Back in Russia

We're back in Russia. We are having some major Jet Lag! Wow. This is the worse jet lag I've experienced. I must say, it is much harder with a baby. (I keep calling him a baby, but he just turned 18 months old! I don't think he becomes a toddler, though, until he is two. So, I'm not sure what to classify him as now!) Anyway, we are going to bed after midnight and sleeping past noon. This is better than what we were doing, which was going to bed around 5am and sleeping until 3pm in the afternoon! Slowly we are backing up our schedule. Dougle stayed awake all last night (to make almost 24 hours awake), in hopes that would help him become sleepy during the night. He took a short nap this afternoon, and we all hope to be able to sleep tonight around 11pm and wake up at a more normal time!

I am posting a few pictures. We flew several times in the past few weeks (to the States and then from Houston to Dallas, then Dallas to Lubbock, then Lubbock back to Houston). Canaan really enjoyed watching all the vehicles at the airport. At first, he just noticed the luggage cars and little vehicles going to and fro all the time. He would watch them and watch them. It wasn't until we were flying out of Dallas Love that he started becoming really interested in the airplanes. We were there three hours before leaving, and we found a really great window where we could see the airplanes take off and fly into the sky. Canaan started referring to the window by saying "Bye, Bye!" because we said that the planes went "bye, bye" when they took off. It was so cute. After that experience, he started noticing the actual planes at the airports, though he still loved to watch all the "ucks" too.

One picture is of Canaan with his very own carry-on suitcase. His great-aunt Carol sent that to him. He was adorable with it, because he is VERY into pushing and pulling things. I think he thought he was a big boy pulling his very own suitcase around the airports. And everyone else in the airport thought he was just adorable too!

The other airport picture is of us standing around, putting off saying goodbye to family in the Lubbock airport. You can see Canaan in the background, pulling his suitcase around. Though goodbyes are never fun, we are so blessed at having the opportunity to see family again, sooner than we thought!

The last picture is of a play ground in a huge park near our house. The weather here is just amazing. It is in the high 60's/low 70's during the day. The sun is shining, everything is green, and the trees are starting to bloom. We walked there yesterday to help us stay awake. Canaan was one of about 50 kids (we counted) at the playground. There were tons of people everywhere in the park. It was great to be outside and enjoy the warming weather.