One Month Mark

One month ago today we got on a plane to come to Kazakhstan. What a month it's been!

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've been a little slower in posting the last two days. It's hard to think of what new to tell you, what new to show you, when our visits involve being in the same room doing the same kinds of things day after day. Now, don't get me wrong. These visits are the highlight of my life at this point. But still it is hard to know what to report without boring you to tears.

The fact that I'm posting something now doesn't mean I've got something new and exciting to report. Nope. I just figured that if I wait a few days maybe whatever I say will seem a little more exciting--what with all the suspense. Anyhow, I thought it was time to check in.

So, what can I tell you about events on the ground these last two days?

• Evelyn reached out her arms to me today for me to pick her up. (Sooooooo sweet.)
• I had a nosebleed at the hospital toward the end of our visit today...We were trying to be stealthy about dealing with it, but for any of you that have witnessed one of these events you know that they're not subtle. I'll just say this: we resorted to using a diaper and baby wipes, and mom had to wash some blood off of Evie's sheet. (The very fact that I'm reporting all this shows how desperate I am to think of things to tell you.)
• My housemates and I (and mom) hosted what I think was a successful BBQ. Most of the credit goes to Janet and Doug (they're the house mates I just referred to)--and perhaps most especially to Doug, who not only found charcoal (not an easy thing here--he bought it from the guy that grills the kabobs a nearby restaurant that we frequent), but also did all the grilling. And a very nice job he did! We had 4 other American families plus Makhabat (a translator and new friend) and her daughter and her niece. Doug alone provided enough food to feed an army, but it was also potluck so we'll be eating leftovers for days! Such a nice time.

Well, that's the news such as it is. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. I'm including pictures from the last two of our visits with sweet Jess and lovely Evelyn, plus some shots of our party. Hope you're having a great weekend! Paka! (Bye!)

And, Jesse practices too...

Evelyn practices standing (Ta Da!)    

Just a cute picture

Mirror, Mirror...

A little people watching.

A reader already!

Baby Yoga Class: Downward Facing Dog (with book)

 

Snuggles with Memaw.

Boy did Jess like this!

Our Cook   

     Our food!

Here's to life in Kazakhstan!
(Actually, we were toasting our children...)

Court Date!

Hooray! We have a court date!

July 4th, 10 a.m.

So, two weeks from tomorrow, we (God willing) will get to take custody of Jesse and Evelyn. Please do keep this date and this event in your prayers.


We had a nice day today with the kids. Jessie still seems under the weather and slept a good deal of the time. But he did seem better, so that's good.


Today was the first day the babies had formula. I had the nurses switch them from the kefir that they've been eating to formula. (We want to make this transition to formula now, while they're still in the hospital, so that we won't be introducing too many new things all at once when we get custody.) The transition proved interesting since the nipples on the bottles they use here are really fast flowing (better for kefir, which is thicker than milk). What this meant is that the formula basically pours out. Jess still managed to get most of his down without difficulty, but Evelyn spilled most of it down her face, kept coughing, and spitting it out. I resorted to a process by which I would let her get one mouthful, then I'd pull the bottle out and help her to close her mouth and swallow. Needless to say, the feeding took a while. The good news, however, is that she seemed to find this new experience entertaining and so was pretty darn good natured about it all.

In general, with regard to Evelyn, today was one of the best visits so far. She was really engaged: even more eye contact, more interaction than we've seen yet!

One last anecdote before I sign off. In the early part of our visit, they both got very interested in playing with an empty baby wipes bag. (I know, Brent, you don't like me letting them play with plastic bags--but it was so cute!!) Evelyn had it first, but then Jesse got into the mix and took it away from her. She tried to get it back but then when she couldn't just started crying! Jesse was a pretty good sport about having to return the toy to his sister.

Evie, enjoying her toy, when Jesse Reaches for it...

Ah! GOT it! (But look at poor Evie's face.)

Here she comes...

Oh, whatever! Take it, if you must have!

Well, I better go. Happy Thursday to you all.

Vicki's Two Cents

by Vicki.

I left St Louis on Sunday the 15th. It was 1 and 1/2 hours to Washington DC; 7 and 1/2 hours to Frankfurt; and 5 hours to Astana Kazakhstan! All pretty fast--fun to have my own little movie screen in the airplane to Frankfurt! The hard part was the 4 hrour drive from Astana to Kokshetau from 11:30pm  (Monday night) to 3:30 am (Tuesday morning)! (We hit a BIG rabbit at one point and I screamed--surprising my non-English speaking driver very much!) 

 I was very happy to see Susan and the wonderful place we are staying! I am a lucky person, I don't suffer much from jet lag (yes, I am hyper anyway-- Susan says jet lag just takes me down a notch), so we hit the ground running after 4 hours of sleep or so. (Also, I had a lot naps on the way from the US to Kaz.)!

Tuesday, Susan took me to see several little markets where we tried to figure out what various foods were and just picked something interesting and split it for lunch! A delicious piece of chicken that was piled high with a carrot/onion mixture, a hollandaise type sauce on top along with a bite or two of crispy potato! It was good!

THEN it was time to meet the babies!! I can vouch for the fact that they are just as darling as they look in pictures. Sooo sweet and busy! I had to cry at the sight of them and Susan together! We laughed our heads off at the daze Jesse went into prior to giving up and closing his eyes for a nap! That time goes very fast. The place where the babies are sits in what could look like an old apple orchard. Kind of a glenn-y, nice feeling.

We went to dinner at a delicious pizza place with all the other American adoptive families that are here. Susan had already tried a salad she suggested - very adventurous but delicious! It was called "Verona": julienned apples, potatoes, pickles, hard boiled egg, mayo I think AND beef tongue! HA! Really! it was good!

Today, Wednesday, Susan and I walked to the baby hospital--about 1 and 1/2 miles, an easy walk--and spent our time with the babies. Little Jesse wasn't really feeling his best and was pretty sleepy most of the time. He was so sweet, really telling his momma in his own little voice that he just wasn't a happy camper--not loud, just a little verbal fuss. Jess and Evelyn both slept a good amount right at first and then, right at the end, little baby Evelyn just came alive TALKING to Susan. I mean really telling her some stuff and totally engaged looking at her and interacting! Very dear to see.

On the walk home, we saw a perfect little babushka selling flowers and radishes on street corner. I wanted to take a picture, so I bought some flowers from her--motioning regarding taking a picture. She agreed and the next thing you know this happened :




What you didn't see was the 10 kisses or so she landed on my cheek!

[OK, this is Susan here: People around here seem to love mom. What is the DEAL? I don't get this kind of attention??? The peony flower came from an older gentlemen who came into the pizza restaurant to sell his flowers. She bought one and, I think stole his heart. He came back again later to say (maybe slightly drunken???) words. He went on for awhile. We have NO idea what he was going on about. And the grocery store that I've been going to EVERY DAY, I show up with mom and the attendant immediately strikes up a broken conversation with her and welcomes her to Kazakhstan!?! Geeeezzzz. O.K. Back to mom.]

We had a good salad lunch at home along with good swiss cheese and left over pizza! I am having FUN! Here are a few pictures of our visit w/ Evelyn and Jesse today.

One of the most fun things that is happening is that I get to take most of the pictures! These are just a very few out of all the good ones. I am one lucky dog to be here sharing all this! We will see you tomorrow! Now I have to go stalk my dinner...

Counting my blessings

Well, we hit a rough patch there for a few days.

I started getting sick this weekend and was finally too sick to go for my visit with Jess and Evelyn on Monday. I've gone through two boxes of sinus medicine in about 3 days. The medication, combined with sinus pressure and dry climate has contributed to the re-occurrence of nosebleeds the like of which I've not had since I was a kid. (Uggghhh.) Our water went out on Monday and was off for two days. (Makes bathing, flushing, and dealing w/ nosebleeds sorta complicated.) As of yesterday, my computer decided not to connect to the internet for 24 hours and despite an international call to my tech support man (aka Brent) we couldn't fix the problem.

But today... today.

Today, there is water. Today, I had only one nosebleed and it stopped quickly. Today, I am feeling better than yesterday, and yesterday I was better than the day before. Today, I ate a lovely lovely green salad mom made. Today, I visited the twins. And, at this moment, my computer is connecting to the internet. That's, actually, pretty exciting since I'd already decided that as long as (a) I felt well, (b) could flush the toilet, and (c) could visit the babies I had everything I needed. An internet connection too? It is a rich, rich life. My cup runneth over.

So, among these many blessings is the safe arrival of my mom, Vicki (a.k.a. "Memaw"). She's now accompanied me on two visits w/ the babies and is proving to be a very good photographer in addition to being a good cook and great travel companion. Here are some pictures from yesterday's (Tuesday's) visit. I'm going to let her do a guest blog for our next entry.

A sure way to get a smile: Lift her high above my head.

Isn't Evie funny in this picture?

She got quite possessive of Meemaw's reading glasses.
More fancy footwork. He loves just being on the floor with no blanket.

A funny picture of Jess.

He was in kind of a daze yesterday and just stared at mom like this
(no blinking) for ten minutes.

My goodness, I really missed these guys after a two days of missed visits!!!

Almaty, Frankfurt, Saint Louis

I made the mistake of leaving Kokshetau without a power adapter, and have been unable to do more online than the bit my battery would allow, and then a couple (expensive) minutes here and there at airport internet kiosks. I spent those minutes reading our blog. I was already feeling sad to be away from Susan and those wonderful babies. Seeing pics of Jesse trying to crawl, both of them in their cribs, and pics of the cottage helped, but also gave me a feeling of vertigo--how did I get on the outside of my life looking in?
















Sitting in airports in Kazakhstan, Germany and the U.S. or watching so many more cities roll by miles below during a very long June 15th (Father's Day, as it turns out) did nothing to ease my vertigo, either. If you were in Volgograd, Krakow, Amsterdam, Newcastle upon Tyne, Glasgow, Montreal, Grand Rapids or Chicago yesterday, that was me waving to you from my window eight miles up. It was a long, clear day to think about life, which looks very different to me after just three weeks. Amazing how these little Kazakh wonders have captured my heart and turned my world on its head!







This is me thinking about them while I waited for my flight in Almaty.




During my day-long layover in Almaty I kept my mind occupied by seeing the city on foot. I made two big loops around the center of town and took in lots of interesting sights and sounds. Here are some places around town:

Kabanbai Batyr and Tulebaev, near the apt.
WWII memorial in Panfilov Park
Cathedral of the Holy Ascension













Central mosque
City market--a huge bazaar!
Cathedral of St. Nicholas












Typical Eurasian architectureTypical Soviet architecture
Definitely post-Soviet!













And here is the view from Satpaev Street, at a high point in the city with a great view of the Tian Shan mountains:It was a sunny Saturday and lots of people were out enjoying the weekend:

Family out for a walk

Cooling off in the fountain

Ladies out for a walk (this pic
is for my mother-in-law!)

Sisters at the family fruit stand

Lots of young couples were getting married and taking wedding pics at the popular spots around town this weekend in Almaty (reminded me of the scene on summer days down by the old courthouse in St. Louis). I must have seen twenty wedding parties at the various public parks and monuments I was at during the day. Panfilov park was an especially popular spot. There was even an accordianist there playing his variation on the wedding march.

This Kazakh groom was clearly inspired by Shakespeare in his arduous climb to get a kiss from the bride.

So, although I woke up in Almaty with a heavy heart, already too far away from Susan and the twins, seeing all these sights, especially the people out enjoying themselves, really lifted my spirits. I also had time to think about what it means to adopt children from another country, how we have entered into a partnership with the Kazakh people in our desire to be parents to our little dual citizens. This is a rich thing, and I'm glad for it.