Snovum Godum!

Happy New Year! I'm here in Moscow!

I'm fine and having a wonderful time. My team stayed at the orphanage at Elektrostal this year and had a good experience even though the kids were at "winter camp" and we only saw them the day they came back to give their program for us and watch us do the puppet show. We had a great party and gave out lots of gifts. For all of you who gave me presents for the kids, believe me, they are greatly appreciated! Lyndsey, I gave your gift to Nina for all the kids and she and Irene and Helen were very happy to get it. They remember you well! The director, Nina, adopted me as her American daughter and she is now my Russian mama. (More about that later!) We attended a church service at the Orthodox Church on New Year's Eve and the day before toured the town library. I have a picture of me with the librarian.

We came back into Moscow yesterday to the same hotel as last year - Jan Blount and I are roommates again and have a very nice room on the 21st floor. (We stayed on the 3rd floor in the orphanage with no elevator - the hotel has lots of elevators!)

Today we toured Moscow including Red Square and had lunch at Patio Pizza. This evening we went to the Moscow Circus Christmas program (I bought a program for my collection!) and came back for a late supper. Tomorrow we should be going to Sergei Posad Psychological (the orphanage I stayed at last year) and maybe one other. The night after that we have tickets to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Tchaikovsky Theater. We're all tired and my knee hurts but it's all wonderful. I'll try to blog again tomorrow or the next day but lots of kids will be in the hotel for holiday activities this week and I may have a hard time getting to the computer.

Love to all,
Margie