We're in Russia!

We're here in Russia!! We've had a crazy few days...
We left our house Sunday at 10:30am. After bad weather in Chicago, three missed flights we arrived in Moscow at 10:45pm on Monday! Then we found out ALL our luggage was lost. We arrived at our hotel in Moscow at 2am Tuesday, with no luggage! We left that morning at 6am to drive to Vladimir. Yes, that's 4 hours later!

We droved three hours to Vladimir. When we got there we met our cooordinator who is wonderful. We signed some paperwork and left for the orphanage. We met our new little cutie pie at 11:00am on Tuesday, August 18! Man, what an entratnce she made! They had us sit on a sofa in a big room with toys and a table. She came skipping in with two of her "care takers". She had two big bows in her hair and a cute little dress. She had a gigantic smile and was singing some peppy little Russian song. Now, that totally discribes her personality. ENERGY!!! She giggles at everything and has awesome fine and gross motor skills! Threads tiny string into beads, goes up and down stairs one foot at a time, etc. We got to visit her three times. One time we played outside with all the other kids at the orphanage, too. That was an experience, let me tell you. Rob got the brunt of it - after he taught them to "give him knuckels" they all thought it was appriopraite to punch him. 15 little pre-schoolers just wacking him and cracking up. A little out of control! But, they were sweet. It was so sad to live our little baby girl today. She, however, just hugged us and waved "paka" then ran off to have lunch! (Goodbye)

Because we have no luggage we have no electrical converters, so we can't recharge our computer. We plan to Skype our kids tonight - finally!! So, I have to go to conserve energy. But, I'll blog again when we get home.

Oh, and by the way - we have learned that you really can get by with only a few clothes, 6 granola bars, a toothbrush and deoderant while in a foreign country. We're trying to look on the bright side!