You've Got Mail

Guess what we got in the mail Saturday? First Thousand Words in Russian Isn't that just cool. Slade and I started looking though the book and boy does it look like we have our work cut out for us. I think I will make some note cards with the Russian alphabet on them, and we can go from there. For instance, P in Russian actually makes the "r" sound. Maybe we'll at least be able to sound the words out and then we can begin learning our vocabulary. Wow -- it's like were back in grade school!. I think it is important to learn a little of the language before we travel. People always like to see you trying even if you sound like a fool in the process. We talked about trying to find a recording of lullabies in Russian. It might be soothing to hear some familiar songs. Of course, we will probably sound like Tori trying to sing along with the radio -- who know's what she's saying but she's sure making a joyful noise. I suppose that's all that matters anyway.

Well, along with our book, we received -- you guessed it -- MORE PAPERWORK! Don't you just love it? Actually, it's not bad at all just a few agency forms, our visa form, and the travel guide to Russia. The travel guide says that it takes about a week for the dossier to get to Russia (that's good considering it takes about a week for me to send a letter home to Texas! :) and then about a month for the dossier to be translated in Russian. Once this happens, our dossier will be registered with the Regional Ministry of Education in Russia. Then, we will just be waiting on the referral -- about 6-9 months. If I'm counting correctly that means we could get the call as early as February or possibly sometime around May. Wow -- that's a long time. Slade says -- just long enough to write a dissertation -- yeah, yeah, I guess I better get right on that :)
On other news, Samantha is feeling much better. She eating and her energy is up. We should be going back to the doctor soon to make sure the blood work is better.
Surprisingly, the contacts the doctor gave me are actually working out. After about 8 hours I need to take them out, but I wasn't even able to wear the old contacts that long. So, I guess we'll be trying these new contacts out for a while. At least until summer is over, so I can wear sunglasses.

As for my exercise regime -- I didn't exercise on Friday but I did on Saturday and Sunday. I don't usually find the time to exercise on the weekend, but Slade worked on Saturday so I worked out while he was at work. Last night Tori and I took a walk up to the library. It was time to return books. We've been experiencing some very nice weather so the walk was quite nice.

One last note -- I am a baby blogger, so please humor my growing pains! I just learned how to get the picture in the text! I had to download Windows live writer to get it to work. It only took me a few days -- Boy am I a quick learner