Packing up for Moscow

Today we are packing up and getting ready to leave for Moscow. It has been a wonderful first few days, and the Dvina Hotel will always be a special place for us. We had our translator, Helen, talk to the kids before she left about flying on the plane. Andrew is quite excited about going home and riding on an airplane. Everybody has joined in on the packing...see pictures above. So far the transition has been pretty smooth, but this change will be one of the first of many for us on this journey. We pray for grace and patience...traveling mercies for these precious little ones and our family.

We are going to head down to the mall that David and Emily discovered yesterday. Probably a good thing we did not discover it sooner. Emily said it is just like malls in America...very nice. We sent them in search of pants for Andrew, as we guessed too big and were having problems keeping the ones we brought with us from falling down. They did come back with a pair of pants (courderoy) that fit perfectly. We had seen a Levi's store on our trips to the orphanage, but apparently American brands are "designer" in these parts, so they are quite proud of them to the tune of $80 for basic Wranglers (probably less than $20 at the mega-low-mart back home). The Levi's store wanted $130 for basic jeans. Wow! On top of that, all of the children's jeans they found were lined inside with flannel or fleece. We're concerned that fleece-lined jeans might be considered child abuse in Houston. So, in Shiflet fashion we decided we could make do and set off to convert one of J.Michael's belts into one for Andrew. My resourceful husband found a maintance man down the hall who had some sort of filet knife and cut the length of the belt down. He then went back to the front desk and was able to communicate that he needed scissors to cut a notch for the buckle, then he used a butter knife back in the room to screw the buckle back on. Voila...we have a belt for Andrew...pictured below with his balloons that he figured out how to tie together. An unintended by-product of the shortened belt was a 6-inch leather rod that is very discreet for traveling. :)

Emily, J.Michael and I are heading to the Mall now to do a little souvenier shopping before we go. Daddy is watching little ones during nap time.