Playing in my new Highchair!
Ready for bed!
Ready for bed!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
On Our Way Home... (day0)
Finally we got on our plane! Yay!!! We are going home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our flight left at 1:35am on Thursday! We flew to Frankfurt first. The flight was fine… we mostly slept! I hardly remember the flight! Alex and Anthony were fine too… I am pretty sure they slept too… I do remember waking up and the flight attendant asked me if it was ok if she gave Alex some water. We were in the center isle Alex was 2 seats in, Jerry sat on the isle side and I sat in the middle… then I laid Anthony on the other isle seat and put pillows on the edge and held onto him with my hand! It was a pretty good arrangement. We actually had an extra seat that no one sat in so we were able to spread out a little. We actually made a stop in Astana! We did not know we had that stop. Go figure!! People got on, but no one got off. We were glad the extra seat in our row stayed empty!
It was on this flight that I must have lost my zippered pouch that I carried all of our traveling documents in, like our itinerary, and our ticket receipts from all the flights and the last of our calling cards… I never saw it the rest of the trip… and I realized it way too late… we would have missed our next flight if I had gone back to look for it! Frankfurt is the most messed up airport right now! Oh my! We walked and walked and walked! The board said our flight was at c1 or something… well c1 was not really anywhere! So we walked to a bunch of other gates looking for a person with United! Finally we found some Lufthansa people and they looked up and it was actually supposed to be gate c9!!! Grrrrr….. we were so exhausted! Who knows, maybe I lost my pouch in there!!! Anyways we were just glad we made it after all of that!
The next flight was soooo long! 8.5 hours! We had the very last row on the plane! That worked out pretty good actually… even though we had hoped for bulk head. The united planes are a lot smaller! We put the carseat in and Alex couldn’t even fit in it! His knees were up by his ears, because they didn’t fit between the carseat and the seat in front of him… so Anthony sat in the carseat for most of this flight! When he got scream-y and tired I just cover the carseat with a blanket and he fell asleep, then I uncovered his face, I was paranoid of him not being able to breathe or something… mostly I think he just got hot under there though… It worked! Alex hardly slept on this flight he was very busy! Jerry and I were so tired though! We both dozed off quite a few times! Alex was pretty good though most of the time! Jerry let him watch a few Mickey Mouse videos that he had on the computer.
When we finally got to Chicago, we had to go through passport control and customs… it took about an hour in the passport line… Alex got pretty naughty in that line… and then he had to go potty!!!! Oh no!!! I thought he wouldn’t make it! I thought he was definitely going to be wetting his pants! I was not looking forward t that one! I was starting to get mad that it was taking so long! They had 2 people working for several hundred people in line!!!! But they had just one other person working the line for the people in wheelchairs… there are not that many of those!!!! Good grief!!! The non citizen line was even moving faster than our line!!! So annoying!!! We finally made it and then we picked up our luggage, went through customs, and dropped our bags off again and then…. We had to go tot eh ticketing counter, because Almaty never gave jerry a boarding pass for the last flight! It was a mess!!! So we had to leave the security and then go back through with all of our computers and camera equipment and all! It was a disaster! Come to think of it, we had to go through security in Frankfurt as well… They should know we are safe by now… plus we have been FBI checked at least 3 times! (for the dossiers, you know) We were so frazzled by the time we got on the next flight, we were sweating and so tired!!!! But next stop was Kalamazoo!!! WooHooo!!! We begged them to be very very very careful with our paintings… they wouldn’t let us bring it on to the plane, we had to check them with any other large carry-ons. We relaxed a bit, but the flight is only about 30 minutes in the air, so as soon as we got up in the air we cleaned the boys up and changed them out of their pajamas and into some nice, cute clothes for coming home!
When we landed the pilot met us outside the plane with our paintings, he was assuring that they were safe! We thought that was sweet of him, since they are so important to us! We hurried through the airport, and got to the revolving door and we could see all of our friends and family on the other side… Alex ran in the doors the wrong way!!!!! The alarm went off and the doors shut down! And we stood on the other side! Just looking through at everyone! We had to wait for a security guy to come over and unlock the door and put in a code… then Alex started to run in again the wrong way! We all screamed “no!!!!!! not that way!!!!” it was kind of funny… but embarrassing at the time!!! We got through and everyone was there, they had balloons and they were all excited to see Alex and Anthony! At least 3 of the people coming to meet us got behind a huge 8 car pile up on the interstate coming and never did make it! Mostly Bonnie! She had my truck and Anthony’s carseat and the keys to get in the house!!! Ha! :) so we barrowed a seat from Janelle, who didn’t bring her kids with her this time, and we had Alex seat already and we went home in 2 separate cars with Jerry’s parents and Heather! As we got closer to home we called Bonnie again, and she had been able to sneak around on the interstate and head toward home! So we waited about 15-20 minutes for her to get here and then we were able to go in OUR house!!!! Oh my! It was sooo nice to be home!!! Ruth, Jerry’s mom had made us dinner and Heather had also brought us a dish and so we had dinner together. Then we just chatted a while and the kids played… Anthony and Dylan looked at each other on the floor and reached toward one another some! We took some pictures. Then our luggage came! I forgot to mention that 3 out of 4 bags did not get to Kalamazoo when we did… we were so glad that they came that night though!
Soon everyone left and we all went pretty much straight to bed! We were soooo tired! Alex slept like a champ! Anthony screamed like crazy at 1, 4, 5, 6 and then we got up and got him up… Alex slept through it all! They are in the same room! Can you believe that!? I am not used to waking up to blood curdling screams in the night! Goodness! Makes me about have a heart attack! I hope that goes away soon! Oh my!
We're home!!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
It was on this flight that I must have lost my zippered pouch that I carried all of our traveling documents in, like our itinerary, and our ticket receipts from all the flights and the last of our calling cards… I never saw it the rest of the trip… and I realized it way too late… we would have missed our next flight if I had gone back to look for it! Frankfurt is the most messed up airport right now! Oh my! We walked and walked and walked! The board said our flight was at c1 or something… well c1 was not really anywhere! So we walked to a bunch of other gates looking for a person with United! Finally we found some Lufthansa people and they looked up and it was actually supposed to be gate c9!!! Grrrrr….. we were so exhausted! Who knows, maybe I lost my pouch in there!!! Anyways we were just glad we made it after all of that!
The next flight was soooo long! 8.5 hours! We had the very last row on the plane! That worked out pretty good actually… even though we had hoped for bulk head. The united planes are a lot smaller! We put the carseat in and Alex couldn’t even fit in it! His knees were up by his ears, because they didn’t fit between the carseat and the seat in front of him… so Anthony sat in the carseat for most of this flight! When he got scream-y and tired I just cover the carseat with a blanket and he fell asleep, then I uncovered his face, I was paranoid of him not being able to breathe or something… mostly I think he just got hot under there though… It worked! Alex hardly slept on this flight he was very busy! Jerry and I were so tired though! We both dozed off quite a few times! Alex was pretty good though most of the time! Jerry let him watch a few Mickey Mouse videos that he had on the computer.
When we finally got to Chicago, we had to go through passport control and customs… it took about an hour in the passport line… Alex got pretty naughty in that line… and then he had to go potty!!!! Oh no!!! I thought he wouldn’t make it! I thought he was definitely going to be wetting his pants! I was not looking forward t that one! I was starting to get mad that it was taking so long! They had 2 people working for several hundred people in line!!!! But they had just one other person working the line for the people in wheelchairs… there are not that many of those!!!! Good grief!!! The non citizen line was even moving faster than our line!!! So annoying!!! We finally made it and then we picked up our luggage, went through customs, and dropped our bags off again and then…. We had to go tot eh ticketing counter, because Almaty never gave jerry a boarding pass for the last flight! It was a mess!!! So we had to leave the security and then go back through with all of our computers and camera equipment and all! It was a disaster! Come to think of it, we had to go through security in Frankfurt as well… They should know we are safe by now… plus we have been FBI checked at least 3 times! (for the dossiers, you know) We were so frazzled by the time we got on the next flight, we were sweating and so tired!!!! But next stop was Kalamazoo!!! WooHooo!!! We begged them to be very very very careful with our paintings… they wouldn’t let us bring it on to the plane, we had to check them with any other large carry-ons. We relaxed a bit, but the flight is only about 30 minutes in the air, so as soon as we got up in the air we cleaned the boys up and changed them out of their pajamas and into some nice, cute clothes for coming home!
When we landed the pilot met us outside the plane with our paintings, he was assuring that they were safe! We thought that was sweet of him, since they are so important to us! We hurried through the airport, and got to the revolving door and we could see all of our friends and family on the other side… Alex ran in the doors the wrong way!!!!! The alarm went off and the doors shut down! And we stood on the other side! Just looking through at everyone! We had to wait for a security guy to come over and unlock the door and put in a code… then Alex started to run in again the wrong way! We all screamed “no!!!!!! not that way!!!!” it was kind of funny… but embarrassing at the time!!! We got through and everyone was there, they had balloons and they were all excited to see Alex and Anthony! At least 3 of the people coming to meet us got behind a huge 8 car pile up on the interstate coming and never did make it! Mostly Bonnie! She had my truck and Anthony’s carseat and the keys to get in the house!!! Ha! :) so we barrowed a seat from Janelle, who didn’t bring her kids with her this time, and we had Alex seat already and we went home in 2 separate cars with Jerry’s parents and Heather! As we got closer to home we called Bonnie again, and she had been able to sneak around on the interstate and head toward home! So we waited about 15-20 minutes for her to get here and then we were able to go in OUR house!!!! Oh my! It was sooo nice to be home!!! Ruth, Jerry’s mom had made us dinner and Heather had also brought us a dish and so we had dinner together. Then we just chatted a while and the kids played… Anthony and Dylan looked at each other on the floor and reached toward one another some! We took some pictures. Then our luggage came! I forgot to mention that 3 out of 4 bags did not get to Kalamazoo when we did… we were so glad that they came that night though!
Soon everyone left and we all went pretty much straight to bed! We were soooo tired! Alex slept like a champ! Anthony screamed like crazy at 1, 4, 5, 6 and then we got up and got him up… Alex slept through it all! They are in the same room! Can you believe that!? I am not used to waking up to blood curdling screams in the night! Goodness! Makes me about have a heart attack! I hope that goes away soon! Oh my!
We're home!!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Home!
The very second Anthony became a US citizen!!
Chicago!!!!
Almost home!
HOME!!!!
Likes his bed!
Checkin' out Ryleigh!
Anthony and Dylan!
What in the world?
Beautiful!
I am not sure about all this...
What is he doing?
Out like a light! In his very own bed!!!
Out like a light! In HIS very own bed, too!!!
Chicago!!!!
Almost home!
HOME!!!!
Likes his bed!
Checkin' out Ryleigh!
Anthony and Dylan!
What in the world?
Beautiful!
I am not sure about all this...
What is he doing?
Out like a light! In his very own bed!!!
Out like a light! In HIS very own bed, too!!!
Woohoo!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Last Day in Almaty! (day1)
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!
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!
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!
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!
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
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!
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...
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...
Monday, August 4, 2008
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!
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!
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