Lists Lists Lists

Getting ready to leave for St. Petersburg: lots of details, lots of lists, lots stacks of things to take. We ask for prayers. We're getting many conflicting reports of what to expect. We don't even know how much time we'll have with Lily. We can't even see her until Tuesday night at the earliest. I promised her we'd catch up on two years of missed hugs!

Today, gracious friends from church blessed us with a monetary gift... that was so unexpected, and so appreciated. Several hundred dollars will really help! We have to carry so much cash ... crisp, unfolded bills.... gotta call the bank.

Endless lists keep going through my head: take paper products; take an electrical converter; take extra camera battery; take books. I got a great language book yesterday, so now, in between lacrosse cheering, I'm plowing through "Russian in 10 minutes day"... it's actually helping me make it over the cyrillic alphabet hump.

I'm trying not to be too anxious... still working on that "trust factor," wish I could systematically do what needs to be done, but life is not just about us traveling. I still have to put in my time at work and the boys need my attention of course... I don't want them to feel their lives go on hold just because we're going to Russia. In fact, Sergei's lacrosse team is about two games away from a possible state championship, so you know, there's a lot of energy happening around there.

It's alright. I'm blabbering.... Hello world! Here we come!

Hope to have Internet access ... hope to post pics to FlickR ... hope to keep everyone up to date. Another list... Gifts to take and gifts to bring back. Gotta pack light... oh gad, I'm really bad at that. Make a list. Stick to it. I can do this!