Trail REMARKS

Ayuna and Tanya at the wedding
Paulina's visa picture
Lydia's visa picture
Paulina trying an alternate source of milk. :) Or is it Lydia trying an alternate source of milk!
Ayuna and me
Pasha, myself, and Sasha at the wedding.

Here's an almost complete family photo that we took just this last week. More news coming soon.

After being a little over a week away it was nice to be back. You probably didn't even realize that I finally left to go get our things. It took a week and 1 day to do everything. Of course none of this could have been done without the help of friends there in GA.

We finally found train tickets to one city and then we took a bus the rest of the way to GA. It was easier to do that rather than try to buy train tickets all the way. The transition from train to bus allowed us to go find brown sugar and to enjoy a small breakfast at a coffee shop. The bus ride is relatively painless. It's about 8 hours on the road.

Once we got to GA it was very nice to visit friends that are now part of the extended family there. It is great to see the desire in some to grow. Some are trying to find that balance between work and family life. It's something that we all go through in our life. Here is a picture of me with one family that we have known for many years.

The packing process was quick, but the shipping process was not 100% smooth. We originally bought tickets to travel out on Monday at 7:59am, however, the train baggage department was not open until 8am on Monday morning. So, that variation wouldn't work. I changed the tickets to Monday in the afternoon in another city within driving distance. The real crazy thing was getting a refund on our old tickets. I put them on the credit card, but it turned out that GA couldn't exchange them. Then I traveled to another city, about 2 hours away by bus, thinking that the train station there would be able to exchange it. Well, after going from one register where they said they can't do it, then to the head person over all the registers and then back to the same person that said they couldn't do it, then did it. However, I still had to do the final exchange transaction from the city that we traveled out from. That took another 20 minutes. Crazy! Thankfully everything worked out with shipping, returning tickets, and traveling back to here. I think we shipped out 168 kilograms (Im not sure what that is in pounds. I think it's 370 lbs.) for about 100 dollars. WOW!! Train Shipping ROCKS!!!

We are still awaiting our stuff, but its wonderful to be back. The girls changed while I was gone. Paulina has another tooth coming in and she loves to stand on her legs. Lydia is still very active. She doesn't stand on her legs as much as she use to. They didn't forget me, so that was a good thing.

Thank you for thinking of us during all this crazy tickets, shipping, and especially for Ayuna while I was gone. Her week was uneventful. She is just glad to have me back. I'm glad to be back.