We are in love...

Greetings from Moscow. We made it here this morning. I just asked Chris why I was so tired and he just told me there was a two hour time difference from Moscow and Orenburg. We had a great last day in Orenburg. We got up at 6am for a 7am pickup. We did the 3 hour kamikazi ride to Orsk baby home. I have to admit, the baby home is very poor, but very well run. You get all dressed up (as if she would even notice) and you are so nervous... just hoping she will like you. With Ayden she is so easy going... it truly didn't matter what we wore. Our facilitator came in the room and asked us what her name was going to be. We immediately panicked. We have thrown out so many names... we had no idea. Picking a name with Chris is nearly impossible. She really looks like an Ayden though. What does any name look like??



We spent a couple of hours with her. We were able to take her outside and we could see the other care givers so happy that she was getting so much attention. We must have walked the perimeter of the orphanage several times. She is so easy going and even tempered. After a couple of hours of spoiling... we had to return her to the care giver. Seems as though they maintain a tight schedule. I can appreciate that. Chris and I gathered our things and walked outside. Chris being so handy spent a great deal of time figuring out all of the things he would love to fix/redo. As we were waiting outside a group of older children came out to play. We immediately followed suit and joined them. It is amazing how eager some of these children are for attention. It broke our hearts to see so many as we got in the car to leave.



We got back to Orenburg and had the remainder of the day to ourselves. We explored the downtown and went for dinner. Chris had cocka doodle doo that looked like oink and I had moo. You know it is bad when there is a selection on the menu of "meat surprise." What could that possibly be???? Anything lingering out back????? It was actually very nice to spend some time with Chris without the distractions of home. We got up that next morning at 4am for a 5am pickup for our plane ride to Moscow. We got into Moscow and spent an hour at the gym working out. It was a great stess release. It was weird not having the kids to juggle. We talked about them most of the morning.

Here is our new Russian LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

We took advantage of the time and the weather and headed to Red Square. It is absolutele gorgeous this time of year. I noted that when we were in Orenburg and even here it didn't matter how big or small the houses were, everyone seemed to have these gorgeous wild flowers growing out front. Flowers seemed to be everywhere.



It was weird to be out to dinner alone. We both reached for the phone a couple of times to call home and talk to the kids, but decided against it. We really enjoyed our time together and are heading to bed for our long journey home.



Thanks for all the notes... you have no idea how much they mean to us while we are over here.