We made it!

After 30 hours of travel (our quickest trip EVER!), we made it to Ulan-Ude! The trip went amazingly smoothly, even though as I look back I wouldn't want to repeat it. =) God gave us the grace we needed for each moment as it came. He reminded me that He will always do that- things aren't always easy, but He is always with us, each step of the way. We made every one of our connecting flights with zero moments to spare. We literally boarded the planes right after arriving to the gates. On the first flight from Spokane to Denver we had four seats because of some frequent flyer miles my grandparents gave us. Even though we had three seats on the overseas and Europe flights, they checked our fourth bag for free because of our fourth seat when we checked it! Hooray! Leif was such a champ with the little girls. We had to be split up on the planes (the flight attendant even made us switch back after we traded with a nice man so that we could all be together. I felt badly, as I had to wake him up to make the switch. Leif even had to deal with Ella getting airsick all over. In the picture above, Anneka is watching a show on our portable DVD player. Some fellow missionaries recommended us getting one when when Anneka was born, and it has been great to have on trips. She probably only used it for 2 hours out of the 30, but those 2 hours were lifesaving ones!

Here we are in the Moscow airport. Our longest layover was here- almost three hours... but we needed every minute to get through passport control, check our bags, and get through security. The last flight felt SO LONG (six hours), and we were so happy to be greeted by our teammates for breakfast when we arrived to Ulan-Ude! Now we all have major jetlag. The girls woke up at 2:00am yesterday morning, and even though we kept Anneka up all day until bedtime and only let Ella sleep the length of a regular nap, they both woke up at 1:30. All day they have been wacky. They're all now asleep, and it's 8:00pm and Leif and I are heading to bed shortly, too. Right now we're cooking up 20 pounds of meat! My Dad got me some seasoning to make Italian sausage, so we're mixing, cooking, and freezing it for yummy meals in the future. Mmmmmm. It smells so good. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be well rested and ready to begin engaging more in life here!