Is this the way out?

This is actually a doorway that's part of the Kokshetau National Museum.

Here we are, one day away from the end of the legal appeal period. After this, the decision of the court will be final, and we will be ready to think about our exit. By Monday we should have the twins' birth certificates, naming us as their parents, as well as their Kazakh passports. The only official detail we have left is go visit the US Embassy in Almaty and fill out some more paperwork, wait a bit more, and then we can get on a plane back to the US. Between now and Almaty it appears there will be one more (mysterious) delay here in Kokshetau, but we are getting better at waiting after all this practice!

Could be the Tian Shan?...but its the Rocky Mountains

Along with being the end of the 15-day appeal period, tomorrow also happens to be the eleventh anniversary of the day we got married, on a beautiful summer day in Colorado Springs, CO. We're planning to have a good dinner at our current favorite restaurant here in Kokshetau, the Boulebar to celebrate our marriage and the new family (our housemate has agreed to keep an eye on the twins after we put them to bed, so it will be our first official date as parents, too).

Most of what has been going on with Evelyn and Jesse is best captured in videos, so I've taken the time to upload a few below so you can see what they're up to in real life! Not only are they happily eating a lot of cereal concoctions these days, as you can see (with varying effects on the digestive tract, see previous post for details), but they--well, mostly just Jess--are also crawling and speaking some language we don't understand. (I thought I caught one word that I recognized in Jesse's speech--listen and let me know if you catch it too). Jess is in the lead in the babbling department, but as you can see Evelyn finds ways to express herself.

After all these indoor scenes I will close with some from the outdoors. These are pictures of the twins just before we went out for our first walk with them in the strollers. You can see they were pretty serious about the whole thing.

You better look out for my sis, she can kick your butt.

Our Kazakh Gnome.

In the end, it turned out to be a very nice stroll, they enjoyed taking in the scenery. Susan and I enjoyed the outing and the ice cream cones we got from a street vendor.

Finally, here's a pic of people across the street from our house, waiting for the bus in the morning. Always lots of variety on the street:

Waiting for the bus in the morning.