Update...at long, long last.

Well, I finally decided that I would update our blog and let everyone know that we aren't actually still in Moscow. This may end up being our longest post, just because so much has happened. I just decided to check our blog and saw other people adopting were reading our blog, how awesome! I thought they, and everyone else would like to hear how it all turned out :) so here we go.
For all of you who forgot where we were last time, I could see my exit and my turn signal was on (read the whole blog again if you need to catch up :)). In other words I had tickets for a flight out of Russia for myself, my wife and OUR SON!
On December 21st at 345am we got into a tiny little Kia, with 3 weeks of luggage, and 4 adults and 1 little boy, and headed for the Moscow airport which is about an hour away from the hotel, without traffic. I don't know how cold it was when we got to the airport but, it was WAY too cold to be pushing the luggage cart without gloves, but I did it anyway. You would think they would use something besides metal for the handles on those things but no, they don't. Leaving the Moscow airport was pretty uneventful. We spent about two hours there before our flight, entertaining Malachi by taking him up and down the escalators.
Our flight from Moscow to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful. Malachi slept for about an hour of the 3 or so hour flight and spent the rest of the time climbing all over us and playing with the things that flight attendants gave him. He did amazingly well and again exceeded our expectations. We got off the plane in Frankfurt and had almost zero time for our next flight and had to take a bus to the terminal and then walk to the tram and then take the tram to the next terminal and then go through security again. For some reason the gate where we were leaving from was completely chaotic. I think most of the gates are designed for smaller planes because we were getting on a 747 and there were way too many people in that gate area. They asked us to step aside for a minute near the check in people and my thought was "hey maybe they're upgrading us to business class." Not the case, they just needed to give us a ticket for Malachi, and we were still stuck with only two seats and him on our lap, gonna be a fun 11 hour flight. We got on the plane and about 20 minutes in to a cramped flight, the flight attendants came by and told us that they had a "mother seat" for us. Lufthansa has this option on their long haul flights in the bulkhead seats where you can get a bassinet for your baby. I thought you had to request this before you got on the flight but they just did all the work for us. Anyway, we moved seats to where they had a bassinet set up for us, and before we even got settled the guy behind us asked if we wouldn't mind switching seats with his wife, who was in another mothers seat in another location. So we switched again so that their family could be close together. We got to the third seats on that flight and they were great. It was a window and a middle seat with a bassinet, it couldn't have been better. We got Malachi to sleep for maybe 2 hours out of the 11 hour flight, the rest of the time was spent entertaining Malachai with the window shades and the plastic cups, reading the magazines and playing with toys. Looking back now, the flight went quick but while we were on the flight it was the longest 11 hours ever, and the most exciting. Knowing that when we got off that flight in Los Angeles he was ours forever! I couldn't wait for all of our friends and family that were waiting at the airport to meet our little boy.
Well, here we go, we got off the flight and headed for customs. We knew that we were going to have to go to secondary screening, but I was still nervous. We went to the first screening area, answered some questions and then onto the secondary. As with most things, this was a lot more easy and uneventful than I thought. We waited around for about 10-15 minutes and then he was officially a US Citizen, got his passport stamped and we were on our way. One more jaunt through customs and then we got to see all our waiting friends and family. As we walked around the corner the first person I saw was Jon, he waived hi and was just standing there and then realized he needed to go tell everyone else we were coming. There was a group of about 20 people ready to greet us and meet Malachi, that was a lot of fun.
We have loved being parents and getting to know little Malachi. We think he's the smartest 2 year old (but, we might be a little biased!) His smartness makes us laugh often and gets him into trouble just about as often. He knows many English words and amazes us each day with the new words he is saying. He LOVES Tucker and is his favorite playmate. He has been to the LA Zoo, Long Beach Aquarium, and Disneyland, but his favorite place is still the park. He is very active and loves anywhere that he can run, climb, or play.
Well I think that's enough for one blog post. Until next time, less then a month this time, maybe :).