Celebrate Adoption Giveaway

SO. Here it is. The giveaway that I've been saying I would do....and three weeks later am finally getting around to.

The children are napping.

I just ate a 3 Musketeers that I found in the cupboard when I was cleaning them. It was good.

Spent the morning unpacking suitcases and re-arranging clothes so JN has a spot for the few clothes that he has to wear. Will's hand-me-downs will work it appears...I just need to find the time to go through them.

Time is a precious commodity right now.

I have been/am so thankful for the friends/family who are bringing us food. Seriously. I am one who likes to do it all on my own. Had they asked me if they could bring food for the past couple weeks, I likely would have said 'No, thank you. I can cook.' However, they thankfully didn't ask me. They just stocked our freezer and we've been eating on it for two weeks now. What a blessing! While living at Susan's it was lovely to not have to drag all the stuff from home just so I could cook. Now that we're home, it's been lovely to go to the freezer to pull something out rather than having to slave away in the kitchen. I don't mind cooking...but the mess of a house is kind of overwhelming. It's nice to not have to unpack boxes and cook both!!! Yes. I've been spoiled.

Reality will hit hard, I fear.

Anyway.

The giveaway that I said was coming? Here it is. I told you all that it was a product from a website that supports adoption 100%.....

I was going to be really clever and give you the link to view the exact bag on their site....but it appears that they are no longer selling this exact bag. Oops.

Instead, you'll have to take my word for it. It's a large bag. I could easily fit my laptop into it. Or I could use it to pack full of diapers, wipes, baby food, and bottles. But I'm trying to not need those diapers anymore, so it'd be silly to keep it for myself.

Not only that. I'd love to give it to someone else.

And everytime you use it you will be alerting others to the fact that there are millions of orphans in this ole world. Millions.

Following are some statistics that I copied and pasted off the
website. It's sad. It's really sad. We have only brought three of the millions into our home...and just as quickly as they became our children, there were other orphans there to take their place. If I could, I'd bring home a dozen. I don't think that'll probably ever happen, unless God speaks really loudly. And clearly. And He tells Jason the same thing. One thing about adoption is that husband and wife must be in complete agreement before ever beginning the process. I don't think it would work too well if one or the other was dragging their feet.

Anyway. That was a rabbit trail if I ever saw one. Here's what I was talking about.

STATISTICS … DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE NUMBER, BUT IN THE CHILDREN !!!!
Did you know there are hundreds of millions of children worldwide who have lost one or both parents.
Every 14 seconds an AIDS death leaves another child orphaned.
Approximately 88 million orphans live in Asia.
Approximately 45 million orphans live in Africa.
Approximately 14 million orphans live in Latin America & the Caribbean.
Approximately 1 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe
More than 800,000 children pass through America’s foster care system each year.
These statistics do not even include the UNKNOWN children living orphaned both here and abroad that go uncounted, unnoticed and unloved.

James 1:27 “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for the orphans and widows in their troubles and refuse to let the world corrupt us.”


Isn't it sad?

What makes it really sad to me is that so many of these 'orphans' really aren't orphans at all. Many (at least in Russia) have one or both parents alive and well. The parents just can't care for their children. Or in the really sad cases, the parents just don't want their own children. Sometimes, if the parent won't sign off rights for their child, that child is stuck. No visitors. No hugs. No kisses. No concept of family at all. When the child turns 16 (or in some cases 18) he/she will be kicked out of the orphanage and left to fend for him/herself. I can't even think of the end result without tears.

So. We're having a giveaway. Maybe it's something that you would never be interested in. That's okay. At least I got you to read some statistics!! If you aren't interested, but you know someone who may be...send them over. Get the word out, because in doing that, you will be informing others of the sad reality of orphans.

The giveaway will stay open until Wednesday, March 2, 2011. One entry per person. Any old comment or e-mail (for those who don't want to comment or don't know how...jjgarber03@yahoo.com) will do. I'll draw a name next Thursday...if there is anyone who wants it, anyway!!

Blessings to you all~

Home Sweet Home

Finally, after nearly seven weeks away, we are back in our house. It's a royal mess. But at least we're here.

How do folks manage to leave for several months at a time in the winter?

I, who absolutely love to take vacations, have no desire to pack a suitcase again for quite some time. I'm sure that 'no desire' thing will last for a couple months anyway. At least til summer when we can go camping....

Anyway. We're home.

What amazes me is that we have moved our belongings eight different times in the past seven weeks.

One night in Moscow.
Several nights in Vlad.
Two nights in Nakhodka.
Several weeks in Vlad.
Four nights in apartment #1 in Moscow.
Two nights in apartment #2 in Moscow.
Thirteen nights in Jason's sister's house.
And now home.
Indefinitely.

Actually, what REALLY amazes me is that every time we moved in the past seven weeks, Will would walk in the door and proclaim, "Ahhh. Home Sweet Home". Every single time we moved.

I'm so thankful that children are so resilient. It didn't matter to him that with every move we had to tote our kazillion suitcases (okay, that is stretching things a little....we only had four carry-ons and one checked in for our little family). It didn't matter to him if the sheets were clean or dirty. It didn't matter to him if the beds were hard as a concrete slab or soft as a cloud. It didn't matter to him if....

The place we lived really didn't matter to him. If his whole family, his three changes of clothes, and his teensy pile of toys was there, he was home.

So. What have we been up to since we're officially home? We're keeping busy, I promise.

Tuesday morning the cleaning ladies came and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Minus a few things. At noon the moving crew showed up and moved all the stuff from the pod and the garage into the house. It was great!! If only I didn't have to unpack boxes now....

Tuesday afternoon I started to tackle some of the cleaning that the cleaning ladies didn't get. Such as the open shelves that house many of my dishes in the kitchen. Mom and Brenda (a friend) showed up to help me....a fact for which I am ever so thankful. Nearly every cupboard has to be emptied...and most of the dishes have to be washed. Apparently the dust was thick. It likely doesn't help that my cupboards are really old. Just ask Mom. My kitchen has to be the original kitchen from when the house was built. Few cupboards (some of them metal), a one hole ceramic sink with the drain boards on the sides. It maybe isn't the prettiest thing in the whole world, but it works. I'll never forget a couple years ago when one of my aunts came for a tour of our house. We took her around (which didn't take long) and ended up standing in the middle of the kitchen. She told us we had a cute place....but "where's the kitchen?" :)
She was slightly embarrassed when we told her she was standing in the middle of it!!

Anyway. The cupboards are now nearly cleaned. Most of the curtains are back up. The walls are ready and waiting for the pictures and whatnot to be hung back up again. The boxes sitting around are begging to be unloaded. Maybe that's my children begging for me to unload the boxes so they can find their toys again.

We moved half our stuff from Susan's yesterday. Couldn't bring all of it as the bed of Jason's pick-up was half full. It's amazing what all we accumulated over there. Every time we needed something we came home, found it in the pod, or the garage, or upstairs and took it "home" with us. Now it all has to come back. Hopefully today we'll find the time to get the rest.

Life is slowly finding a normal pace again. Slowly. It's time for normal to become a part of our lives again.

Sadly, our middle child (the one who declares every place to be home sweet home) is struggling with having a new little brother. I'm following him around...moving chair blocades from doorways, taking toys from high places and putting them back on the floor, listening to a constant "Nyet, Jack Nickolay! Those are mine!", reminding him that Jack is here to stay, giving many extra hugs, and finally, breathing a huge sigh of relief when he lays his little head on a pillow to 'rest'...as he's doing right now.

Life is rough when you go from being the youngest child to being the middle child. Especially when the youngest child arrives already walking. A new baby would be hard enough, but when the pipsqueak can get into everything? Now that's bad.

See what I'm saying? Only back home for a part of a day and little JN has claimed WILL'S tractor. Life is rough.

I really should get going. All three children are napping...so now would be a good time to accomplish a little something.

Today we're counting our blessings that we had a house to come home to. Sure, we would have loved to come straight home when we came back from Russia, but so many folks around the world don't have a house to call home. So many folks would be thrilled to just be out of their house for seven short weeks. So many folks would be thrilled to face the task of unpacking boxes.

Shame on us for ever complaining. We are truly blessed.

10 Days Home

Ten whole days ago we touched down at the airport exhausted from our overnight stay in the Atlanta airport.

Today, I'm exhausted from the overnight punches from a certain nearly 18 month old.

If anyone ever tells you that it's no big deal to have a child sleep with you, don't believe them. It consists of elbows in the head, feet in the stomach, fingers in the face, bottoms in the neck.

As I said, it's not the most fun. And certainly not a good way to get lots of rest.

That being said, we wouldn't change it for the world. While it will be nice to have him finally sleeping in his own bed someday, it's also nice to feel his little body snuggled up beside me (when he's sleeping soundly, that is). While the elbows, feet, etc. get annoying at 3:12AM, it's also nice to feel his little hand searching for my arm when he starts to whimper. Nothing feels better at 3:13AM than when little fingers reach out for comfort.

That makes the lack of sleep more than worth it. To know that he's comforted in the middle of the night just by feeling my arm? Awesome!

We're still not back in our house. The floors were laid yesterday. We like the kitchen, but the office? Not so much. If they had just laid what we thought we ordered, we'd like it.... :) Not worth complaining, though, when we so badly want to get back in our house. Guess we can live with it.

Monday the trim will be put back up and the furnace will be serviced.

Tuesday morning the cleaning ladies will show up to clean the whole house!!! Insurance is paying for it, so we're taking advantage of it. Why clean it myself if someone else will get paid to do it?! Boone's (the company who has been working in our house) is coming at noon to move all our furniture back in. The cleaning ladies will be there with rags in hand to clean it all up as it comes in the door. By evening, the place should be ready to move back in to. Can't beat that.

However, we're likely going to hold off on the great day of moving ourselves back home. We've decided that it sounds really nice to haul most of our stuff home (the stacks are growing daily as Jason's sister took much of her stuff with her to AZ...including her iron and ironing board) and get it all put away before we officially live there again. So...moving day for us will likely not be before Wednesday, possibly even later.

The children can hardly wait to be home again. We've been back several times.

Jack Nickolay has thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the animals. We hope the poor cats have tails left in a few weeks.

The weather was nice yesterday, so the children and I hung out at our place for the day. I dug through the Pod that is containing most of our belongings.....

....and the children ate raisins and played with our new puppy. Not Cheb. The next new puppy....Gena. Gena is a Russian cartoon character who is actually a crocodile, but we thought it'd make a good name for a puppy. Doncha think?!

Today we had to head into town for a little, so of course we came to Mom's for a 'little' as well. I am attempting to upload all our pictures to Wal-Mart....but unfortunately the uploady thingy just quit. Only 461 actually uploaded. Grrrr. Two hours later.....

And now. I should go. I have to check out prices on all new furniture. The insurance guy is kinda being a stinker and is saying that he may make us buy new rather than keeping what we already have. The problem is that I really don't like new furniture. All the stuff that has to be re-finished is antiques, as that is what we like. Who wants new?! :)

Maybe by this time next week I'll be back home again....and can actually get the giveaway up and going....since I keep talking about it.

See ya then!!!

I'm BAAAACCCCKKKKKK!

For a brief little update anyway. I'll go missing in action again for a few days after this has posted.

Life has been busy. Plus, I have no internet where we are currently living, so I am now sitting at my parents mooching off theirs. They don't mind.

We got home Thursday a little before noon and had to be at our house by 2:00 to decide on the shade we wanted our floors re-finished. Welcome home.

Thursday night we came to Dad and Mom's. We used the excuse that we needed to pick up all the stuff of ours that was packed in their suitcases, but really? We just missed them. They became a part of our little family in the past five weeks. It just so happened that all three of my brothers and their families were here, too. So...it was more of a meet the family time for little Jack than it was to pick up our stuff.

Friday morning we actually slept in. All the way til 6:30 when Jack elbowed me in the face, jabbering. What a wonderful way to wake up.

Addie and Will slept til about 8:00, we ate breakfast (back to cold cereal!!!!), got dressed, and headed off to town. Made several stops. Wal-Mart, the bank, post office, and the floor store. Just what we wanted to do was pick out new floors for the kitchen and office on the first full day we were home. I'd have been happy had they just picked it out and surprised us, but Jason preferred to choose it himself.

The floor guys should be there to lay the new floors by the end of the week. The painters are currently there painting most of the downstairs. When it's all said and done, the clean-up company will move all our stuff back in and have it completely cleaned before we'll be able to move home. It'll be time to quit living out of suitcases by that time.

So. What have we been up to? Jason went back to work for the first time on Saturday. Seemed a little odd to not have him around. After five weeks of constant togetherness, I got used to his help with the children. We made it, though.

Saturday night we all went home to 'help' him do the chores. Such a help we were. I took the children sledding down our hill while we cheered for him as he carried hay to the different pastures. Oh, yes. We are helpful. Sad but true, I forgot the camera, and thus missed the opportunity to snap pictures of Jack Nickolay's first time down the hill. He loved it...til they reached the bottom and tipped over...both big children on top of JN. Tears were abundant. Something about a face full of icy snow wasn't to his liking.

Sunday we had excellent intentions of heading to church, but things didn't work out as planned. It was likely for the best. Our children couldn't seem to get in gear that morning. We called in to listen on the phone and Addie and Will sat with their eyes barely peeked open the whole two hours.

After naps were done for the day, Uncle Ivan buzzed out to spend the afternoon with us. He brought with him little pint sized skis for the children. We headed to our house to utilize the hill. It was hilarious to watch.

Addie loved it. Granted, she made use of the ultra-bunny hills, but at least she could stay on her feet!!

Will, on the other hand, gave up pretty quickly. He prefers the sled.

The chair lift leaves a little to be desired, but the children thought it was great!!

And Nickolay?! He was more than content to toddle around all over the yard. Happy as a lark.

When he finally did get grumpy, he plopped on the sled and in a matter of minutes was fast asleep.

In other news. You know that you've been to Russia when your children ask for dustpans and buckets when they go outside to play.

Why? To chip ice off the sidewalk, of course.

And in still more news? We're utilizing a potty chair at our house. The littlest munchkin is working on becoming diaper free. His mommy is too stingy to buy diapers if she doesn't have to. He's doing okay....but still has a ways to go. Just a few less diapers in a day suits me just fine!!

The giveaway, you ask? It's still in the works. Don't worry. I'll get to that when I'm finally home again. I have to find the stuff before I can officially start the giveaway. It's somewhere upstairs, I think. But. So is lots of other stuff. Stuff that will hopefully make it's way back down the stairs soon. One of these days, I'll work up enough ambition to go start the digging out process.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy my last week or so of 'vacation'. :)

And, by the way, thanks to the 200+ folks who are still sticking it out even though the journey is over. I'm amazed that so many folks are still checking in every day.....

Blessings to you all~

Finally home.....

.....just 12 hours later than we were supposed to be.

Wouldn't you know it. We missed our flight in New York. Granted, even if we had been on time, our flight had already been cancelled due to....I don't know what.

Our journey started out great. We left our grubby apartment at 8:00. It was quite snowy, so we were glad to have the extra time.

By 8:45 we were at the airport. Check-in went well. Other than the fact that our little family was to be seated in three different rows. They did get us re-seated, but they weren't overly happy about it.

Through security. Again. What a drag with three children.

We made it to our gate and boarded the plane without a hitch.

Once on the plane we had to sit a little while so they could de-ice the wings. Comforting.

Off we went....headed to the US of A.

Ten hours later, we touched down.....and Jack Nickolay was officially a US citizen!!!!!

The children do so unbelievably well travelling. I hate to brag on my own children, but I guess somebody has to do it. Seriously. They do so well. After walking miles and miles and miles, they sit for ten hours on a plane. With no toys. Yeah. Their mom forgot to stick toys in the carry-on bags. JN does well also. He slept. He ate. He sat and sucked his thumbs. He loves to travel.

Touch down in New York was about 30 minutes late. We booked off the plane and raced down the hall toward passport control. The line was long and there was only one little line open. Handy when you have a flight to catch.

Finally, they opened a couple more lines and we were raced down to line 28. Only to wait in line for 10-15 minutes while they were trying to get JN's passport to read. Finally, after scanning the strip over and over with no results, he started to punch in any and all numbers he could find in the passport. It worked. The right number was finally found and we were escorted to the little room.

Immigration. It was a cinch. We put our documents on a desk and sat while some fella stamped them and gave JN's passport back to us.

Off we raced....only to find out that our flight was cancelled (we were too late anyway) and we had to catch the 7:10 flight to Atlanta.

Great! That also meant that we missed our last flight from Atlanta to home for the night. Not so great.

We made it to Atlanta about 11:00 and there we stayed until 8:45 this morning. Ever spent the night in an airport? It's not an overly good way to get great rest. The children slept well. We bedded them down on tables and they slept til about 5:30 this morning.

The rest of us stretched out on chairs and caught however many cat naps that we could. We didn't feel too bad all things considered.

At 8:45, off we went. Homeward bound. Bummer for us, the brakes on the plane had a problem and there we sat. For nearly an hour.

The brakes were finally fixed (we hoped) and we took off.

Touched down at home about 11:00. Rejoicing was abundant.

We were met at the airport by some lovely family and friends. They will never know just how much we loved to see some familiar faces at the end of our long journey home.

From the airport we headed straight to our house. Not to live, of course, but to choose the color for our floors.

Welcome back to reality.

And now. It may be a while til I'm back in the loop here again. But. I shall return. Hopefully by the end of next week, the posts will resume in full force......

And......then will come the giveaway.

Stay tuned.

It's Been Fun...

....but it's time to go home now.

Really. We've had a great time. Most of the time, anyway. There were a few spots that we would have thankfully given up, but God had a plan. Sometimes it's really hard to see what the plan is, but I'm sure there was one. :)

It's time to head home. The children are bouncing off the walls at the mere thought of getting to go home. They're starting to drive us all nuts.

Our last full day here was wonderful. This morning we didn't get up til about 8:00 or so.

We ate breakfast, and discussed what our options were for the day. One thing that we all agreed on immediately was that we didn't want to spend our day in our grubby apartment. Unanimous. We ended up deciding to head to Old Arbat Street.

Our professional toast maker toasting our toast on a cookie sheet that had to be washed before we could use it...as did all the dishes. Notice how nice that oven door is? It's so handy to have an oven door that rests on the floor when you open it. Oh. And the disgusting oven floor and whatnot was nearly enough to make us choose to eat out every meal rather than cooking. Who cares how many groceries we had that needed used. Don't worry, Grandma. We remembered your motto....waste not, want not...and braved the cooking.

It was a long walk. About an hour after we left our apartment, we arrived at our destination...and that was without getting lost.

Like the cozy elevator?

It was pretty neat. Lots of little shops to poke our heads in. Everyone was having a 50% off sale. :) Ya think they marked up the prices so they could say they were having a sale??

We more than finished off our shopping. Didn't even know that we were looking for anything in particular when we went. Isn't that the way it works? Maybe that's why Jason doesn't like me to go shopping very often...

We met several young men from Nigeria who were such jolly fellows. It was an odd sight to see smiles...and on top of that the smiles were on colored men. Two things that we just don't see in Russia. And they were so thrilled to see smiles as well. We met three or four of them, and they all could tell right away that we weren't from Russia simply because we were smiling.

We were gone about five hours. Our children are such troopers. Jack Nickolay hung out in the Ergo, happy as a lark. Addie and Will marched along side us for the whole 7-8 miles, happy as larks. Never once did they even complain that their legs hurt. Good thing they like to travel considering their parents keep dragging them around the world.

We keep laughing at all the poses that folks do in front of different attractions around the city. This is the front door of our apartment building. Dad & Jason thought they just had to pose for a picture... :)

When we got home, Dad and Mom headed back out to get our registration papers from the Go To Russia office. It should have been a two minute walk according to the map. However, the sign for their office consisted of a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet with their company name on it posted in a window. They missed it completely and ended up walking about 2 1/2 miles past it. When they reached the end of the buildings they turned around and came back..and there it was. Right where the map said it would be.

They certainly got their exercise today.

Tonight we ate supper. Rice, hot dogs, veggies, and cookies. Cleaned out the pantry.

Then it was time to pack. I despise that job. There really is not one thing that I enjoy about it. I put something in the suitcase and along comes Will to take something else out. While trying to catch Will to get it put back in, here comes Addie with a load of stuff to throw on top. While I dig all that back out again, here comes Jack with some ripped up paper towels to stuff in the cracks. Oh what fun.

It's currently 10:00PM. The bags are all packed and weighing under 50 pounds. We hope. No scales.

Tomorrow morning our drivers are picking us up at 8:00. They were coming at 8:30, but a snowstorm has hit the city. About 2 inches of snow in about that many hours.

Let's hope that it doesn't get too hairy.

Guess it would add another chapter to the book....

This apartment has put us all in the mood to hit the road for home. Last night we sat here trying to work up the nerve to take showers, let alone go to bed. The sheets that were on the bed were actually dirty. Gross. The extra bedding they had in the closet was stained. Dad got creative and found a screwdriver to pry open a padlocked cupboard. Inside that cupboard were sealed bags of towels, sheets, and duvet covers. Score!!! One sheet was used on the bed. The duvet covers were stuffed with the stained comforts from the closet to be used as blankets. The other sheets were used to cover the couches for Addie and Will to sleep on. It worked, and we all went to bed feeling mostly clean. The shower is, thankfully, much nicer than we were expecting. The pressure is super, and there was gobs of hot water. See? We did find something good about it.

So. Here we go. It'll be several days at least before you hear from me again. When we get 'home' we'll be living at Jason's sister's house until our house gets finished. I think right now they are working on finishing the drywall. Thursday they will start re-finishing the hardwood floors. Monday the painting starts. Sometime we need to get to town to pick out new flooring for the kitchen and office.

Anyway. We won't have internet access for a while. If the roads aren't too bad, maybe I can head somewhere to use it, but we'll have to see.

When I am back among the blog world....I hope to do a giveaway to celebrate the homecoming of our newest son. I won't say much..but it is an item from www.147millionorphans.com. Keep watching if you are interested....

Talk to you all back in the states.

I hope.

Nearly done....

Here it is. The end of yet another day in the land of Russia. I can't believe that we have been here for four weeks and three days already.

It seems like so long ago that we left our house.

But. Here we are. On the countdown. Only one more full day here to be spent in whatever way we choose. Who knows what we'll end up doing.

This morning Dad and Mom headed off once again for their early morning walk. We stayed in bed to catch up on our beauty sleep a tad.

Our cooks (Dad & Mom) fixed our breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs while Jason and I started packing our bags.

Our driver, Paul, (Val is sick) picked Jason, JN, and I up at 10:45 and off we went to the US Embassy to get Jack Nickolay's visa. No problem. The 'interview' that's required really wasn't much of an interview. We had to affirm that the documents were correct, had to sign a document, and verify that his picture and information on the computer matched him. That was it. His visa was approved, and we returned to our seats to wait on the visa to be printed.

There was only one other family there with us....adopting a set of twins. How fun! By the way. If you are that family and you read this....I'd love to have your blog address!!!

Then. The fun began. Because we had to change our tickets, we also had to change our lodging dates here in Moscow. The apartment that we had reserved was only available from Thursday through Monday. That meant that today we had to move. Paka Tverskoy Boulevard.

The move took quite some time. Paul brought us here when we left the Embassy. No, wait. He brought us here when we left the Russian Consulate.

Our first apartment was pretty decent. Nice big rooms. Two bedrooms. Nice clean kitchen. Large orange bathroom. Second floor...there were only four.

This apartment? Not so lovely. We're on the eighth of nine floors. One bedroom. Kitchen in which the dishwasher doesn't work...we already flooded our floor. Black bathroom. Dirty kitchen. Stove door falling off its hinges.

We decided we're getting more of a taste of Russia. But really, it's probably still not a true picture. All I know is that right now, when we're sitting here thinking about going to bed, none of us are brave enough to actually crawl into bed. The hide-a-bed that Dad and Mom were supposed to sleep on is caved in on one side....who knows where they will sleep tonight. We're not even brave enough to take a shower. We feel grubby just sitting here.

Believe it or not, we just called the Marriot to see if they had rooms available. They do. For only $1500 per night. Wow. That'd only be $3000 for the two nights that we're here.

I guess we'll brave it.

We are spoiled people. Our house may have flooded, but we know that it's going to be fixed. Our house may be little, but we all have our own bedrooms. Our kitchen may be old, but it's kept fairly clean.

We are spoiled.

The elevator up to our floor is an experience in itself. We can just barely all fit inside it. Poor Jack Nickolay screams every time we even step foot inside. Can't say as I enjoy it too much either, but it beats hiking up eight floors of steps....

We ate supper about 3:30 and took off to explore our new area. Our new street name is Tverskaya Yamskaya. We're in building 28. Easy to find. There's a Starbucks right across the road from us.

Our walk took about 2 1/2 hours.

Now we're tired.

We're praising God that one more step is done in getting Nickolay home.

And our current living situation is making us thankful for our nice houses back home.