Another Week in Review: taking in some culture

Warning: This post excessively long and the number of pictures included demonstrates an absolute lack of restraint on the author's part.

You wouldn't know it from the dull posts I've written these past few days, but we've actually had a pretty interesting week. Makhabbat, our housemates' interpreter, took us to several events around town this week: a soccer game, a graduation, and a concert. I thought I'd use the Sunday, week-in-review post, to tell you a little about it.

The Soccer Match

Last Sunday, we went to a soccer game: Kokshetau vs. Kostanai. The home team scored a goal at the last minute to even up the score... the crowd went wild! Final score: 1-1. The stadium isn't too terribly large, it was almost full--where we were sitting was about the only place where there were any empty seats left. There was a small marching band in the bleachers near us. Apparently, Kokshetau is a pretty poor team. Still, it was fun to be there.

Here's the band.
That's "Dougdad" and Dylan in the picture--our housemates.
Dylan ended up getting to play that drum a little.

American cheering section.

The Graduation Event

The following night, we attended a celebration honoring the city's high school graduates. The event was held in the soccer stadium and was quite the extravagant affair. The ceremony involved a recognition of the top 16 students by name and the awarding of flowers and a certificate. There was a number of student dance performances, a knowledge torch that was passed from teacher to student to the theme of Chariots of Fire, a choreographed waltz to the song "A Summer Place", a release of a bunch of balloons, and, finally, the event was concluded with a fireworks display.

As you can see from the pictures below, the students get completely decked out for this event. The dress for girls was much like a Prom here in the states (maybe even a bit more glamourous), the boys don't wear tuxedos, but they too are in fine form. It will be fun to show Evelyn and Jesse one day what the teenagers here dress and look like...(not a whole lot different from the way teenagers look here at a formal.)

Her sash says "Class of 2008".
All the graduates (boys &girls) were wearing these

These guys were very friendly and figured out pretty quickly that I was American (I think it was my saying in English "hold still so I can take a picture" that clued them in). They were pretty excited about this and immediately introduced themselves and asked where we were from in the US. Most students take English in school so the younger generation typically has some (though not a lot) of English.

See kids on cellphones? Teens are same the world around!

The three ladies in the picture are mom, Makhabbat (a local translator and a newfound friend) and her daughter. The boy is a graduate (and honors student) from the Turkish Lyceum here in town.

The girl pictured here is in traditional Kazakh costume. We were told that this would be the sort of dress a women might wear at her wedding (if she were going to have a traditional wedding) though the bride could choose any color she prefers.

The Concert

Then on Wednesday, we went to a concert featuring popular Russian and Kazakh music from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. The concert was held in the performance center in town, which is a pretty nice place. In fact, it looks pretty new. It's not a huge concert hall, but then again, it's not a huge city. In any case, the concert itself was really interesting. The performance involved a fairly decent sized orchestra and a variety soloists. Some of the songs were sung in Kazakh, but the majority were in Russian. The only difference I could really discern in style as we moved through the decades was that the later numbers were more upbeat and gave greater place to the electric guitars in the band. Still, there was really nothing like a Rock-n-Roll influence here. Very different from the popular music here in the US in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Here are a few pictures:

This was one of the Kazakh numbers.

This is the encore song--all the performers on stage.

Saturday Afternoon Visit

As always, the main event of every day and every week is the time with our little ones, so I have to review the last visit as well.

What's most different about afternoon visits is that Jess and Evie are not as active during this time of day--or, rather, their active period is shorter-lived. Not only are they more mellow, but it also feels as if we spend the bulk of our time waiting for their bottles to show up. I don't know what's going on in their feeding schedule, but it's very clear that about 4o minutes after we show up, these two are really looking for their mid-afternoon feeding. But they don't bring the bottles till near the end of our time together (roughly 30-40 minutes after they seem to begin wanting them). By the time the bottles do arrive, Jess and Evelyn are pretty much at the end of their rope. It's a bit hard. These little guys are telling me in the clearest possible terms what they need and want and I can't do a thing for them, but just wait along with them... Well, that and do what I can to make the wait easier.

What all this means is that we spend much less time playing and more time with me finding various ways of holding, comforting, distracting them till the bottles come. It forces me to think up different things to do (different ways to hold them, just for variety's sake). Saturday turned out to be pretty great, though. I laid on my back and put them on my chest and enjoyed lots of face to face time with them. Jess, in particular, seemed to find plenty of new and interesting objects to play with during this activity:

I decided that, in the end, it'd be best to leave off the picture where he managed
to fit three fingers into my right nostril. (Such a picture does exist, but it's just too unbecoming and unprofessional.)

Although the active period is shorter in duration, Jess and Evie still manage to have plenty of fun.

My smiley boy!

This outfit is a hand-me-down from my cousins Ellie and Lucy.

The little man can travel...

I don't know why she was doing this, but she did it several times. So funny!
I think she's trying to look to see what's going on down there with the feet--
why don't they move her forward when she wants them to.

Those headstands sort of mess up your hair!

By the time the bottles showed up, there was no way I was going to make either Jess or Evelyn wait one second more. So I fed them simultaneously. (It's not that I can't do this, it is rather that I try to snuggle with each of them while they eat. Not really easy to do this with both at once.)


P.S. I'm experiencing connectivity difficulties again so may be behind in posts and emailing for the next few days...

Just Pictures

Last of the Morning Visits

It turns out that this morning was the last of our morning visits. As of tomorrow, we will be switching to afternoons (from 2-4pm).

There is another family that has just arrived in town (welcome to Kathleen and TJ!) and they will be starting their official 14 visitation tomorrow. So, they will be taking the morning visitation slot. Although I'm not looking forward to walking to the hospital during the hot hours of the afternoon, I will be glad to have mornings (which is evening time in the U.S.) free for Skyping (is that a verb?) (If you've not yet discovered Skype, by the way, you need to get on that.)

What this change means for you all is that my posts will arrive a bit later in the day. Sorry about that...

I don't have a whole lot else to report for the day (or, rather, am too lazy to do any reporting), so why don't I just move on to the pictures? That's what you're all here for anyway.

 Jess licking my arm...

I'm signing off, Goodnight!

2 Days Till It's Just 1 More Week

It's hard not to count the days. Mostly, I try to resist doing this since time has seemed to slow down this last week and counting doesn't help. The truth is, I don't have anything to complain about. In fact, we've had a number of fun outings the last several evenings (which I'll report on later this week). But I suppose it's the repetition that starts to wear on you after awhile: get up, make coffee, walk to the hospital, dress-feed-play with kiddos (in the same room, w/ same toys), walk home, eat lunch, blog. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I can't wait till we finally get custody. I bet the time will pass much more quickly! (No doubt, one day I'll long for all this free time.)

Today, the guys were sound asleep when we got there.





Now, I know that, in general, it's better to let sleeping babies lay, but after 40 minutes or so I really felt like I needed some attention. So, I turned on the Ipod (I have a little speaker that I plug into the Ipod so that we can all jam out together). But they continued to snore away. After 5 minutes of them ignoring the music, I figured 'enough is enough' and just went ahead and woke Eves up. I mean, really, they were sleeping our precious 2 and 1/2 hours away!!!

I let Jess sleep some more while I dressed and played with Evelyn a bit...

Goofing around.

Do you think this onesie makes me look fat?

After about 15 minutes, however, I decided the J-man really needed to join us. So, I woke him up too. He was a good sport about it all and happily got ready for the day. As you can see it's warm enough now for shorts.

Isn't this a cute outfit?


We spent the rest of our time in the usual way--doing the things babies do: bottles, books, toys, sitting, standing, and so on. The only new addition to our activities today was dancing. I turned our tiny Ipod speaker up and danced the babies around. I did this first with Eves and Jess was watching and watching--I think he really wanted his turn. He was so happy when I took him for a little spin!

Well, that was today. Tomorrow it'll be just 1 day till it's just 1 more week!

Visit 25

That's a lot of visits, huh? Though at only 2 and 1/2 hours per visit not, in the end, a lot of time. Really, we've spent just a little over two days together. I sometimes wonder what Jess and Evelyn think--who exactly are these people that show up and leave each day?

When we were nearing the hospital today, I could hear what sounded like loud screeching/crying. I said to mom "that sounds like it's coming from Jess and Evie's room." When we got to the door it was clear that there was some kind of loud loud crying coming from one of the kids--couldn't tell which. So, worriedly I rushed in the door and around the corner...

...to find an empty room and my soft-spoken, solemn little girl entertaining herself by cheerfully screeching at the top of her lungs. She appeared to be giving the critters that hang from her mobile a piece of her mind! Cat is outta the bag: this whole "quiet girl" thing is clearly just an act.

Both kiddos were in good spirits today. Both seem to be feeling well. Our time together passed more quickly than usual.

Jess and Evie are still working at sitting up on their own. Jess is a little closer.

A Handful!

This last picture represents me trying to handle entertaining Eves while Jess is finishing his bottle. In order to foster attachment and bonding, I prefer to do all the care-taking type activities (such as feeding, changing, dressing, rocking/comforting the babies--mom joins in with playtime and often holds one of them during nap time). Usually, Jess is very hungry and fussy by the time the bottles come, whereas Eves is so into studying her toys that she's content to wait. Not so today. About halfway through Jess's bottle she started to feel quite hungry herself and began to be unwilling to let mom distract her with toys! So, as you see, I'm trying to comfort her and rock her while Jess finishes up. Fortunately, he was pretty much done by the time she started to get serious about the matter, so it all worked out!

Evie gets her turn.

Well, since two nights ago Doug treated us all to a wonderful pot of beef stew, we decided that we'd do the cooking tonight. So, we're trying to make grilled veggie pizza--grilling the veggies outside on the grill. (Oh, and, by the way, 'we' here = 'mom'.) Nothing here is quite the same though--mozzarella cheese tastes not quite like mozzarella, black olives not exactly the same, etc. etc. Knowing mom, though, it'll be good! I'll let you know tomorrow how it turned out.

Vicki's Review (belated)

[Susan here: We didn't have internet all day on Sunday--and lost electricity for part of the day too--so we're behind on giving our weekly, Sunday overview. Mom was willing to write it this time, since I'm running out of things to say! Ok, here's mom.]


Just to give a feeling for what it is like here: it has a kind of "soviet" look/feel. This particular area is is a bit rural (though large) and not so modern. Kind of beat-up, old-type looking buildings on the outside BUT then inside they are nice. It is 100% foreign. Susan has been teaching me a bunch of typical things to say in Russian (which is fun) since there is almost NO English anywhere! (Not that there should be!)
There are lots of old trucks and equipment, but totally functional. You do see quite a few nice cars on the road too (like Mercedes and Audi) along with old, old type buses. Many many people walking to wherever they would be going. It is like Germany in regard to lots of walking: to shop, to eat (etc.), but in this particular part of the country there are no trains/trams. Most everyone is slim! The ladies especially dress beautifully - even a little formally, with dressy high-heeled shoes. Each girl/lady walks just perfectly--like a high fashion model. Very nice! In fact, tonight we are going to “watch” the high school graduation and the comment from the interpreter was “all the girls will be dressed so nicely, it will be fun to see!”

We are eating really fun, interesting stuff. Everyone (in restaurants, markets, etc.) is nice, and kind, although not immediately outgoing. They can tell we aren't "locals" (to say the least) but are good natured about it! We, of course, are making an effort to be low key and blend in etc. (for some of you that know me – you know that might a bit of a challenge! HA)

We went to a Soccer game last night with some of the “group” here! That was fun/interesting! Kind of like a high school football game with a small group (in this case adults) playing a big drum, trombone, trumpet type stuff that sounded just like what we do at outdoor games.

On to the kids....

Thursday, Jesse was a little more upbeat and seemed to feel some better. Evelyn is just blossoming. Sitting up with a stronger neck/head. She is more and more engaged with Susan and so "into" having her good momma. Both babies just sit and really let you show them a book. Jesse wants you to start right over. Evelyn actually reaches out to each page and participates in turning pages. They are so much littler than their ages that it seems amazing for them to be doing these things. One day, Jesse saw we were leaving and started to cry. Of course that made his momma feel bad and she went back and patted and reassured him. Only 1 week and a few days and Susan and Brent will have their court date and gain full custody! Then the really good stuff will begin!


Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week:

Memaw is so glad to be here!

Little Peanut

Mom makes crazy noises with her mouth. (Anything to entertain!)

My mom lets us play with her glasses...

Modeling my outfit for today!

P.S. Happy Birthday to (Uncle) Jeff!!!