I think it's about time I start talking about Russia and where better to begin than the beginning.

Those wanting stories about the kids are going to have to wait until I get through all this other stuff. While I'd much rather talk about the kids - it's easier for me to start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. Like when you read you begin with ABC when you sing you begin with . . . . wait - how did I get on Sound of Music. . . .

Never mind. Back to the beginning.

The day I left, Thursday, June 18th was one of the fasted, longest days of my life. My morning started early with me finishing packing, loading my car and somewhat cleaning my room so that it wouldn't be a complete mess.

I headed up to church to finish last minute things with Susan. In the meantime I really hurt Miss Lee Barron - I mean really hurt her and that was something I carried with me most of my trip. Here's that story.

I wasn't thinking that there would be much to do to help Susan, but there were still at least 15 letters it seemed that needed to be translated to Russian. We had less than 2 hours, and each letter generally takes about 10 or more minutes each. Typing them in, formatting, and then the constant back and forth on the web site to make sure that the correct translation is done for each word. It's a long process and I don't do well under pressure. Needless to say I was stressed and about to cry. Lee was so very helpful before I started typing, and even while I was typing. But then she came into the room I was in and stood over my shoulder. I don't type well when people watch me and we were very quickly running out of time. I asked her to leave and she came closer, I asked her to leave again and she didn't. I said - Lee - I love you but you need to leave, I can't work with people looking over my shoulder. Then when she turned to leave Susan closed the door. I continued furiously working and just scraped by getting everything done. Susan left a little later than she had wanted to but I got to Dee's just in time.

As I was walking out the door of the church I went up to Lee and said, Lee I'm sorry about the way that I spoke to you before and she completely cut me off and said it was completely uncalled for and unforgivable and then wouldn't talk to me after that. So I walked out the door thinking to myself - what a way to start my trip.

I thought about that the entire flight and post trip note: I emailed her when I got back but haven't heard any response back. I've called up to the church to speak to someone else and she was courteous but she was not her normal warm self. Makes me sad that it's that way - and I know I should have handled it better - but REALLY!

Anyways - back to the trip.

Dee and I got to the airport and the Dimmocks and Susan were there. Soon after Shaun and Philip arrived as well as Margaret aka Nana. We got a call from Kristen Snyder that Steve and Brad were running late.


We couldn't check in until we were all there but Mike didn't know that so he came and dropped Brad and the luggage off and then went to park the car. Well - it took him FOREVER. So some of us decided to go ahead and get in the ever growing line.
We all (Steve included) finally got through the ticket line and security with enough time to spare to get food for those wanting.

The first 10 hour flight was stifling hot!! Miserable! Normally, so I've been told, the flights are freezing but not ours. Nope - in fact some dude in front of us stood up at the end of the flight and his entire back was one big sweat mark - yuck!
I was sitting in a row with Dee and Nana and all three of our guys decided to lean their chairs back and the dude sitting in front of Dee decided he needed to put his hands behind his head which put them almost directly in her face. Then the guys would get up for 10 minutes at a time and NOT put their chairs up - REALLY!!!

We had a 6 hour layover in Germany that was glorious!! The windows were open letting in the cool German breeze and I slept HARD for the entire 6 hours. I remember lying down and then being woken up because our flight was about to load.

The next leg went by really quickly and I sat next to some cute kids that didn't speak a lick of English. Next Post - the first sites of St. Petersburg.