We left the apartment at 9:30-ish… we were going to check our email first and then go to the green market… Well the internet café was not open until 11 so we headed over to the market… The green Market was not what we thought it was… it was like the bazaar in Uralsk only a little fancier of course. Last time we were here we went to a market… like a mall and they had souvinirs there… this was not that same place… somehow in my head I had it pegged as the Green Market. Anyways we walked around and I got to take Alex to the squat pot bathrooms… that was fun! Yuck! I think I bought a couple magnets! Then we went back to Sasha… he knew where the souvenir stores were… they were the same ones we went to before! They are on the 3rd floor, and there are a ton of them! We bought a camel, some hats, a vest, some pillowcases, a (Christmas)stocking, a pair of dolls, maybe some other little things I don’t remember… we were there a long time! Alex had a meltdown, Anthony fell asleep! We finally left… we would not have time to go to Kok-Tobe before our embassy meeting! Maybe after. We went to the café for lunch and checked our email… nothing from our friends we were supposed to meet… oh well… we were all busy! :) Then we went to our embassy appointment! There were 3 other families with us with WPA. The 2 we knew and one more… she was here with her daughter getting the twin to the son she had already adopted a couple years ago!!! Amazing! The appointment is really not a big deal… as in hard… they are friendly there and it doesn’t take very long… they basically check your paperwork and give you the visa, of course after you pay $400! :) Alex had not napped all today! So he was getting tired and naughty! He dumped a glass of water on the floor there! Oh dear! After that we went back to the office and met with Gulbanu… she gave us a few last pieces of paperwork and we chatted a bit about things and the painting! She loved it! She was very surprised it was so large! She now has to figure out where to put it! She asked us for a favor… she said that Uralsk is basically shutting down… not accepting new dossiers until Post Placement Reports have been turned in! She asked us to talk about this on our loops and see if we can just bring more awareness to this problem, since she has 12 families that have not turned them in and so far have refused to do it… they say they have fulfilled their obligations to WPA and refuse to do more PP Reports! Basically because these people refuse to fill out a simple worksheet and send it in, many people will not be able to go to Uralsk and find their children! So sad! The thing is… is that this is a law in Kazakhstan that you must send post placement reports until the child turns 18, only the first 3 years have to be done by a social worker, but the rest can be this simple form where you basically fill in the blanks! That upset me! Basically these children will stay in the Orphanages because some people won’t spend 20 minutes a year, a couple pictures and a postage stamp to WPA, who will send it over for free for you! It’s not that hard!!! Ugh!!! So we promised we would see what we could do. And of course we would be sending ours in! There are many more people that have not sent in PPRs as well, not just those 12 with our agency. I hope we can help… there are so many precious kids in Uralsk! There was several at our babyhouse that I could have just brought home! We hugged her and took a few pictures with her… Alex was smooching on her and told her we hoped to see her again and then we left! We were done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We can go home!!!!!!!
While we were showing Anthony off to Gulbanu we made him smile big and we noticed a top tooth had poked through… just a few days before, we didn’t even see a tooth thinking about coming through! So that was exciting. He looks so cute with his 2 bottom teeth and his one top tooth!
We stopped by the grocery to get some formula and while jerry was in there grabbing that… Alex got out of control and after a few times of telling him to stop hitting and grabbing stuff he wasn’t supposed to… I made a very sad decision! I told him that would not be going to the top of the mountain to the playground! Almost as soon as I said it I regretted saying it!!! Oh I was mad at myself… and wouldn’t you know it… Alex was an angel the rest of the time while we waited. When Jerry came out I had to tell him that we would not be going and Alex started crying and begging please to go to the “playground on the mountain.” It nearly broke my heart! I felt so bad… but I just couldn’t go back on what I said! He cried pretty hard all the way back to the apartment… about 20 minutes! Oh I felt bad! Such a mean momma! So Alex and Anthony went to bed almost immediately… Alex woke up after a about 3 hours and Anthony slept until we got him up to go to the airport at 10:30!
We finished packing everything up and cleaned up the apartment and took showers and were 100% ready when Sasha arrived! We hauled everything down and off we went to the airport!
We checked in and then waited to get o our flight… I got in trouble for taking a picture in the airport of Alex… grrrrr…. What is with these people… it’s not like there is anything top secret going on in there… there wasn’t even a sign saying no photography! Silly people!
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