Sweet Smell of Muffins & Sound of Whispers

I woke up to the sweet smell of muffins and the sound of conspiring whispers emanating from the kitchen. The cuteness of the little voices from my boys combined with that of my amazing wife trying to keep them quiet put an instant smile on my face. Once breakfast was finished it was time to get to work, I was left with only 20 minutes to complete my packing and be on my way.

Having arrived 15 minutes early, my driver Eric waited patiently in front of the house as I finished getting my things together. Feeling the need to capture the moment, I sent my sister-in-law, Ana  (who lives next door to us) a text saying “please come over in two minutes so you can take pictures of me and the family before I go”,  she lives next door to us by the way. I then continued to do a frantic shuffle around the house, gathering last minute items, making sure I had my passport, and attempting to savor my last few minutes with Beatriz and the kids.

I couldn’t help but experience intermittent flashbacks to the time my alarm did not go off when I was supposed to fly to Chile! Awoken by the knock of Mr. Bakalyar, a family friend who so kindly volunteered to take me to the the airport, I was forced to pack and prepare in literally 5 minutes so as not to miss my flight. It was during my scurried packing efforts that my cell phone buzzed, I glanced down and saw a message from Eric, my driver. He said “can you please explain?”. Puzzled at first, I then realized that the text, which was meant for my sister-in-law was actually sent to Eric!

After some warm goodbye hugs from my family, it was time to get moving.

My brothers can both attest to the fact that I love conversing with drivers. They both made fun of me during my brothers Las Vegas Bachelor party because I got the driver to tell us his life story. Eric did not disappoint. I learned so many things from this man that I need to dedicate an entire post to him!

I am writing this post from the plane and I hope to provide an update upon arrival! We land at 6pm Moscow time and the following day we will take a 4-hour flight to Novosibirsk. Until next time, have a great day!

Depending on my access to wifi I will be posting daily from my blog at http://roblewis.org