You are cordially invited...

To travel half-way across the world, throw yourself on the mercy of the of the universe, lay your hearts out on the line along with your peace of mind and your family stability, and meet your new child. Our 'Letter of Invitation' arrived today. The LOI is the last thing we needed. Tomorrow we send away for our visas.

We spent a couple of hours tonight trying to figure out how we are going to get to Kazakhstan. Let's see... Frequent Flyer miles to Frankfurt, then buy a round trip to Kaz? Can we go direct to Astana or do we have to go to Almaty first? Is a 16 hour train ride REALLY the fastest way to get to Arkalyk? Hardly seems possible anything could be so remote. Bruce looks at the options, and being as persistant as he is, finds one. We could fly to London, then to Almaty, connecting on to Astana, then to some other unpronounceable city, and then try and figure out how to arrange a car to drive us 306 km to Arkalyk. Which seems like an especially good idea in a country that believes wearing a seat-belt is an insult to the driver.

OK- back to the actual options. Do we fly through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Istanbul, Moscow or some other place we haven't thought of yet? Do we want to take United, Lufthansa, British Air, KLM? Wow, the travel industry is a crazy space.

Next, we have to start working on how we are going to get all of the stuff we 'need' into our luggage. On top of a traveling pharmacy, we are taking toys for the orphanage including soccer balls and playground balls, games, a bunch of these developmental toys called Skwishes (they gave me a wholesale deal on them, wasn't that nice?), toys to keep our kid(s) occupied, a few random little guy clothes, bottles, sippys, books, a stash of food, gifts for the orphanage personnel (about 20 of them!), cameras, photo printer, journal, piles of paperwork, dictionaries, coffee, a French press, a electric water pot, a big pile of cash, and a load of other things we haven't even figured out yet....

I feel like we are mounting an expedition to the dark continent. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" In addition, because of the timing we will be celebrating Jaden's 6th birthday, my birthday (not my 6th ;)., Bruce's birthday, AND our 10 year anniversary, all in Kazakhstan. Which means I've got to smuggle a birthday present or two over, at least for Jaden!