, we lied.) I was a lot more cautious this time around and purposely did not pull up his pictures up on the computer all day every day to look at this little cutie until we got the green light from an IA doctor. There is nothing like getting a piece of your heart jerked out. I will say that this time around though when Doug and I first looked at his pictures, we quietly knew he was the one for us. So we waited--Thanksgiving, no medical; Friday, no medical; maybe Monday? No medical as the inspector is still on vacay; should be here Tuesday our case worker said.

Bright and early the medicals arrived (11/30) Tuesday morning (nothing like 7 days of suspense to keep the heart muscle in shape), Dr. Davies had a cancellation in his schedule, and we were able to conference with him at noon the same day! He was very optimistic compared to our earlier November referral. We sought out two IA doctor's opinions the first time, but both Doug and I feel that isn't necessary this time. He's a healthy little guy! We've been given the option of two travel dates, and we're frantically trying to get the first set of dates working for us. So, we will be leaving soon to meet the little boy whom God has chosen to make us a family of 5! Thank You Lord for Your wonderful blessings! "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23.