T-minus 15 hours to trip 1

15 hours till we depart for Moscow. Packing is almost complete. Katie is spending the night with the grandparents. We're running around the house doing last minute stuff.

Since we live so close to Asheville, we agreed to meet with Carol today from CSS so she could pass off some papers for us to transport to their staff in Moscow. We're also taking some clothes that were donated for the orphanges.

We'll be arriving in Moscow on Saturday and will be in the apartment by 2:00pm. We're renting a cell phone while in Moscow so we can call back home and people can reach us. Peace Travel offers cell phones for $5 a day and .50 a minute to the US. WOW. My BlackBerry through Verizon was going to be $5 a MINUTE!!! Forget that! Plus we get free calls from the apartment. Having the rented cell is extra piece of mind while wandering around a city and country you've never been in.

Sunday will be a down day for us. Probably will spend it walking around, finding a grocery store and resting. The Thompson family arrive Sunday. We're sharing the Duma apartment with them. It's great...we're renting a 3 bedroom furnished apartment and splitting the cost. That brings the per family cost to well below that of a hotel room. Stacye and Andy will be a hoot.

OK...getting tired...thoughts aren't entirely coherent (yeah, nothing new there)....

gah