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: