Isn't it ironic...

...that the last post I made talked about a tornado hitting our house and then the one previous is titled "There's no place like home"? If I had a dog named Toto or if my name were Dorthy it would be TOO fitting. Well, my parents live on Yellow Brick Road and my grandmother's name was Dorothy....I should take a nap.

What the hail?

We had a tornado in Bentonville last night. I had been told by several people that tornadoes don't hit NWA (something to do with hills), but apparently they didn't know what they were talking about. I guess we don't have them that often though b/c the whole timing of sirens going off in comparison to when the tornado actually hit was pretty off. (I think the sirens went off briefly 30 minutes before anything happened and then we didn't hear anything after that.) Thankfully, there was no damage to our house - other than one of our spot lights being shattered. Chris' poor car took a beating though. The softball-sized hail left nice pock marks on the roof and hood, and his windshield is cracked too. Compared to the damage other people suffered though, we were very fortunate.

There's no place like home...

We made it back from "the motherland" as Chris likes to call it. It was an amazing trip. The Lord really blessed us with easy travel and aside from the minor bump of the airlines misplacing our luggage (it was found and returned by the next day), things really couldn't have gone any smoother. We stayed with our friends Kevin and Alyson while we were in Moscow - they live there and work full-time with Campus Crusade. They were such good hosts (Alyson is a fabulous cook). We were able to hit all the major "hot spots" of Moscow while we were there, including the amazing Honey Festival (there were literally hundreds of booths of people selling honey for all ailments one could possibly have - I had no idea there were that many kinds of honey!!!).

We flew to Samara (where Chris lived for two years) on Tuesday. We met up with several students that Chris became friends as well as the CRU team. I was able to see where Chris lived for both years (they definitely have a different standard of living than here!!!), and I was also able to meet Chris language teacher that still loves him to death. We hung out with a Russian, Nick, that Chris knew his two years there and Nick's girlfriend (that spoke no English) on two different occassions. It was rather entertaining having every conversation translated at least once for her or for me!

After a marathon trip to Samara we came back to Moscow to spend our last two days. We bought lots of vodka and chocolate to bring home to friends, and I got myself an official Russian tea set. (I am having people over for tea in a few days to show Chris it really was a worthwhile purchase!)

There are so many other things that happened that I can't even begin to write about them all. It was a wonderful experience that I am so glad we had together. It is, however, SO nice to be back in a place where everyone speaks the same language I do.