It's still dark outside and pretty foggy. I close my eyes and fall asleep on the way there. I wake up and we are at the airport. Our driver turns around and says something to us in Russian and I have no idea what he is saying and he doesn't say anything in English. Whatever. Anfisa is now opening the car door telling us that the flight has been delayed until 10am. it's now 5:30am. What do we do now? She tells us to stay there so we do. She comes back and tells us that we are going to get out. We pile out of the car and head toward the inside of the airport. We get our stuff through the first pass through security and meet another couple who was delayed in Orenburg as well. Ashley and Joe are from Florida and they were there on their first trip. We talk to them for a bit and then Anfisa tells me that she has arranged for us to have a separate room with the kids. That's fine by me. She scurries off somewhere and then returns to tell us that we will put our luggage with the airport. Steve gets the claim ticket and she tells us that the room is only for women. She looks at Ashley and says, "you are a woman Ashley, you can help her." She says she will but I just thought that was rather funny. Anfisa now takes me through the final security with the kids and Steve in tow. He comes through to see where we are located. We get ourselves situated and the room is just fine. there are 4 beds, a bathroom and we are set. We are not out there amongst the crowd and are able to kick back. The bad part is that i will be back here by myself. Steve goes out to get us some water so I'll be able to mix bottles. He comes back with 3 cold bottles and has to head out. It's just me and the kids now. I get us situated and comfortable. Both kids shortly into it decide they are hungry so I mix up some bottles. I am a bit worried seeing as I don't have any room temperature water. I mix up the bottles and Kyle takes his no problem. I swear I could have ice cubes in there and he would drink it. He is definitely not picky and will eat whatever is placed in front of him. I have both kids on beds and I am in between them. I have Kyle propped up on a pillow with a bottle in his mouth and Brooke on the other bed with a bottle in her mouth. I am on the floor in between the two. Boy, wish I could have had a picture of that! Kimmy, if you are reading this....you were right. You just do what you have to do! That's exactly what I did. I got Kyle to lay down and go back to sleep and then I layed down with Brooke and we took a little nap. Steve came back while we were napping to check on us to tell me that the plane has now been delayed until 12pm. Good god! We are never going to get out of here. Our only saving grace is that we are back here and not out there with everyone else. I lay back down with the kids and let them sleep. This is a picture of the room we were in.
Steve comes back for us at 11am. The kids are up by now so we decide to come out since I think we will be leaving in a hour. They are lining people up before the gate so we all go out there. Well, the crap part of it is that we stood in that line for over an hour. They finally let us go through and we have to have the kids' paperwork out as well as their passports. The security people are really nice with us since we are traveling with kids. He helps me with the backpack and motions to me that I don't have to take Brooke out of her carrier. Thank god! We are now back over on the side that me and the kids have been on the entire time. We wait in there for awhile and we continue to talk to Ashley and Joe. She tells me that she tried to come back and help me but they wouldn't let her through. I told her it was no big deal. I was able to sleep and so did the kids. As we are sitting there, Steve has Kyle in the carrier. Kyle is teething and will chew on anything that we give him or anything that comes close to his mouth! So needless to say, Kyle is chewing on the strap of the baby carrier. This Russian woman gets up out of her seat, walks over to Steve and tells him that Kyle needs to eat and he needs to feed him. I about come unglued! Are you kidding me?! Ashely looks at me and tells me that it was pretty ballsy! This woman then continues to give us F.you looks and glaring at us. I am running on little sleep and decide I'd better get up out of my seat before I go completely postal on this woman and get myself kicked out of the airport. Ashely decides to stare her back down for me. I like this gal already! We are not in this area long. Maybe an hour. All of a sudden, they say Moscow and everyone gets up and starts to leave for the plane. Steve has gone back into the back room so he can change Kyle. EEKS! We are leaving and what is he doing. He's been back there for awhile. I start to pack up and Joe and Ashley are right there to help. Thank god for nice people! I tell Steve that I am not putting the kids int their snowsuits to walk 200 yards. I'm sure if the Russian woman who gave us her unwanted opinion before sees us, she's going to have a hay day. Oh well. We wrap our sweatshirts around them and put their hats on and head toward the plane. We are waived to the front of the line. Whoo Hoo. gotta love traveling with kids! We get up into the plane and get situated in our seats. This is going to be fun. The seats are super close together and we have kids in our laps. So far so good although, Brooke has started to fuss a bit. Crap. We are already in our seats and the plane is taxing toward the runway. We can't get up to get her a bottle. Oh crap! The plane starts to take off and her eyes are like saucers! It's pretty cute. Thankfully, Ashley and Joe are in front of us and Joe's in on an aisle seat. Once up in the air, we have him grab out backpack and Steve and I get a bottle made. Whew! The entire flight wasn't too bad. Brooke starts to get a bit restless right before our decent. I am cooked so Steve takes over. We finally land and let everyone else get off first so we can take our time. We are the last ones off. That's fine. Once off the plane, we head toward baggage claim to get our luggage. Once through that hurdle, there is a translator waiting for us with our name on a sign. We walk to her and she greets us. She asks if we need anything and we tell he we are good to go. We changed the kids on the floor of baggage claim off in a corner so all is good. Steve hits the bathroom though before we head out. I ask the gal if we will be going to the doctor this afternoon. She shakes her head no and that we will not be going until Monday. I just look at her and ask, "does this mean we won't be leaving now until Wednesday." She shakes her head and says yes. I just feel deflated. Since we left so late out of Orenburg, we wont make it in time and we can't do the doctor and the embassy in one day. Great. More plane changes! Oh well. What can we do at this point. I do however feel like we are NEVER going to get out of here. We gather up our belongings, put the kids in their snowsuits and head towards the hotel. Steve and I have been up since 3am. We are tired and just want to relax and get settled. The driver picks us up and we are in a van type car and not a little Lada. We get in and head to the Marriott Tyverskaya. Their comfortable bed can not come fast enough. It takes us probably about an hour to get there. You gotta love how they drive though. Traffic is crazy and it's a go 100mph and then slam on the brakes. For those of you who don't know this, Russia does not use car seats. We have 2 9 month old children on our laps in this traffic. After the 2nd or 3rd major slam of the brakes, I look at the translator and tell her we have 2 small children in the car and he needs to be careful. I stop really jolted the crap out of us! At last we arrive at the hotel. Steve gets us checked in and the beauty of it is that they have us in a junior suite for the same price as the other room we were going to have. Pretty nice. We get up to the room and request 2 cribs for the kids. We get unpacked and situated and let the kids explore. Well, Kyle just checks it out and Brooke takes off all over the place. The extra space is really nice. We are so exhausted that we decide to just stay in tonight and order room service which is an arm and a leg. We contact the Westovers who are also staying at the hotel. They have just returned from the Embassy and they are headed home tomorrow. Bummer...so should we. Christina pops down a little later to drop off some extra food and to tell us where the grocery store is at. Very nice. We wish her a safe travel home and to email us when she gets there. We get the kids to bed and then I crawl into bed around 8:30pm. It doesn't take me long to pass out completely. I wake at one point and hear Steve on the phone. I roll over and go back to sleep. I am cooked and need to sleep and the bed feels like heaven after that pull out sofa for 4 days. Another day down but I still don't feel like we are any closer to home. We will have the weekend to ourselves to do whatever. The weather is pretty good and we are still not needing our winter jackets. We are still only wearing sweatshirts and doing just fine.
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