Finally Done!!!

Eating Anthony's puffs!This is Gulbanu! Isn't she cute!?
At the airport, ready to go, in pajamas and all! This is the picture i got in trouble for!

Big Almaty Lake (day2)

So we slept in and frittered around until we left at 11. We took the carseat with us so that I wouldn’t have to hold on to both the boys all the time… Alex actually insisted on sitting in it most of the way up the mountain though. We drove through the new part of the city… where the new JW Marriot is being finished!
There are a ton of beautiful new glass buildings going up on this side of Almaty! Amazing… I told jerry we might have to move to Almaty… they have tons of work! Construction, you know. We drove through a beautiful round-about where there is an entrance to a huge park… It had a beautiful entrance! Then we drove next to the park toward the edge of town. This side of town is crazy with the residential! Huge houses… one even looks like the Taj Mahal! Goodness!
Tons of construction! Finally we were out of town. We started going up hill… then the tarmac was gone… and there were lots of potholes! We passed yurts and most of them are little restaurants and such! Funny! The road was very curvy and lots of rocks and holes! Basically we were in the mountains! It was breathtaking! It was making us miss Baja actually! The road was like one of the ones in Mexico! It was awesome! We jiggled up the mountain! Some places the road was sooo bad and we had to go so slow! The bridges were funny! You could see where there was 2 layers of wood… one… the grain was going one way and the 2nd layer the grain going the other… then they covered the whole thing over with gravel and dirt… well… there were even potholes on the bridges and you could see through the layers! Yikes… it didn’t look very sturdy!! Jerry got a picture of one a little… Jerry road in the front on the way up so he was supposed to be taking pictures, he was kind of a mess… he would stick the camera out the window… yeah, well most of them are blurry… :) We had to go through a couple checkpoints… one was because it was a park I think and the other was some military… not sure why they were there… whatever… finally we got there! We walked in to the lake and when I reached the top of the little damn… I was literally speechless…. All I could do was breath! Barely! I didn’t want to ever forget what I saw! It was amazing! I took a bunch of pictures of course! I was a crazy person… I think I took about 250 total! Goodness! We walked along the lake… man-made, because they damned it up so that it would supply water down the mountain I guess. So there was a steep bank, made of concrete… but on all sides steep mountains went up! The lake was not that big, but it was beautiful and the water cold! The air was perfect today and the sun was shining! It was soooo nice! It was green all the way around and in the background one snowcapped mountain! BEAUTIFUL!!! We hiked up the side on one of the streams coming into the lake and rested there over looking the lake! Alex was loving it… Anthony was riding on Jerry in the bjorn. He was just hanging out, in his cute little hat… looking around. We put Anthony down on the large rock we were sitting on… he loved that! He could feel the rough rock all he wanted! He loves that you know! We walked around a while. They have some very cool plants with flowers up there. You will see some in the pictures…

All too soon we headed back toward the truck though! We stopped and took a couple family pictures up there using the tripod I hauled all the way… :) One picture was on an over-hanging rock… kind of cool. It was just the best day trip we had taken in Kazakhstan so far!

On the way down the mountain I rode in the front seat and Anthony rode in the carseat! It was a much shorter trip down it seemed!

I forgot to tell about some people we saw on the way up the mountain! They were parked in a spot by the river going down. They had a van and were pulling a trailer piled high with stuff… Sasha said they were camping… we wondered if they had a yurt. Well… on the way back down the mountain we saw them… they had a one tent set up and were working on another… as well as… drum roll please….. a intex pool! After some thought we decided that it was probably as big as ours which is 24 feet across!!! We laughed so hard and we had to take a picture… now that is camping! It was hilarious!!! There were a whole bunch of people there too!!

The whole experience was amazing and we would recommend it to anyone! If you can talk your driver into it! :) Oh my! We came home and we walked to the internet café for dinner and to check and send some emails…

Tomorrow we will have our last meeting at the office, have our embassy appointment at 3 and we are free to go home! In the morning we plan to shop and are hoping to meet up with some friends… we will see, though since we don’t have a phone in our apartment! Annoying!

Off Roading in Kazakhstan!!! (day2)

Anthony in the carseat. The bridges...

The Campers... more to follow on them....
Big Almaty Lake... I know... real original!

So cute! He always wants my tripod... then when i ask him to carry it... it is too heavy!! He is a mess!
The Campers... part 2!

JW Marriot...

Here We Go!!!! (day3)

In the morning we left at nine for the office. We filled out some papers and signed a couple things… they prepared the paperwork for the Medical visit. We also brought the painting with us… but Gulbanu was not there this morning! Bummer. We left it in her office… I would have loved to see the look on her face though when she saw it for the first time! Oh well… Our medical appointment was at 10:30 so after a bit we headed over there… Inside there was another lady that we met, she had been in country for 8 weeks as well and her hubby had had to go home… although he was not able to come back at the end for the final stuff. Their daughter is about 2.5 like Alex. After a little while the nurse called us in… It was the same sweet nurse that weighed and measured Alex almost 2 years ago!!! I told jerry to make sure to get a picture… he did… you can’t see it, because he took it against the bright window... and he didn’t look to see if it came out or not… grrrr…. Naughty Jerry! Anyways… Anthony weighs in at 7.4kg (about 16 lbs) and measures 72cm (just over 28 inches) long!!! He is almost as long as Alex was, but Alex weighed 22 pounds!!! (Alex was not fat at all! He was muscle or something because he was wearing 9-12 month… Anthony is wearing from 3-9 month sizes… his chest is much bigger than his little bahoney!) So we went back to the waiting room… the other mom was there that we met at the airport yesterday… with her husband! So there were 3 families with WPA in there! Soon we went to meet with the doctor… he was funny! He chatted with Alex about being a big boy and “did he like to pee outside in the garden…” I said he wasn’t allowed to pee in the garden! It was a very weird conversation… to me… Jerry said it was a guy thing… Actually Alex had never just peed outside until this trip… Olga had him do it at the babyhouse a couple times… I, was of course horrified! I guess I should have known it was coming, but that is still disgusting! Hahaha! Then Alex and the doctor looked over Anthony’s medical info and the doctor examined Anthony a little… Anthony looks good… of course developmentally behind some, but nothing he won’t catch up on pretty quickly! He has one abnormality… the little piece of skin that goes from the inside of your top lip to your gums… is very short from the end of his lip, you can not lift his lip up hardly at all… he said it should not affect his speech, but this was abnormal… whatever… ok… So then we were done after signing the report. We went back to the waiting room to wait for the blood test…. That was not going to be pretty! Oh dear! However we soon discovered that they aren’t doing that anymore… imagine our relief! Oh my word! We just had to pay and we were done!

We had Sasha take us to the Ramstore for a few things… water, baby food, and Jerry found Peanut Butter there! He has been having the PB cravings… heeheehee! On the way home we discussed what we would like to do tomorrow… our free day. Jerry asked about the lake that is just outside Almaty… Sasha would take us there!!! YAY!!!!!!! Last time we tried to convince our driver to take us there and he kept saying it was too far away! Sasha said it is not too far, but the road is bad and it would take a long time! It might be cold and windy there so bring stuff in case… He showed us the internet café near Mad Murphy’s… we had lunch at Mad Murphy’s… both Boys fell asleep while we were there… We could not get the internet to work there… it was weird… there wasn’t even a wireless signal… who knows! Anyways… we would come back later to the café… but the boys were sleeping so… we went home… put the boys in bed and I started repacking, I decided what we would wear for the next few days and put those out… and then packed everything else away! I really had a lot of space left in the suitcases… after getting rid of the gifts in Uralsk! Cool!

Later Jerry took our computers to the café to get our emails and post to the blog a little… he answered a couple emails and had a burrito at the café! It was literally a café as well as internet! I thought that was funny and clever!! He brought us some onion rings… my favorite! Alex and I had eaten leftover pizza from Mad Murphy’s. By the time Jerry got back Anthony was already in bed, but Alex was up watching some videos until daddy came home! It was a nice little evening… just me and Alex. Jerry was so thoughtful that he brought up a bunch of the different blogs that I look at sometimes for me to read when he got back… including Rumor Queen… the place that keeps all the rumors in check about China adoptions! Ha! We went to bed after while…

We are going to the mountain lake tomorrow!! yeah!

Medical.

Not so bad!

In Almaty!!! (day4)

So we got up at about 6 and there was no hot water yet, so… no shower… But we were ready to go on time. Olga, Olga and Misha came along with the other driver… I can’t remember his name. With the paintings, there was no way we would get all the luggage in one car!

We gave them their gifts. We gave Misha a rubicks cube and mechanix gloves that are Jerry’s favorite! I hope he likes them! We put some other little things in there as well, like jerry’s favorite pens and some chapstick and a little shamy for cleaning your sunglasses or rear view mirror or whatever. Olga our translator, we gave 2 wide headbands, some mascara, the favorite pens and some chapstick. Olga our coordinator, the pens again, a eye make-up kit from Maybelline or something, a necklace, and chapstick. They all seem so inadequate for the great job they have done! But I guess it is their job. They are just good at their jobs, what can I say! Plus they are friends! I hope they are still there, next time we come back… They are all hoping we come back for a girl now… :)

So we headed off to the airport! Olga checked us in, checked our luggage in and everything… they decided that we needed to carry the paintings on… As I was sitting there waiting with Olga our interpreter… I think I suddenly realized that we were leave “home” with no idea when and if we will return in the future! It made me very sad! I almost started bawling right there with Olga sitting next to me! Alex was running round looking out the windows and going up and down the stairs! Anthony was hanging out in the bjorn on me and Jerry was supervising Alex! :) Finally it was time to go… we had to go through the gate and security. We had to say goodbye. That was hard! I was trying sooo hard not to cry! We all hugged and Alex hugged and kissed everyone! Then we handed them our passports and boarding passes, they waved us through and we left… headed down the steps to the security check. It was the easiest security check ever… we put our bags through… no strollers or anything fancy… except the paintings which a lady took Jerry upstairs to run through the larger machine… and then he was back and we were shuttled out to the plane… we got on… and the ladies inside had a place for jerry to put the paintings and we were ready to go!! Anthony fell asleep before we left the ground… he slept probably 30 minutes and then I woke up trying to help Alex with something… we have to remember to put Alex in the middle of us in the next flights… Our flight was pretty much perfect this time, even with 2 kids! Jerry walked Anthony around while Alex and I ate and we mixed Anthony’s bottle… then I fed Anthony while Jerry ate… it worked pretty good… we were starving… we hadn’t eaten at the apartment… we were all too tired! Well… Anthony had eaten of course! But he still thought he was going to die if we didn’t feed him right away!!!! Goodness! Anyways it was a good flight and I hope that the rest will be as good… I have decided that it will be a dilemma if we get bulk head seating, which we are hoping for, but Anthony doesn’t like to lay down you know… to go to sleep… he usually screams his head off… we are hoping though that he will be different at least for our flights home… haha!

While on the flight we met another couple that adopted a baby from Babyhouse 1. Oh my goodness! That baby was soooo cute!!! He had spiky hair like Alex, very Asian eyes, especially when he smiled and huge Kazakh cheeks!!! Oh! He was beautiful! When we got off the flight we met a mom… she was meeting her hubby in Almaty… He had gone home after court and she had stayed with the baby! (not in Uralsk) She had been in country 8 weeks! They were with WPA, too. Their baby is so precious! He has light colored hair, but he still has huge Kazakh cheeks. So cute! Chubby legs! Adorable and cuddly looking!

Our driver this time is Sasha. Sasha is short for Alexander in Russian! We thought that was funny. Apparently there are a lot of names that are short for Alexander! Like Shurig… that is what Misha was calling Alex all the time… Alex would quite often say “I’m Alex!” It was their joke!

Sasha seems cool. He has an SUV which we were glad for with all our luggage… but what makes him cool is that is likes rafting… as in whitewater! Of course Jerry had to tell him about the Baja 1000…

On the way we met Janara, from the “Sister’s” office… she needed our passports and Anthony’s birth cert as well as another packet of info that Olga gave us. We laughed because we stopped by the side of the rode and she walked across the street and got it from us… she must live nearby! So Sasha took us to our apartment… it was a different one that any of the others we had stayed in already. It was on the 3rd floor… not bad… but… it had NO AC! Which as you know we had been very used to in Uralsk! And today was really really hot!!! Oh my! So we were all exhausted and decided to take naps… We found an infant bassinet for Anthony and there was a crib sort of thing for Alex. So I laid down on the couch with Anthony in the bassinet by me and Jerry put Alex in the crib I the bed room… we had every window in the place open and sometimes a breeze would blow through, but most of the time it was stifling hot! We all finally fell asleep… it took awhile since we were all so hot! When I woke up I was sweating in my sleep!!!! I have never been so hot while I slept before!!! Good grief! Anthony did a bunch of screaming throughout the afternoon and evening… and we decided that we needed to get out and have dinner… We did not realize how late it was! Ha! We actually ended up walking forever to the Thai restaurant… Jerry was craving that pretty badly! The food of course was awesome and cost about $85! But we didn’t care… even the Chinese restaurant in Uralsk was gone… we wanted some Asian food! The kids did pretty good in there… they no longer had a high chair though… we were hoping to set Anthony in it and give him some puffs to mess with… he still hasn’t figured out how to get them to his mouth for some reason… Well the walk home seemed much shorter… we came across the cutest little tiny kitty… it we had been at home I would have brought it home… it purred like crazy when we stopped to give it some attention! We had to leave it behind though. We got home at about 11 at night!! When we got home we all went to bed… Anthony didn’t scream too long either… as long as I was holding onto his little hand from my bed! He is a mess!

Leaving Uralsk...

I found this picture on my sd card when i downloaded my pictures... guess who took it... the young budding photographer... Alex! :)This was us waiting at the airport... see the big square black, white and wood thing in the back on the right? That was our paintings! It was a carry-on!
Misha and Alex having a few last moments! Alex kissed him twice when we were ready to leave!
We laid Anthony on the floor in the airplane for a few minutes...
Coming into Almaty!
We are ready to go home!!!
In the bassinet in the apartment in Almaty! This was actually a happy moment! Shocker!
This is the painting that we gave Gulbanu. Isn't it cute!? We actually figured out that Anthony's head is bigger than it should be in the painting... but still a good likeness. :)
Having some hair-feeling moments with daddy...
It is soooo hot in here!

But is am still cute!

My first bath with Daddy... How else was I going to bathe him!? He can't sit up on his own!
My firt bottle of apple juice... he gets to hold the juice bottles, but not his milk bottles! He needs to know we are going to feed him... he doesn't have to serve himself all the time! Although he would like to!

Last Day in Uralsk! (day5)

When we woke up it was raining, and nice and cool! Erik and Birgit were coming over at 10:30 to take pictures of the boys together. They came! Even in the rain! We had a nice visit and Anthony and Askhat seemed like old friends… they actually laid close and played “together” if that’s possible at their age… It was beautiful and they were so cute together. It was truly touching… Here they lived together nearly their whole live… they are a month apart in age… and they now have their families and are moving across the world from one another! It will be fun to see them grow up and see if they continue to have any kind of bond with one another! So we took a bunch of pictures and just chatted! Alex and Rufan watched a couple Mickey Mouse videos that Jerry downloaded! Then we did a family photo and group photo… That was hard… but we got a few that were pretty good! It was a good time and then we said goodbye and we hope that we will see them in Almaty!

We spent the afternoon at home… starting to pack finally! We made a mess in there!!! Whew! At six Jerry went with Olga and Misha to pick up the paintings. They were screwed together so that they could not touch one another and nobody could touch them either… I hope they do ok! Not sure if we will check them or carry them… probably carry them, unfortunately! Luba and Helen came by to visit… I wasn’t very talkative, as I was trying to pack… so Jerry asked them all kinds of funny questions about life and their goals and stuff… most of the time they don’t take us seriously! Helen translates and then they laugh and talk back and forth and then they just look at us! It’s kind of annoying! So we ask the question again and sometimes they answer sometimes they don’t! Silly girls!

Anthony only had one real screaming fit today! However it was a pretty long one… probably 45 minutes! Oh my! We just put him in his bed… and check on him once in a while and make sure he didn’t really have something to scream about!

After the girls left I finished packing, Jerry finished downloading some stuff and we went to bed about 2 am! We leave in the morning at 8! We also forgot to give Luba her graduation gift (money) she is leaving for Aksay and could use a little money to get going over there, so we thought we would help her a little bit. It’s not very much, I am sure it is not “enough” but she will appreciate it and it WILL help! So we will have to leave it with Olga! She can get it to her later!