Happy 3rd Gotcha Day!

Today is yet another important day to remember in the life of Miss Emily. On January 29, 2007, (which also happens to be Ryan's birthday!) a baby girl named Nadezhda, lovingly called Nadya by her caregivers, became an official member of the Hypes Family!

Today (and this weekend) we celebrate our 3rd year of having Emily as part of our family. We LOVE you, Em!

You can read more about the details of our first Gotcha day here!

As I write this journal entry, I'm enjoying Ohio noon-time temperatures of 12°F which are very similar to our daily temps in Kazakhstan 3 years ago. Oh, how I wish I could return to Uralsk for a few days for some of the things I miss:

• Visit with our drivers, coordinators and translators.
• The smell of lunches being cooked in the babyhouse while we visited.
• Eat pizza at MacJohn's.
• Shop for yummy bread in the grocery story where I can't understand anyone.
• Brush my teeth with bottled water.
• Walk up the smelly stairway to our apartment.
• Pay $500 for excessive internet use so we don't miss our shows at home. (That was an accident!)
• Watch packs stray dogs and cats walk around the city like they own the place.
• Ride in a car through car-sized potholes and drive within inches of the cars beside us.
• Shop in the outdoor markets.
• Lose another 12 lbs. due to jet lag and strange foods.
• Drinking the freshest tasting fruit nectar/juices and eating really tasty carrots and cheese.
• The exhilarating feeling of discovering peanut butter my last day there.
• Watching people.
• Walking through the Russian Orthodox churches and cemetaries.
• Learning about cultures and customs of our daughter's homeland.
• Feeling my heart break as I watched children begging in the streets and (for our safety) I was supposed to simply ignore them.
• ....I could go on and on. Oh, I miss it.