tim and lisa cocking

I had a two hour conference call yesterday (longest call of my life!) going over details for the recording and the state of the logistics. Apparently it’s going to be really hard to get out of Moscow during the first week of August, so we have pushed back the start of the trip by one day and pushed back the end by three. So now we’re shooting for leaving two weeks from today on Wednesday the 16th and coming back on Friday, August 8. So it will be two days longer which will give a bit of breathing room for everyone.

Here is another shot of Gorno-Altai

By the way, I also found out that it is impolite to sneeze loudly or call out loudly to get someone’s attention. It is, however, perfectly acceptable to leave your mouth uncovered while coughing and to pick your nose in public.

We’re in Michigan now. Thanks for your prayers for Ellie. She’s doing quite a bit better but still isn’t 100%. We’re planning to take her to the doctor here, probably on Monday.

Our trip up was mostly uneventful, except for a major 2:30 am thunderstorm on Thursday night/Friday morning. We thought the tent was going to collapse and/or get hit by lightning, so we made a quick jump into the minivan and spent the rest of the night there. Since more storms were forecast, we cut our camping short by a day and got here late last night.

So here we are. We’ll have a lot less internet access than normal (just the Panera up the street) but we’ll try to post when we can.

After three breathing treatments and a steroid dose Ellie’s blood oxygen finally came up to an acceptable level. Lisa got her home a bit before 11. And we finally got her settled into bed around midnight. It’s a bit before 6 am right now. It was a short night!

So were a bit behind on getting the van packed but it’s only a 6 hour drive today so even if we don’t get out of here until 11 we’ll be OK.

Ellie has taken a turn for the worse this afternoon and is coughing nonstop and having trouble breathing. Lisa has just taken her to the after hours clinic. We’re mostly packed to leave tomorrow morning so we’ll just have to see what the doctor says. Please pray for her.

Nothing urgent, but Ellie has been sick with a really bad cough since Tuesday and had a slight fever for three days. She is still coughing a lot. I’m feeling like I’m fighting it. It could make for a most unpleasant drive up to Michigan this week! Please pray that Ellie will get over this before we leave Monday and that the rest of us won’t catch it. Thanks!