We are in Kaluga but it was VERY BUMPY

Yes, we made it and like 2 years ago Mark is sleeping while I can't, so here you have a bullet point list of all the bumps we experience until we finally saw the light out of the tunnel:

1. We boarded our first plane (from Phoenix to Houston) on time at 10 am and after a while we noticed two mechanics taking apart a piece of the wing and making bunch of calls... Yeah, bad sign, we deplaned few minutes later.

2. US Airways found another plane and we start boarding at 11:30 am; when the plane is half full boarding stopped because the front part of the plane smells like burnt rubber (we were in the back so we didn't smell anything). Two mechanics and the pilot start walking around and at 12:00 pm determined it was the AC system bringing that air inside the plane but nothing was wrong with the plane. We finally departed at 12:30 pm.

3. Now, we originally had 3:45 hours between plane 1 and plane 2 (from Houston to Moscow), so in theory we still had 1:15 hours to make it, so we were not too worried. Well, we landed in terminal A and after taking a bus shuttle from A to B, then a train from B to D, and then some fast walking we made it with 45 minutes to spare... Yeah!

4. Well, the service of Singapore airlines looked very promising, but we couldn't really enjoy it too much because we experienced HORRIBLE TURBULENCE on and off for the first about 1.5 hours of the flight!!! They had just servef beverages and then suddenly our beers were flying in the air (Mark's landed on his pants) and all I coulf think was the scenes from Lost before the plane splits in two! I was also thinking that Diego would have freaked out if he was there - I was freaked out! And then it came the nausea, so the little bag in front of the seat was "handy" - YUCK!

5. We finally landed fine and we breezed through passport control (even though I had my previous visas from 2 years ago in the same passport) and I was only asked where I was coming from and I just said "Houston ". Only a small portion of the passengers were staying in Moscow (the rest were continuing to Singapore) so we thought getting the baggage would take no time... Well, our only checked luggage never made it, so a nice airport officer took us to an office to file a claim. They will try to find it within the next 3 days and call and delivered to Svetlana if they find it. We are not attached to anything there, but it would be nice to get it back. Luckily we packed pretty decently, so we have clothes for about 3 days, so we just need to repeat some and buy some underwear here.

6. At that time I was laughing and joking that I would not be surprised at all if we got a flat tire in the way to Kaluga! But you know what? The 3 hours to Kaluga had no bumps at all, even when I thought I had read the road conditions were not good... We made it to the hotel, we met Nadia and Margarita (the boss in Kaluga), got some groceries, got the modem (and it works, which we thought would be a pain) and got settled.

Tomorrow Nadia will call around noon and we will head to the baby home at 1 pm and Dr Togoyev will meet us there. Apparently we will go to the Ministry on Tuesday. We will finally meet our girl!!! Margarita mentioned that she had seen her last week and that she was very active!! Sounds good to us - another active kid to keep up with Diego!!!

So we are good; feeling a bit tired and missing Diego a TON! Let's hope things go smoother tomorrow and that our Diego will be closer to have his sister (and his parents back - he is missing us too!)!