Sunday Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Well the week has been put to rest and now we are doing our best to get geared up for the coming week.  I'm here with my sweet friend Becky Preece and we are two mamas on a mission.  I feel like we have been friends forever although we have only met in person just a week ago.  I can't help but think we were meant to be on this escapade together, because I know I couldn't be here doing what I'm doing alone.  Her husband went home to attend to their children and family business yesterday so now the real adventure begins.  We are trying our best to stay busy and have laughed so many times this week.  The quote by Marjorie Hinkley keeps running through my head, “The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.”  We are seriously considering writing a travel guide with all our helpful hints that we are learning each day.  

Becky is a really great writer and is keeping a very good record of all the legal business and happenings that we are going through over here, so rather than trying to hash it out myself I'm going to refer you to her blog.  

http://preecefamilyadoption.blogspot.com

Thursday morning I was able to go see my girl!  We had a wonderful, fun visit together.  She walked in with her big cute smile, I help out my arms and gave her a great big hug!  She loved all the toys I brought to play with and like always her favorite things were my running magazine and boarding tickets from my flight.  She loved dressing up in all my gear and was heading outside to play.  Its way to cold to play outside these days, she was a little bummed about that.  At one point she was holding my phone up to her ear listening to Jordan Sparks song, One Step at a Time and she just walked over to me and gave me a hug.  It melted my heart.  She is such a special little girl and I can't wait until I can finally bring her home and everyone can meet her.  

We walked down to Red Square one night and I just about froze to death.  As the gentleman in the picture below told me, "Russia, Cold"  Yep, Russia is C.O.L.D and the "pretend boots" I brought are NOT cutting it.  I've had more than one experience where I was sure I'd be leaving my toes in Russia due to frost bite.  Yesterday I marched into the mall on Red Square and bought a pair of REAL boots!  I also bought a pair of wool socks and liner gloves, a scarf and some thick tights.  My next purchase will be a decent coat.  On our other trips we hardly spent any time out side so I packed really light for myself this time around.  So don't be surprised if I return wearing a knee length full fur coat :)  Jk, those are VERY expensive, but everyone has them.

St. Basils Cathedral on Red Square

Thank goodness for the fitness room at our hotel, its been a great place to workout and keep the stress from building up.  We even took our some frustrations on the punching bag!

Yesterday Becky and I decided to REALLY be adventurous and try our hand at the Metro.  This being my fourth trip here, I hadn't even laid eyes on the metro, but we knew we didn't want to sit around all weekend and feel sad and lonely.  We left the hotel feeling all sorts of brave until we ended up about 6 levels underground at a dead end.  I felt frozen, I couldn't move my body, my brain wouldn't process what to do and I could barely talk.  After doing a few circles and getting plenty of strange looks we made it to where we needed to go.  We were so proud of ourselves!  We even rode the metro to church again today and now we feel like a whole new world has opened up to us :)

Me looking like a deer in headlights once we got on the train

Becky looking very calm and collected after boarding our train

The escalators down to the metro are unREAL!  They are like a 1/4 mile long and almost straight up and down.

Our adventure took us to the Ismylavo (sp) market.  Its where you buy all sorts of things for good prices.  If we weren't so cold we would have stayed much longer.  The dolls were about 1/4 the price we have been paying on our previous trips.

Entering the market

 At one point my toes were so cold I thought I wasn't going to be able to walk anymore.  They were soaking wet so we searched high and low for some respit inside.  Also the pinky on my right hand was STARK WHITE! We ordered some meat-sticks and went upstairs to try and warm up.  We sat across from the group of gentleman below and they kept motioning for us to come sit by them and speaking in Russian.  It was kind of creeping us out but then the waitress came in and we figured out what they were saying.  They saw my wet freezing toes and were telling me to come sit there because there was a hot pipe I could put my hands and toes on to warm up.  Then the lady brought over a seat cushion for us to put on our laps.  I'm sure they were having a good time joking about what fools I was for coming to Russia dressed like that.  They were really nice though and even brought us a shot of Vodka, thankfully they didn't seem too offended that we didn't drink it.

Thanks to them I still have my toes and my right pinky

Today we were able to get a hold of some missionaries that took us to church with them and then our sweet friend Sally, who Wayne and I met last trip, picked us up and is letting us do our laundry and feeding us dinner.  Its a small world when you are a member of the LDS church and we are so grateful for the wonderful people we have met over here and how they have wrapped their arms around us.  

Well I'll try to do better about blogging, last week was such a whirlwind I just couldn't keep up with what day it was and what we had going.  Thank your for all the prayers, I know they are providing me with some much strength.  Becky and I joke about all the angels that had to be called in to watch over us while we are here without our husbands.  Hopefully they are getting a good laugh at all our blunders, we sure are.  

Keep the faith!  We will get our little one home :)