Monday 9/29 - 12:30 PM

Yeah - Mimi's here and so is Sasha. We have a full house which is really nice. Katy, Angela and I went to pick Mimi up at the airport (Ekat) and we were allowed into the baggage claim area. When Katy saw Mimi she took off running into her arms. She was so excited to see her! It was very cute - I was actually a little envious of Mimi!

This morning Sasha took me to the train station to purchase tickets for our trip to Chelyabinsk. We leave around 3:30 today (accompanied by Sasha) and then will stay in Chelyabinsk until late October 4th. Viktor will be picking us up and driving us back so we can see the Ural mountains from train and from car. We're going to visit Katy's orphanage and all of the people who helped with her adoption. Should be a nice trip.

We probably will not have internet access while there so the blog and email will probably be quiet for a while. If there is a way to get it then we'll be active again.

When we get back we're off to the circus and then sightseeing. Looking forward to that too.

Megan is walking around the flat saying it looks totally like Ikea - all the furniture here and the other flat is from Ikea . . . they arrived here about 3 years ago and are now all the rage since it's such good quality in comparison to Russian furniture - according to Olga anyway.

We had a long afternoon waiting for Megan but we'll go into details later. Aeroflot decided to help out those who had short layovers between flights and then wouldn't give any information to those waiting. Got her here on time but we had to trust in her savvy to find her way to Ekat which, of course she did. But, It was a little while before I could breath again but all's good now. Even the agency didn't know that Aeroflot would do that so they were there waiting for a long time (3 hours I think!) - something new learned each time.

Off to pack for our little trans-siberian train ride . . . I've wanted to do that for years and years but all across siberia - not just 4 hours. These days, 4 hours is enough!