It's Tuesday evening and we're here in Petropavlovsk. The flights via United to Frankfurt, Germany and Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Astana, Kazakhstan went very smoothly. We arrived in Astana at about 10:30 pm local time Monday night (after leaving Chicago at 6:30 pm Sunday evening).

We were met by Viktoria and a driver who took us to a hotel. We got some sleep and were up and at it again Tuesday morning for the final 10:30 am flight from Astana to Petropavlovsk. We had beautiful flying weather and landed in Petro just a little before noon.

Our translator, Igor, met us at the airport and immediately renewed our faith in Kazakh hospitality. He is friendly, helpful and funny all at the same time. You just know that you're in good hands.

We chilled a little at the apartment we're renting until it was time to go over to the Minstry of Education for a meeting with an official who would grant us access to an orphanage. After a bit of waiting in the hallways we were finally ushered into the gentleman's office. It had the distinct flavor of being interviewed by someone who needed to be sold on our credentials.

Questions were asked about our occupations and family situation. I think it really helped that we were able to tell him that we'd been to Kazakhstan in 2004 to adopt Julia. I was careful to refer to her in her Russian pronunciation "Yulia." He specifically asked if we helped her to remember her heritage and we went to lengths to explain that we sent letters to her friend Jenya as well as reinforce her understandings of her roots.

After a while, he finally gave a nod and signed some papers. We go tomorrow to the orphanage about 50 kilometers from here (Poludino) to see the girls available in the 6-8 year age range. One challenge down, many more to go.

The pictures show the beautiful waxing moon we saw from the United 777 as began our trip. A self portrait of Robin and I somewhere over Belarus. The car we drove in with Viktoria and an orange dashboard mascot. Finally, the beautiful in terminal in Astana that seems to be modeled on a Kazakh yurt.