Mom and dad went to Siberia, and all I got was this lousy ...

We're adopting from Siberia, where every day is Christmas, because every day is 10 below.

Novosibirsk, the area in which we are adopting, is located in Siberia, which I didn't know for the first few months, because I always thought Siberia in Russia was north, and Novosibirsk is 3 hours flight southeast of Moscow.

Siberia was deathly cold. At least that's the way it looked in all those James Bond movies. And deathly cold is usually north, right?

Wrong.

Siberia is apparently everywhere east of Moscow, that big wide open area of Russia where there are few dots on the map. Novosibirsk happens to be the third largest city in Russia -- to which you would say 'No way' -- but then when asked to name three cities in Russia, you probably don't get past Moscow and St. Petersburg.

It's apparently a balmy 40 degrees in Novosibirsk this week, and so you can just imagine how cold it will be there for our second trip, which we expect to take in about 6-8 weeks. And this is a 3-hour plane trip south of Moscow ... in this country, you head three hours south on a plane, and you'll be on a sunny beach.