We're Coming Home!!!

Exterior Views of our Apartment

View of Old Arbat street
Getting help packing
Its fun throwing clothes out of the suitcases!!!

We spent our last day in Moscow pretty quietly. Haylie woke us up at 5:30 am (again) so it was a long day. She seems to be feeling even better today. She still wouldn't eat anything for breakfast, but ate a good lunch and dinner. We put her down for a nap and did an experiment to see how she would do with Benedryl since it puts some to sleep (what we are hoping for), but hypes others up. Hopefully we won't have to use it, but if she is really fussy tomorrow on the plane we'll give her some Benedryl to help keep our fellow passengers, and us, from going insane from a screaming youngin!! Luckily, she slept really well with it.

Oksana, went and picked up the last of the paperwork today, and she will give it to us tomorrow when they pick us up. Rich went out and got us some sushi for lunch which was really good (yes sushi in Russia). Then when Haylie went to sleep, I went out to do a little shopping for souvenirs. Rich had the pleasure of cleaning up and changing his first diaper while I was gone--and of course it was a dirty one!! He kept telling me he didn't know how when I had offered that he could clean her up before. But he had no choice but to change her while I was gone out shopping. A major accomplishment for Rich!!! I've posted some pictures of our apartment since I've several people email with questions about it. They've really cleared the snow off the walkways and streets. It did warm up a little and melt some too. My mom tells me it's colder back in Kentucky than it is here in Moscow. Still not as cold as in Siberia though!!

After dinner, we packed back up for the trip home. They are picking us up at 8:30 am for a 1 pm flight. Oksana said we had to leave so early because the traffic is so bad it can take us 1-2 hours to get to the airport. We still have 3 bags, but it is a lot lighter for the return flight. Hopefully we won't have to pay the overage for weight this time. I had a little helper packing. For every item I would put in, Haylie would pull 2-3 out at the same time. And then she just laughs like it was a big joke. So this will be my last post from the good old Soviet Union. The next time I post, we will be back home in Kentucky--yeah!!!!!!!!! We can't wait to start settling in with Haylie. I am off work for 2 months, so hopefully we can get her back on a routine, once she gets over the jet lag which will undoubtedly happen with the big 8 hour time difference. Rich has to go back to work on Friday, so since we're coming home early he will get a couple of days to get rested up.

The only downside to leaving early is that we were supposed to meet up with another couple on Wednesday who are in Kemerovo right now doing what we did last week getting their little boy. We had really looked forward to meeting Chris and Carie from Michigan. We so enjoyed meeting Dave and Stacy on our last trip, we missed having another couple with us this trip. So we hate that we won't be able to get together with them. But home awaits!!!!!!