Welcome back!

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog i never update. Doh! Sorry about that. I've been a bit.... distracted as of late. Many things in the works, some of which i can talk about now and some that have yet to solidify as of yet so will leave them untouched for the moment. Here's what i can tell you.

Russia was AMAZING! Moscow is an incredible city with beautiful architecture and very interesting and fashionable people. THe subway system is huge, the buildings are amazing and i thoughroughly enjoyed the whole experience. I walked through Red square, right past Lenin's Tomb, visited the WWII memorial museum, rode the subway, watched the changing of the gaurd at near Red Square, saw St. Basils church (colorful onion top church) and that was just in moscow. We then flew and drove the rest of the way to Tobolsk Siberia and spent 10 great days hanging with the folks at the church there. We visited an orphanage a couple times, taught english for a few days, gave some presentations about american culture, played sports at open gyms and in dirt lots and grass fields with the youth from the area, went to a concert put on by the band from the church. It was a great opportunity to visit with our Russian brothers and sisters. We all stayed with host families while we were there. The folks i stayed with were Constantine and Marina with their daughter Valeria. They were wonderful, entertaining, gracious, welcoming hosts and really showed us hospitality and love. I thank the Lord for them and their willingness to take us into their home. There is so much more to tell about Russia but much of it is personal experience and growth and better shared over a cup of coffee while reminicsing than in blog form.

Next, I am still engaged to be married to my beautiful fiancee' Amanda. We have been spending just about every free moment we can with each other. It's been quite nice, but very busy. We've had a chance to really spend some one on one time lately as Sage has been visiting her grandparents, so that has been fun. Sage is coming back in the next week or so as i understand it and then her and Amanda and I will be heading down to my friend Kim's wedding the first weekend of september, in Portland, Oregon. After the wedding (which i hear is going to be amazing) we are going to go see my folks in Salem and spend the night there. Amanda and Sage will get a chance to meet quite a bit of my family that weekend who also are in town, so that'll be fun, but maybe a bit overwhelming all at once ;)

Other than that, Amanda and i are still looking into logistics as to who moves where, when and how. There's ton's of paper work to sift through, but I think we have a more distinct plan congealing (if you will) and something will shape up here in the very near future i would imagine. I'll keep you all posted.

Wonderful. Ok, well, i have about a billion other things i still need to do, so i best get to it.

Steady on,

cb