WE FINALLY MADE IT TO RUSSIA!!!!

Hi everyone, we finally made it to the Kaluga region! It was a very LOOOOONG flight (about 10 hours) but a very smooth flight. We flew American Airlines from Chicago to Moscow. We were in business class and the seats were extremely tight. It was almost impossible to get a good night sleep on the plane (especially for Joe who is a little on the cranky side right now) but with the help of a couple benedryl and a few bloody mary's, we managed to get some shut eye.

Nadya, our translator, was right there at the airport waiting for us. She is SO very nice and helpful. We then were met by our driver, Basil, who is also very nice quiet, but nice) and drove for another 3 hours to our hotel in Kaluga.

Nadya brought us to our hotel and checked us into our room and we were then met also by Rita who works as a facilitator at the orphanage. She introduced herself, took our itinerary and said she would meet us tomorrow at the orphanage. You girls were right about having to check EVERY outlet in order to get internet access, but once we did we were fine. I'm sure our family was wondering what happened to us, but we just couldn't get access right away and we,of course, had no cell phone access. We tried to do some Skype calls, but our microphone must not be that great because my sister-in-law had a hard time hearing us. We were just so excited to have our own room and a BED....even if it IS as HARD AS A ROCK!

Anyway, we couldn't have been in better hands than we were with Nadya...she is GREAT! She even took us to a little restaurant around the block and helped us order. She said she is going to call us tomorrow at around 11:30 a.m. to pick us up for the orphanage.....we get to see our little girl tomorrow! I'm not sure about tomorrow, but she said that on Tuesday and Wednesday we will get to go to the orphanage twice, once in the morning for a couple hours and once in the afternoon for about an hour and a half. We were also so excited when we showed her the picture that we had of her (well, actually JOE had of her in HIS POCKET) and she said "YES, I know this little girl!" She was so happy. She said that she has the prettiest eyes and that when she saw her she just was sitting up happy in her walker, but all by herself....ahhhh...how sad. Nadya will be there with us every day to translate for us. We just cannot WAIT to actually see her face...finally!

Well, this is going to be a short post because I am exhausted! Joe is already CRASHED. I'm going to TRY to sleep, but I don't know if I'll be able to.

Well, I'll post again tomorrow after our first visit!

To all our family, we love you and just want to say thanks for being as happy and excited as we are. Dad, you can breathe now...we're here safe and sound! ha-ha!

Michael, love you honey.

Paka,
Renae and Joe