Stress, no stress. Stress, no stress.

3:54 PM - Mike here

Our day started at 9 AM today, as we were scheduled to be picked up by Sveta and Alexander to go buy our tickets to Almaty, and then drive to Shchuchinsk to handle all the final paperwork involving Mia's birth certificate. You see, they issue a new birth certificate stating that she was born in Shchuchinsk, to make it easier to issue the adoption decree. Just don't ask.

Anyway, we had a harrowing start. For the plane tickets, we need passports, and we couldn't find Linda's or Tucker's. After a very tense hour of turning the house upside down, Linda finally found them in her bag where they were supposed to be, except that they had fallen through a rip in the lining, and so were in a "secret pocket", as it were. Yikes. Actually, it wasn't as tense as it could have been. I actually think we were all pretty well-behaved, and should be proud of ourselves. By the way, they wouldn't even sell me tickets for the kids -- they'll be in our laps. Oi. the seats are not very big -- not even headrests.

Then, off to Shchuchinsk, where the paperwork stuff went well, even though there was a minor glitch on one of the documents in the spelling of "Naples" (Florida), where we were married. This required several extra trips to various places, but no real drama.

So now it's 4 o'clock, and the kids are in the other room not sleeping, while Linda should be starting her massage at the Zhekebatyr hotel by now.

Tucker and Mia are very cute right now. Before today, when it was time for a nap or bedtime, Linda and I would often lay between them to make sure they didn't actually touch each other (god forbid) and start a screaming match. Today, for some reason, they WANT to touch each other. It seems I have a choice at the moment of letting them enjoy each other's company, or having them catch a nap. I'm putting up a fatherly front on the naptime thing, but there's no way they're going to sleep. I'm happy. They're actually playing -- I'll take it.

Between 5:30 and 6:30 today, I expect a sumptuous meal to be delivered to us from our favorite soup kitchen. It's been ordered. Yee hah.

Tomorrow will be a day of packing. My main concerns are packing things so that we have a reasonable chance of carrying all our stuff in one trip, and to make sure we have whatever supplies we need for a smooth landing in Almaty (like food for the evening, for instance -- maybe). Definitely things like extra changes of clothes in case of accidents, plenty of water to soothe Linda's coughing throat, nosebleed supplies, etc... With any luck, the kids will sleep on the plane (they won't get a nap).

By the way, I don't know what our email situation will be until we get to Almaty. We may or may not have internet access from the apartment we'll be staying in. We'll surely have internet access from a cafe somewhere, but that may take some time to get organized. As soon as we can, we'll keep you posted, and probably send our new phone number to family members. I'll mention all this again just before we leave. We're still here for 44 hours or so...

(I can hear them talking in there... TALKING! Can you believe it?! Oohh oohh -- LAUGHTER now!)