We're in Russia!

Brandon and I made it to Russia without a hitch. We landed yesterday afternoon just before 4pm, and spent about the next hour or more trying to get through passport control. The workers kept taking breaks (or at least leaving their booths for a few minutes), and people kept jumping between lines. It was mass chaos. The interesting thing, though, is that by the time we got up to the window, the woman that helped us looked a bit like a Russian-version of my sister-in-law Debbie.

We were welcomed at the airport by Alexander (aka Sasha), and his 10-year old daughter Masha. We then had about a 2 hour ride in traffic to get to Alexander's parents house, Ludmila and Lev. Apparently traffic was very bad because it was the end of a 4-day weekend.

Masha entertained us last night, as she is the one who speaks the best English. We played cards for a while, and then we found out that Masha dances traditional Russian dances. We asked her to dance for us, thinking it would just be a 30 second sample. She actually went to the other room, changed into her traditional dress, and danced for a good 10 minutes. I was able to take a couple pictures which I'll post at some point. She then went and got into a different dress so I grabbed the video camera to tape her. When she saw that I had a video camera this time, she exclaimed "ohhhhh" and proceeded to dance for another few minutes, hamming it up the whole time. She's quite the entertainer.

Today we went to register our visas, which you have to do within the first 3 days of arriving. We also met Tatyana, who is our translator and will be traveling with us to the baby house. She doesn't know much about the baby, but apparently she's been told that she is beautiful and a good baby.

All in all, we are doing terrific and thank you all for your continuous thoughts and prayers.