Friday, January 19, 2007
On Germs and Prevention...
We couldn't resist taking a picture of this prevention poster in the hall at the babyhouse. There are three "homemade" posters like this just outside the room we meet in and I'm told they are made by the caregivers of some of the different groups. This particular one has handpainted pictures that we thought you might enjoy!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Shopping, cats and fruit salad...
Today was pretty uneventful. We again went to the baby house for our 10:30 visit and then decided to come home for lunch. Tom wasn't feeling well so he stayed home and rested up during our 2:30 visit while Aliya and I went to the babyhouse.
The picture above is the atrium where we do most of our grocery shopping. It is a small mall with a grocery store built into it but there are also 2 restaurants.... Dixie Pub (where Tom enjoyed Chicken Fajita's) and MacJohn's which we frequent several times a week and they serve good pizza and burgers as well. We'll have to post a picture of Nader (the owner of MacJohn's). He's fascinated with Americans and loves to hear our impression of his food. He greets us each time we come in with a big smile and usually sits down with us for a bit to chat and practice his English. I don't remember if I've put anything in the blog about him yet, but he's an Egyptian that spent 5 years in Lebanon working at a Pizza Hut so he could learn to make American pizza and bring it back to Kazakhstan. Interesting concept. It's the best pizza we've had here but it's not like our Pizza Hut at home.
This is the front entrance to our apartment... we use the brown door on the right. The cat is one of the many strays that live around here. There are plenty of cats and dogs roaming the streets around here and they all seem pretty friendly. This one followed us into the building and hung out in the stairwell for a while. The stairwell is concrete and has an interesting aroma... It sort of smells like the cats and dogs have left their mark in there on occasion. And, of course, who would blame them! It's not horrible and having grown up around farms, it's just part of life here I guess.
This is the fruit salad thingie that I've talked about having when we've eaten at Kamelot. It's really pretty good. Diced cold chicken on the bottom, with apples, oranges, pineapple, bananas and some parsley and olives thrown in for conversation pieces.
(Don't forget you can click on any of the pictures in our blog to see them at a larger size.) Don't forget to post some comments and let us know what you think or if you have questions you'd like us to answer for you! Our lives are an open book and we're happy to share this experience with you.
Take care and Be Blessed!
The picture above is the atrium where we do most of our grocery shopping. It is a small mall with a grocery store built into it but there are also 2 restaurants.... Dixie Pub (where Tom enjoyed Chicken Fajita's) and MacJohn's which we frequent several times a week and they serve good pizza and burgers as well. We'll have to post a picture of Nader (the owner of MacJohn's). He's fascinated with Americans and loves to hear our impression of his food. He greets us each time we come in with a big smile and usually sits down with us for a bit to chat and practice his English. I don't remember if I've put anything in the blog about him yet, but he's an Egyptian that spent 5 years in Lebanon working at a Pizza Hut so he could learn to make American pizza and bring it back to Kazakhstan. Interesting concept. It's the best pizza we've had here but it's not like our Pizza Hut at home.
This is the front entrance to our apartment... we use the brown door on the right. The cat is one of the many strays that live around here. There are plenty of cats and dogs roaming the streets around here and they all seem pretty friendly. This one followed us into the building and hung out in the stairwell for a while. The stairwell is concrete and has an interesting aroma... It sort of smells like the cats and dogs have left their mark in there on occasion. And, of course, who would blame them! It's not horrible and having grown up around farms, it's just part of life here I guess.
This is the fruit salad thingie that I've talked about having when we've eaten at Kamelot. It's really pretty good. Diced cold chicken on the bottom, with apples, oranges, pineapple, bananas and some parsley and olives thrown in for conversation pieces.
(Don't forget you can click on any of the pictures in our blog to see them at a larger size.) Don't forget to post some comments and let us know what you think or if you have questions you'd like us to answer for you! Our lives are an open book and we're happy to share this experience with you.
Take care and Be Blessed!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Baby Bliss
Sorry, I can only post about 5 pictures per entry... but thought this was worth including today...
She fell asleep in my arms at the end of our 2nd visit... ahhhhh.
She fell asleep in my arms at the end of our 2nd visit... ahhhhh.
Ah, another day in paradise...
This morning we were picked up by Misha and what a surprise when we got in his car and heard the OSU marching band playing some tunes! I started applauding and he began to grin from ear to ear. (At least from what I could tell from the rear view mirror!) Aliya had told him earlier we were from Ohio and he had been given an OSU Pride of the Buckeyes CD from one of the previous visiting families. As we were driving he held up the case and ask Tom what the O was in the picture... painted on the field. I think he was either a little confused or just very good at messing with us because he asked us if it was a baseball game and if they drink there.
Misha is a very good driver and he is starting to come out of his shell. He was very quiet when we first met him and little by little we are getting to know him better. Aliya also tells us he's not a morning person so he is more chatty in the afternoons. They are funny when they get to speaking Russian very quickly in the car. He asks a lot of questions about us and about the news and sometimes you can tell he is correcting something that Aliya has said when she's talking about the city. Sometimes they remind me of an old married couple... you can tell they've worked together for a long time and enjoy it. We still need to find out about Misha... he is married but we don't know much more than that. Aliya is still single and teases me about learning how to train a husband... as if that's even possible! ;-)
Our visits with Nadia/Emily are going great. We're still meeting in the physical therapy room. It's not so bad meeting in there, but when you know there is a bigger room that you could be meeting in that you could spread out in... well, the grass is always greener on the other side.
Nadia vs. Emily - Nadia is the baby's given name. Actually, it's Nadezhda (pronounced Nod-yesh-da) but it's shortened form is Nadia (pronounced over here/Kazakhstan as Nod-ja). It's very awkward for us to call her Emily when everyone else is calling her Nadia... especially when we don't have custody yet. So, for now and while we're visiting we are referring to her as Nadia. We put both names in the blog so it's less confusing and so you don't think we're talking about a totally different child. We will call her Emily once we get back to the states and will likely start that conversion with her once we get custody. It will probably be a combination of her names until she gets used to hearing it since she does turn her head sometimes when she hears Nadia.
Nadia/Emily is such a sweet little thing and very snuggly. I just love it when she nuzzles into my neck when I'm holding her and she's recently started rubbing my shoulder or arm while holding her and walking around. Sometimes she will also just lean back a bit and stare into my eyes like she's studying me. She's very inquisitive and watches everything around her. If she starts getting fussy the best way to calm her is to walk her to the big cabinet in the room and let her look at all the toys and equipment inside.
Some of you have asked about sizes. At our first meeting with the doctor when we met Nadia/Emily, we were told that she weighs 6 kilograms and is 65 centimeters long. That converts to 13.2 pounds and 25.6 inches long. We have tried a few different sizes of clothing on her. The 3-6 mos. onesies and shirts will fit her but they are tight. The 6-9 mos. clothes that we brought fit much better even though we have to roll up the sleeves a bit. (She has my short arms!)
After our first visit with Nadia/Emily I couldn't tell you what color her eyes were, but after further inspection they are gray with a hint of blue. I had never noticed that eye color on anyone until I met Tom... they are exactly like his!
As far as her nose... she has a button nose just like Ryan's. On one occasion so far, it has been a VERY snotty nose... but we'll save you the details! ;-)
In regard to her hair... well, there just isn't a whole lot there yet but she promises that she won't be like her Grandpa Gaston forever. It is coming in and there are some hairs at the back that are almost a whole inch long. Her hair is coming in very light brown... so far.
In other news.... she's a champion spewer - especially in the afternoons. They feed her right before we visit her at 2:30 in the afternoon. They must shovel it in because she is usually bursting at the seams when we get her. I (Jenni) am going to be inducted into the spit-up hall of fame. So far the score is: J-2, T-1 (Yes, Ryan, as in putt-putt the object of the game is to get the lowest score and so far I'm losing!) We had our tour of Uralsk in the afternoon after our visit and I got to wear my new scent - "Essence of Emily" as my badge of honor. ;-) Mmmmm, yummy.
We got to see her turn on the waterworks for the first time this afternoon. I'm still not sure what triggered it but she was very content and all of a sudden she puckered up, her eyes got red, the lip started quivering and real, genuine tears started to flow. But as quickly as it started it also stopped... as soon as I picked her up. Man, she's got me trained already! She's good!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Some entertainment for the fans back home.
Greetings from Kazakhstan!
We're still doing fine. Our visits have been going really well. Our afternoon visits have been moved up a bit so we now see Nadia/Emily from 10:30-11:30am and then again from 2:30-3:30pm. They moved the afternoon visits up because it was ending so close to her nap time and they thought she was pretty fussy for us the first time. It works better for us too since we're still adapting to the time change and it gives us a little more time in the evening to adjust to life.
And now, for a word from our sponsor...
I've (Jenni) been having trouble getting adapted to the schedule here. Or, rather, my sleep schedule. I've been falling asleep around 5pm (our time) and sleeping until about 12:30 and then I'm awake for a few hours doing email, blog updates, chats on instant messenger, etc. before I go back to sleep and wake back up to start my day. I think tonight I made it until 4am before I woke up and I decided to just stay awake and see if I can get myself adjusted.
Tonight during my waking hours I got almost caught up on my work email, did some instant message chatting with friends back home and worked on uploading some more videos and pictures to the blog. (Adding videos is a new thing I'm trying today so we'll see how they go! Let me know what you think! I'm hoping they don't all autoplay at the same time.)
After our morning visit today we had Misha drop us back off at the Atrium for lunch. We enjoy MacJohn's quite a bit because they make a very good attempt at making foods that we're used to... pizza, burgers, french fries, milk shakes, etc. We haven't gotten too daring with the Kazakh food yet, but I have a feeling that will be coming soon.
After lunch, we have about an hour at the apartment before Misha picks us back up for our afternoon visits at the baby house. We have been temporarily moved into the physical therapy room for our visits as the music room has been in use. It's a smaller room and we aren't supposed to put Nadia/Emily on the floor in there because it's "chilly" according to Kazakh standards... almost comfortable for us. (Most of the rooms here are REALLY warm.)
After our afternoon visits, we usually get dropped off at the apartment and settle in for the night. Today I think we are going to break the cycle and take a tour of Uralsk with Aliya and Misha. We (Americans) have been accused of being like the Japanese and taking tons of pictures... we can't let them down and will follow suit so we have photos for you folks back home and for Emily's memory book.
Here is a picture of Aliya, our translator and Olga, our in-country coordinator.
Here is Misha, our driver... with Tom. Misha has enjoyed picking on me for my preference for Apple computers... it just doesn't seem to matter which side of the globe you're on, people just can't seem to appreciate a good computer when they see them!
And, some more entertainment to keep the natives happy...
Please post some comments on our blog! We will be printing and saving these entries for Emily's lifebook. It would be great to have notes in it from all of you that are following along! Even if you've never met us in person... it's great to hear from people that are reading about our experience! We looking forward to reading your comments and remarks! Also, for those that have been here before us... if you have any suggestions on this we absolutely shouldn't miss in Uralsk before we head home, please let us know!
Thanks and be blessed!
-jenni
(jhypes@treca.org)
We're still doing fine. Our visits have been going really well. Our afternoon visits have been moved up a bit so we now see Nadia/Emily from 10:30-11:30am and then again from 2:30-3:30pm. They moved the afternoon visits up because it was ending so close to her nap time and they thought she was pretty fussy for us the first time. It works better for us too since we're still adapting to the time change and it gives us a little more time in the evening to adjust to life.
And now, for a word from our sponsor...
I've (Jenni) been having trouble getting adapted to the schedule here. Or, rather, my sleep schedule. I've been falling asleep around 5pm (our time) and sleeping until about 12:30 and then I'm awake for a few hours doing email, blog updates, chats on instant messenger, etc. before I go back to sleep and wake back up to start my day. I think tonight I made it until 4am before I woke up and I decided to just stay awake and see if I can get myself adjusted.
Tonight during my waking hours I got almost caught up on my work email, did some instant message chatting with friends back home and worked on uploading some more videos and pictures to the blog. (Adding videos is a new thing I'm trying today so we'll see how they go! Let me know what you think! I'm hoping they don't all autoplay at the same time.)
After our morning visit today we had Misha drop us back off at the Atrium for lunch. We enjoy MacJohn's quite a bit because they make a very good attempt at making foods that we're used to... pizza, burgers, french fries, milk shakes, etc. We haven't gotten too daring with the Kazakh food yet, but I have a feeling that will be coming soon.
After lunch, we have about an hour at the apartment before Misha picks us back up for our afternoon visits at the baby house. We have been temporarily moved into the physical therapy room for our visits as the music room has been in use. It's a smaller room and we aren't supposed to put Nadia/Emily on the floor in there because it's "chilly" according to Kazakh standards... almost comfortable for us. (Most of the rooms here are REALLY warm.)
After our afternoon visits, we usually get dropped off at the apartment and settle in for the night. Today I think we are going to break the cycle and take a tour of Uralsk with Aliya and Misha. We (Americans) have been accused of being like the Japanese and taking tons of pictures... we can't let them down and will follow suit so we have photos for you folks back home and for Emily's memory book.
Here is a picture of Aliya, our translator and Olga, our in-country coordinator.
Here is Misha, our driver... with Tom. Misha has enjoyed picking on me for my preference for Apple computers... it just doesn't seem to matter which side of the globe you're on, people just can't seem to appreciate a good computer when they see them!
And, some more entertainment to keep the natives happy...
Please post some comments on our blog! We will be printing and saving these entries for Emily's lifebook. It would be great to have notes in it from all of you that are following along! Even if you've never met us in person... it's great to hear from people that are reading about our experience! We looking forward to reading your comments and remarks! Also, for those that have been here before us... if you have any suggestions on this we absolutely shouldn't miss in Uralsk before we head home, please let us know!
Thanks and be blessed!
-jenni
(jhypes@treca.org)
Monday, January 15, 2007
Another day, another tenge
You know your days are starting to run together when you count your visits according to what clothes the baby has been wearing!
I'm trying to remember what pictures I've shared and what I've told you guys... It's 3:15am here right now and I simply cannot sleep. Ah, I would love to be home in my own bed right now... with my hubby and my baby!
Anywho... here are some more pictures to feed your cravings and keep the revolt down to a minimum.
Today's visits were held in the physical therapy room because the music room was occupied by someone else. We were asked to not put her on the floor because the room was chilly (in other words... actually comfortable to us) so we resorted to holding Nadia/Emily most of the time or playing with her on the bed in the room.
Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to be in the music room again so we can keep working on flexibility and mobility... and there are a few more things to look at... shiny stuff!
As far as meals today... Aliya took us to the Dixie Pub. It has somewhat American food but the menus are all in Russian so Aliya had to order for us. We did find out they have tortellini, t-bone steaks, soups, salads, and Mexican food. I ordered beef vegetable soup... that was made in a chicken broth base... interesting. Tom ordered chicken fajitas and was a happy camper. He's been eating about 1 meal a day the last couple of days because we're usually asleep by supper time. Poor guy's just wasting away. ;-)
Yeah, yeah, enough about food, I know all you guys really care about is seeing baby pictures from the day... here ya go! Sorry, they aren't the best quality today... I think the camera is on a jet lag delay too!
I'm trying to remember what pictures I've shared and what I've told you guys... It's 3:15am here right now and I simply cannot sleep. Ah, I would love to be home in my own bed right now... with my hubby and my baby!
Anywho... here are some more pictures to feed your cravings and keep the revolt down to a minimum.
Today's visits were held in the physical therapy room because the music room was occupied by someone else. We were asked to not put her on the floor because the room was chilly (in other words... actually comfortable to us) so we resorted to holding Nadia/Emily most of the time or playing with her on the bed in the room.
Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to be in the music room again so we can keep working on flexibility and mobility... and there are a few more things to look at... shiny stuff!
As far as meals today... Aliya took us to the Dixie Pub. It has somewhat American food but the menus are all in Russian so Aliya had to order for us. We did find out they have tortellini, t-bone steaks, soups, salads, and Mexican food. I ordered beef vegetable soup... that was made in a chicken broth base... interesting. Tom ordered chicken fajitas and was a happy camper. He's been eating about 1 meal a day the last couple of days because we're usually asleep by supper time. Poor guy's just wasting away. ;-)
Yeah, yeah, enough about food, I know all you guys really care about is seeing baby pictures from the day... here ya go! Sorry, they aren't the best quality today... I think the camera is on a jet lag delay too!
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Some pictures for you!
We had a lot of requests for more pictures... so I will simply say that today was basically like yesterday... wake up, get dressed, go to baby house, eat lunch, go to baby house, come home, post blog! We're starting to get into the swing of an actual schedule and it feels pretty good.
Tom and Little Miss Nadia "Emily"
It's Playtime!
Extreme Close-up!
She was getting a bit fussy and the baby house doctor was in the room. After a while, someone brought in a bottle and I got to feed her!!! No, it's not apple juice... it's tea! And, yes, it was in a glass bottle with a nipple on it like we used to use to bottle feed lambs. She also had someone send in a pacifier. Heaven forbid a baby fusses a little bit. ;-) She must be afraid we won't want her if she fusses too much.
Um, chew toy anyone?
Tom and Little Miss Nadia "Emily"
It's Playtime!
Extreme Close-up!
She was getting a bit fussy and the baby house doctor was in the room. After a while, someone brought in a bottle and I got to feed her!!! No, it's not apple juice... it's tea! And, yes, it was in a glass bottle with a nipple on it like we used to use to bottle feed lambs. She also had someone send in a pacifier. Heaven forbid a baby fusses a little bit. ;-) She must be afraid we won't want her if she fusses too much.
Um, chew toy anyone?
Sunday visits: Part Deux
The blogger limits how many pictures I can upload in a single entry so you get 2 entries today...and more picts!
Yet another fun close-up!
Sorry for the strips and plaid.. it made me chuckle... this angle makes her look huge!
She's been pretty "stiff" lately when we've held her. She holds her head up but hasn't turned it much from side to side... acts like I do when I have a stiff neck. She also doesn't bend at the waist or legs very well and her arms usually stay bent and very close to her chest.... these are all signs that she's been laying down quite a bit and hasn't been very mobile... all typical signs of being in and institution. It's really not a big problem, just means she'll be a bit delayed and we'll have a bit of catch-up work to do with her. Lots of kids are like this and we've heard there are major improvements as parents begin visiting with them.
I've already started to work with her to get her to reach for toys and to help her sit up a bit when we see her during visits. We are sort of her own personal therapists! We knew she was able to hold her head up and had a really good grip but I hadn't seen any evidence of much mobility. Today... on her 8-month birthday we got to see her roll over from front to back and back to front. She also layed on her back for quite a while and kept trying to grab a chain toy. She was able to catch it with both hands and yes, it went directly to her mouth. (No teeth yet, but lots of drool and everything goes in her mouth... should be soon!)
Yet another fun close-up!
Sorry for the strips and plaid.. it made me chuckle... this angle makes her look huge!
She's been pretty "stiff" lately when we've held her. She holds her head up but hasn't turned it much from side to side... acts like I do when I have a stiff neck. She also doesn't bend at the waist or legs very well and her arms usually stay bent and very close to her chest.... these are all signs that she's been laying down quite a bit and hasn't been very mobile... all typical signs of being in and institution. It's really not a big problem, just means she'll be a bit delayed and we'll have a bit of catch-up work to do with her. Lots of kids are like this and we've heard there are major improvements as parents begin visiting with them.
I've already started to work with her to get her to reach for toys and to help her sit up a bit when we see her during visits. We are sort of her own personal therapists! We knew she was able to hold her head up and had a really good grip but I hadn't seen any evidence of much mobility. Today... on her 8-month birthday we got to see her roll over from front to back and back to front. She also layed on her back for quite a while and kept trying to grab a chain toy. She was able to catch it with both hands and yes, it went directly to her mouth. (No teeth yet, but lots of drool and everything goes in her mouth... should be soon!)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Let the visits begin!
We had our first visits this morning with Baby Nadia. We were told to bring 5 diapers and a change of clothes every day. (For future adopters, this is a babyhouse #2 rule... all baby houses are different.)
Our morning visit went very well. We ended up holding her most of the time and walking her around the room. She is a sweetie. She's very smiley and loves to look around the music room and study us. Partway through she started getting fussy and you could tell she was starting to get tired.
No matter which side of the world kids are on, they've all read the same book on how to act when they're sleepy! We kept her content through the visit and then Aliya took her back to her room.
The afternoon visit was even better. She allowed Tom to hold her more than before and she really didn't fuss so much. We got a lot of giggles out of her and took several more pictures and a short video. So... enough from me... here's baby!
Our morning visit went very well. We ended up holding her most of the time and walking her around the room. She is a sweetie. She's very smiley and loves to look around the music room and study us. Partway through she started getting fussy and you could tell she was starting to get tired.
No matter which side of the world kids are on, they've all read the same book on how to act when they're sleepy! We kept her content through the visit and then Aliya took her back to her room.
The afternoon visit was even better. She allowed Tom to hold her more than before and she really didn't fuss so much. We got a lot of giggles out of her and took several more pictures and a short video. So... enough from me... here's baby!
Friday, January 12, 2007
Our first babyhouse visit
We were picked up and whisked away to the babyhouse to meet with the inspector and the babyhouse doctor and then we were to meet several babies.
We were told that Baby House #2 was built as a kindergarten building... and boy, it sure reminds me of our old elementary buildings at River Valley when they told me that. The old classrooms have been converted into nurseries, offices, laundry facilities, etc. We'll take pictures later and share... but for now, back to the meeting.... the stuff you guys want to read about! ;-)
We were taken into the music room and met with Aliya (our translator), Olga (our coordinator), one of the doctors and the inspector. The inspector was a very nice Kazakh lady who was there to make sure we followed the Kazakh procedure of meeting children and she asked a few questions about us and our families. It was actually a very quick meeting.
She only asked a couple of questions...
What type of child did we wish to adopt? (a girl under 1 year of age, nationality did not matter to us)
What did we each do for a living? (T- owns and manages a Christian bookstore and J- support technology and computers for a school district - this is a new concept to them over here so I had to explain what this meant... they don't have too many IT people over here!)
Do our families support our adoption? (yes!)
Is Ryan excited about having a little sister? (yes)
The inspector did not ask about pictures, but I gave her our picture album so she could look through and see a little more about us and our family. She enjoyed looking at them. The album contains about 15 pictures. There are pictures of Tom, Ryan and I, our immediate families, the front yard and back yard of our house, the baby's room, our store, a picture of us working with kids on a mission trip, our pets, and pictures of gatherings of our extended families. (Amy K. - I included one of you and I from Cottage Cove and the inspector said she was surprised we had so many nationalities in our family!)
As she was wrapping up looking at pictures, they brought in a little girl for us to hold. She was adorable. They gave us a little review of her medical history and told us when she was born. We got to hold her and interact with her for about 10 minutes or so and then were told it was time for that groups nap and they needed to take her back. Then, they brought in another little girl that was dressed the same but quite a bit smaller. The second little girl was quite a bit smaller and had downs syndrome. She was a cutie. Again, they came and took her back as it was nap time for her as well.
Even though we only got to hold them for a few minutes each, we felt we were given sufficient time and information in order to make a decision on one of the girls. We informed the inspector and baby house doctor that we would like to begin visits with baby #1.
We begin visits tomorrow morning and will have 2 visits a day. One from 10:30-11:30 and then again from 3-4. Pictures tomorrow of the kiddo!
Until then, here are some pictures of our new apartment. It's awesome!
This is part of our kitchen. It's actually pretty big... includes gas stove, microwave, fridge/freezer.. and the washing machine!
This is part of our living room... Tom and I are guessing the living room is about 10x12 and has also become our office. We do have DSL (it's a 512Kbps connection for future travelers and current geeks). We're trying to find out how we're getting billed for this service. I don't believe the other apartment across the hall for adopters has this service.
I have other pictures of the apartment but will save some of them for future postings in case you get tired of seeing our baby.. hehehe. We will have a Christmas tree in our apartment and there is tinsel garland everywhere. Their New Years is celebrated just like our Christmas... except it seems they leave out the birth of Christ part! The start celebrating a couple of weeks before and continue a few weeks after. They give gifts, have a Santa Claus, etc. We saw him at the mall in Almaty when we were there.
Nuff for now...time to post baby pictures in the next entry!
Love you all! Be Blessed!
-jenni
We were told that Baby House #2 was built as a kindergarten building... and boy, it sure reminds me of our old elementary buildings at River Valley when they told me that. The old classrooms have been converted into nurseries, offices, laundry facilities, etc. We'll take pictures later and share... but for now, back to the meeting.... the stuff you guys want to read about! ;-)
We were taken into the music room and met with Aliya (our translator), Olga (our coordinator), one of the doctors and the inspector. The inspector was a very nice Kazakh lady who was there to make sure we followed the Kazakh procedure of meeting children and she asked a few questions about us and our families. It was actually a very quick meeting.
She only asked a couple of questions...
What type of child did we wish to adopt? (a girl under 1 year of age, nationality did not matter to us)
What did we each do for a living? (T- owns and manages a Christian bookstore and J- support technology and computers for a school district - this is a new concept to them over here so I had to explain what this meant... they don't have too many IT people over here!)
Do our families support our adoption? (yes!)
Is Ryan excited about having a little sister? (yes)
The inspector did not ask about pictures, but I gave her our picture album so she could look through and see a little more about us and our family. She enjoyed looking at them. The album contains about 15 pictures. There are pictures of Tom, Ryan and I, our immediate families, the front yard and back yard of our house, the baby's room, our store, a picture of us working with kids on a mission trip, our pets, and pictures of gatherings of our extended families. (Amy K. - I included one of you and I from Cottage Cove and the inspector said she was surprised we had so many nationalities in our family!)
As she was wrapping up looking at pictures, they brought in a little girl for us to hold. She was adorable. They gave us a little review of her medical history and told us when she was born. We got to hold her and interact with her for about 10 minutes or so and then were told it was time for that groups nap and they needed to take her back. Then, they brought in another little girl that was dressed the same but quite a bit smaller. The second little girl was quite a bit smaller and had downs syndrome. She was a cutie. Again, they came and took her back as it was nap time for her as well.
Even though we only got to hold them for a few minutes each, we felt we were given sufficient time and information in order to make a decision on one of the girls. We informed the inspector and baby house doctor that we would like to begin visits with baby #1.
We begin visits tomorrow morning and will have 2 visits a day. One from 10:30-11:30 and then again from 3-4. Pictures tomorrow of the kiddo!
Until then, here are some pictures of our new apartment. It's awesome!
This is part of our kitchen. It's actually pretty big... includes gas stove, microwave, fridge/freezer.. and the washing machine!
This is part of our living room... Tom and I are guessing the living room is about 10x12 and has also become our office. We do have DSL (it's a 512Kbps connection for future travelers and current geeks). We're trying to find out how we're getting billed for this service. I don't believe the other apartment across the hall for adopters has this service.
I have other pictures of the apartment but will save some of them for future postings in case you get tired of seeing our baby.. hehehe. We will have a Christmas tree in our apartment and there is tinsel garland everywhere. Their New Years is celebrated just like our Christmas... except it seems they leave out the birth of Christ part! The start celebrating a couple of weeks before and continue a few weeks after. They give gifts, have a Santa Claus, etc. We saw him at the mall in Almaty when we were there.
Nuff for now...time to post baby pictures in the next entry!
Love you all! Be Blessed!
-jenni
Thursday, January 11, 2007
On the way to Uralsk!
SORRY: Another long post today, but lots going on that I want to remember down the road. Before long the days will all start being alike and I'll be running out of things to say (yeah, right!) I'll make something up... but we'll keep the pictures coming!
Sasha met us at the apartment at 4:40AM to pick us up for the airport. It sounds really early, but we were already awake by at least 3:30 because we're still adjusting to the time change. Sasha dropped us off at the curb at the airport and walked us inside and showed us how to get through the gates.
The Almaty (pronounced Al-MAH-tee) airport is not big like our Columbus airport. It seemed much bigger when we flew in, but it's actually very small and only has about 6 or 8 gates. We walked through a quick security check almost as soon as we were in the front doors. We fed our suitcases onto a conveyer belt and walked through a metal detector beside them. Then we collected our luggage and headed off to get checked in.
Sasha checked the flight screens for us and told us which gate we needed and pointed us in the right direction to proceed to check-in. That was as far as he could go with us but it was wonderful having his assistance because the culture is so different and so many of the signs were in Russian.
We proceeded to get in the long line to check our luggage and eventually made it up to the front of the line. We had 2 bags each which is normal by American traveling standards but we got quite a few looks from the locals as we pushed our cart with our luggage through the line. Olga, the lady at the check-in counter was a little concerned that our luggage was over weight and in very broken English tried to tell us how far over we were. We knew the bags would be over weight. For American travel, our bags could be 50 lbs. each... but for in-country flight the limit is supposedly only 44 lbs. Our bags were all less than 50 when we left Ohio and most were only a couple of pounds away from the 44 lbs. limit. However, we ended up having to pay about $150 in overweight charges... we were expecting to only pay about $50 at the most.
Because our baggage was overweight we had to leave the line, walk back over to the cashier and pay our fees. She then stamped our paperwork and we got to jump ahead in line back to Olga. She then okay'd us, added a few more stamps and sent us to the holding area. The rest of the process was a little confusing... but we followed the crowd. Remember kids... don't follow the crowd if they're doing something bad, but if you're in a foreign country and don't have a clue what to do, follow the pack! We sat in the holding area for about 20 minutes while we listened intently to the announcements... hoping and praying that we might recognize the word "Uralsk" when it was time to board. We heard the word and everyone around us immediately stood up and the mob moved over to another doorway where another security screening was set up.
Once again, our carry-ons had to run through a conveyor as well as our coats, metal stuff and my shoes. (The security lady looked at me weird when I took my shoes off but when I pointed to them and said "beep" she smiled.) We quickly followed the moving mob down about 2-3 flights of stairs and then walked outside to stand on the tarmack. They had a set of stairs pulled up to the plane but we weren't allowed to board the plane until the plane was finished getting prepared and then first class passengers were permitted to board the plane and get settled it. The rest of us stood in the cold on the icy tarmack and waited for about 10 minutes before they gave us the go ahead to board.
We have learned that the Kazakhs don't necessarily believe in standing in lines or any sort of order as to "first come, first served". It doesn't seem to matter if you're young or old - if you're not pushingyour way through, you end up at the end of the line. This was fine with us... it was interesting to watch.
The flight to Uralsk was pretty uneventful. Once we were on the plane it was just like any other flight other than the further away from Almaty we got the fewer people we ran into that could speak English. The airline staff did the best they could but their English is very broken and our Russian is even more broken. As the plane was taking off, we were all given a piece of strawberry hard candy. Then, a bit later, we were given breakfast... omelets, a fruit cup, yogurt w/ granola, drinks and a roll. And then, we were given another piece of candy on the landing. They definitely believe in keep you fed on these flights!
We landed in Uralsk at about 8:45am... just as the sun was starting to come up. It was pretty dark when we rolled in, but we could see there was a lot of snow on the tarmack. Deplaning was pretty much the same as loading. We walked down the steps and walked at least 100 yards across the pavement to enter the terminal. The weird part was that we walked around to the front of the Uralsk airport and waited in the main lobby and met our coordinator, Olga, and 2 of the drivers (Phillipich and Misha) that were sent to haul us and our luggage. The crew on this side of the world are phenomenal.
Olga was very cheerful and bubbly... which was a great way to enter this stage of the adoption. Most people here are very serious and slow to smile... not Olga! She introduced us to the drivers and they are super as well. Phillipage reminds us a lot of our dads. He surprised me though because he moves very fast and insisted on carrying 2 of our 4 bags for us. Misha grabbed the other and Tom the other... I didn't have to carry a thing for this part!
The drivers recommended we wait until everyone had entered the baggage claim room and then a few minutes later we walked in, took our place along the conveyor belt and pulled our luggage off the belts before most others had even seen theirs. We haven't lost a piece of luggage yet!
We drove about 30 min. into Uralsk and Olga did a wonderful job pointing out things of importance along the way. At one point, we crossed the Oral (Ural) River and officially crossed into Europe. We were in Asia when in Almaty and at the Uralsk airport and then crossed into Europe shortly before entering Uralsk.
We were driven to the Chagala Hotel and shortly after we walked in someone behind me said "Hi, Jenni! - We're you're welcoming committee!" As I turned around at first I didn't know who was talking but right away made the connection that it was Mary from WPA who had emailed me a few times shortly before we left Ohio. She and her husband Gene and their new daughter, Jamah (not sure how they're spelling it) were there to see us in. A few minutes later, Aliya, our translator, came in.
Seeing the relationship that Mary and Gene had built up with Aliya helped us to immediately bond with Aliya and know that we could joke with her and that she spoke very good English. They stuck around while we were there. (Mary, sorry we didn't get to talk more... we were still a bit out of it but we do appreciate getting to see you guys before you left Uralsk!)
The rest of the afternoon is somewhat of a blur. Aliya and Misha took us to the Atrium... another mall and market similar to the Ramstore in Almaty. We picked up bottled water for the hotel room and a couple of snacks for the late night munchies. We found out from Aliya that we were to meet at the Ministry of Education at 5pm for our interview. This was an informal meeting and we were told it was just so they could get to meet us and learn a little more about us. Misha and Olga picked us up and we picked up Aliya along the way. Since "Kazakh men ride in the front" Tom moved to the front seat with Misha and Olga and Aliya and I sqeezed into the back seat. During the drive I had them look at our pictures to make sure there was nothing in the court album that didn't need to be there. They enjoyed looking at our family and home and said they were fine.
At the ministry, Aliya and Olga prepared us for the meeting and told us what kinds of things we would need to tell them during the meeting. There are usually 3 officials that sit at a table and we would sit in chairs away from the table and tell them about ourselves and answer their questions.... things like what we do for a living, a little about our family, if our family is supportive of our adoption, etc. After waiting for nearly a half hour for the meeting someone came out to talk with Olga and told her that one of the men that was to meet with us was not here today and the other was in a meeting until after 6pm. However, they had signed the paperwork and would essentially waive this part of the process for us. We will meet with the inspector tomorrow morning either prior to or when we are at the baby house. It is my understanding that they felt confident in our paperwork and would ask Olga if they had any questions about us.
The woman we spoke with at the ministry said she wished us well, hoped our family would be happier after adopting our daughter and that our son would be excited to have another sister. She also said she hoped we would never change our minds about deciding to adopt. This woman, too, was very happy and smiled while talking... a total change from the people we ran across in Almaty.
We returned to the hotel for supper and turned in. We heard from Aliya during supper that we would likely be going to the baby house at 10 tomorrow morning. They were still working on the schedule with the inspector. If 10 does not work, then we will be going over around 3 or 4. We will have a brief meeting with the inspector and will meet several babies tomorrow... one of them will eventually become our little Emily.
We are also supposed to be moving into our apartment tomorrow probably around 2. We've been told it's the apartment that Gene and Mary are leaving and according to Aliya, it's also the nicest. Mary tells me they have DSL ( high speed internet)!!!
PS - Today is Aliya's birthday... we think maybe she turned 21 today?
Sasha met us at the apartment at 4:40AM to pick us up for the airport. It sounds really early, but we were already awake by at least 3:30 because we're still adjusting to the time change. Sasha dropped us off at the curb at the airport and walked us inside and showed us how to get through the gates.
The Almaty (pronounced Al-MAH-tee) airport is not big like our Columbus airport. It seemed much bigger when we flew in, but it's actually very small and only has about 6 or 8 gates. We walked through a quick security check almost as soon as we were in the front doors. We fed our suitcases onto a conveyer belt and walked through a metal detector beside them. Then we collected our luggage and headed off to get checked in.
Sasha checked the flight screens for us and told us which gate we needed and pointed us in the right direction to proceed to check-in. That was as far as he could go with us but it was wonderful having his assistance because the culture is so different and so many of the signs were in Russian.
We proceeded to get in the long line to check our luggage and eventually made it up to the front of the line. We had 2 bags each which is normal by American traveling standards but we got quite a few looks from the locals as we pushed our cart with our luggage through the line. Olga, the lady at the check-in counter was a little concerned that our luggage was over weight and in very broken English tried to tell us how far over we were. We knew the bags would be over weight. For American travel, our bags could be 50 lbs. each... but for in-country flight the limit is supposedly only 44 lbs. Our bags were all less than 50 when we left Ohio and most were only a couple of pounds away from the 44 lbs. limit. However, we ended up having to pay about $150 in overweight charges... we were expecting to only pay about $50 at the most.
Because our baggage was overweight we had to leave the line, walk back over to the cashier and pay our fees. She then stamped our paperwork and we got to jump ahead in line back to Olga. She then okay'd us, added a few more stamps and sent us to the holding area. The rest of the process was a little confusing... but we followed the crowd. Remember kids... don't follow the crowd if they're doing something bad, but if you're in a foreign country and don't have a clue what to do, follow the pack! We sat in the holding area for about 20 minutes while we listened intently to the announcements... hoping and praying that we might recognize the word "Uralsk" when it was time to board. We heard the word and everyone around us immediately stood up and the mob moved over to another doorway where another security screening was set up.
Once again, our carry-ons had to run through a conveyor as well as our coats, metal stuff and my shoes. (The security lady looked at me weird when I took my shoes off but when I pointed to them and said "beep" she smiled.) We quickly followed the moving mob down about 2-3 flights of stairs and then walked outside to stand on the tarmack. They had a set of stairs pulled up to the plane but we weren't allowed to board the plane until the plane was finished getting prepared and then first class passengers were permitted to board the plane and get settled it. The rest of us stood in the cold on the icy tarmack and waited for about 10 minutes before they gave us the go ahead to board.
We have learned that the Kazakhs don't necessarily believe in standing in lines or any sort of order as to "first come, first served". It doesn't seem to matter if you're young or old - if you're not pushingyour way through, you end up at the end of the line. This was fine with us... it was interesting to watch.
The flight to Uralsk was pretty uneventful. Once we were on the plane it was just like any other flight other than the further away from Almaty we got the fewer people we ran into that could speak English. The airline staff did the best they could but their English is very broken and our Russian is even more broken. As the plane was taking off, we were all given a piece of strawberry hard candy. Then, a bit later, we were given breakfast... omelets, a fruit cup, yogurt w/ granola, drinks and a roll. And then, we were given another piece of candy on the landing. They definitely believe in keep you fed on these flights!
We landed in Uralsk at about 8:45am... just as the sun was starting to come up. It was pretty dark when we rolled in, but we could see there was a lot of snow on the tarmack. Deplaning was pretty much the same as loading. We walked down the steps and walked at least 100 yards across the pavement to enter the terminal. The weird part was that we walked around to the front of the Uralsk airport and waited in the main lobby and met our coordinator, Olga, and 2 of the drivers (Phillipich and Misha) that were sent to haul us and our luggage. The crew on this side of the world are phenomenal.
Olga was very cheerful and bubbly... which was a great way to enter this stage of the adoption. Most people here are very serious and slow to smile... not Olga! She introduced us to the drivers and they are super as well. Phillipage reminds us a lot of our dads. He surprised me though because he moves very fast and insisted on carrying 2 of our 4 bags for us. Misha grabbed the other and Tom the other... I didn't have to carry a thing for this part!
The drivers recommended we wait until everyone had entered the baggage claim room and then a few minutes later we walked in, took our place along the conveyor belt and pulled our luggage off the belts before most others had even seen theirs. We haven't lost a piece of luggage yet!
We drove about 30 min. into Uralsk and Olga did a wonderful job pointing out things of importance along the way. At one point, we crossed the Oral (Ural) River and officially crossed into Europe. We were in Asia when in Almaty and at the Uralsk airport and then crossed into Europe shortly before entering Uralsk.
We were driven to the Chagala Hotel and shortly after we walked in someone behind me said "Hi, Jenni! - We're you're welcoming committee!" As I turned around at first I didn't know who was talking but right away made the connection that it was Mary from WPA who had emailed me a few times shortly before we left Ohio. She and her husband Gene and their new daughter, Jamah (not sure how they're spelling it) were there to see us in. A few minutes later, Aliya, our translator, came in.
Seeing the relationship that Mary and Gene had built up with Aliya helped us to immediately bond with Aliya and know that we could joke with her and that she spoke very good English. They stuck around while we were there. (Mary, sorry we didn't get to talk more... we were still a bit out of it but we do appreciate getting to see you guys before you left Uralsk!)
The rest of the afternoon is somewhat of a blur. Aliya and Misha took us to the Atrium... another mall and market similar to the Ramstore in Almaty. We picked up bottled water for the hotel room and a couple of snacks for the late night munchies. We found out from Aliya that we were to meet at the Ministry of Education at 5pm for our interview. This was an informal meeting and we were told it was just so they could get to meet us and learn a little more about us. Misha and Olga picked us up and we picked up Aliya along the way. Since "Kazakh men ride in the front" Tom moved to the front seat with Misha and Olga and Aliya and I sqeezed into the back seat. During the drive I had them look at our pictures to make sure there was nothing in the court album that didn't need to be there. They enjoyed looking at our family and home and said they were fine.
At the ministry, Aliya and Olga prepared us for the meeting and told us what kinds of things we would need to tell them during the meeting. There are usually 3 officials that sit at a table and we would sit in chairs away from the table and tell them about ourselves and answer their questions.... things like what we do for a living, a little about our family, if our family is supportive of our adoption, etc. After waiting for nearly a half hour for the meeting someone came out to talk with Olga and told her that one of the men that was to meet with us was not here today and the other was in a meeting until after 6pm. However, they had signed the paperwork and would essentially waive this part of the process for us. We will meet with the inspector tomorrow morning either prior to or when we are at the baby house. It is my understanding that they felt confident in our paperwork and would ask Olga if they had any questions about us.
The woman we spoke with at the ministry said she wished us well, hoped our family would be happier after adopting our daughter and that our son would be excited to have another sister. She also said she hoped we would never change our minds about deciding to adopt. This woman, too, was very happy and smiled while talking... a total change from the people we ran across in Almaty.
We returned to the hotel for supper and turned in. We heard from Aliya during supper that we would likely be going to the baby house at 10 tomorrow morning. They were still working on the schedule with the inspector. If 10 does not work, then we will be going over around 3 or 4. We will have a brief meeting with the inspector and will meet several babies tomorrow... one of them will eventually become our little Emily.
We are also supposed to be moving into our apartment tomorrow probably around 2. We've been told it's the apartment that Gene and Mary are leaving and according to Aliya, it's also the nicest. Mary tells me they have DSL ( high speed internet)!!!
PS - Today is Aliya's birthday... we think maybe she turned 21 today?
Almaty Meetings
It's seems we've been doing a lot of sleeping but are still tired! ;-) It's going to take a while to beat this jet lag stuff. Right now we keep waking up in the middle of the night and end up being awake for a couple of hours before being able to get back to sleep.
Last night Tom went to bed around 7 because he was tired. I stayed up later thinking it would help me get adjusted so I would be more tired and sleep through the night. Let me go on the record to say this is the first time I've ever been wrong. Tom slept through most of the night and I awake from 12:30-6! There's a lot of really weird stuff on Kazakh TV that late at night (or early in the morning) and several channels that made me blush as I flipped through the selection.
We had an appointment at the office with the sisters at noon. Sasha picked us up and away we went. We got there right on time and in less than 10 minutes we had the legal paperwork signed and ready to go. Gulbanu got held up in some other meetings and didn't make it to meet with us until nearly an hour later. The office staff took very good care of us and made sure we knew what our next steps were. We found out that our flight to Uralsk was tomorrow morning and we would be leaving the apartment for the airport around 4:45am.
After our meeting, we had Sasha drop us off at Mad Murphy's Irish Pub... it's the main American-style restaurant that we've heard the other adoptive families rave about... and I am thrilled to say we enjoyed it as well. The waitresses spoke english and the menus were in english. Tom ordered a chili cheeseburger with fries and I had macaroni and cheese (!) that also came with fries... just can't get enough carbs! The food was great and it was nice to hear some people speaking english again.
After lunch, we stopped back at the office to pick up a package that Gulbanu had prepared for us to take with us to Uralsk and give to Olga. It was a quick stop and I simply ran in and came right back out with it. While we were waiting for Sasha to come back to the car we decided to stand outside for a bit since the weather was pretty nice. It wasn't but a few minutes and a family approached us begging for money for food. There were 2 men in their 30's and a woman that was slightly older. One of the men was carrying a sleeping toddler that was under 2 and there were 2 other little boys walking with them that were probably around 3 years old. It was an awkward situation... The guy holding the child came to me first and was asking for money and kept motioning to his child and then to his mouth.
Unfortunately, we aren't in a position to help people like this especially when the driver or interpreter weren't around. The man finally walked away from me and over to Tom who was coming over to see what was going on... then the woman (with a mouth full of gold teeth) came up and kept motioning the same way, and then the other man. We were very near the car and simply opened the doors and hopped in the car and locked the doors. But they continued trying to plea for help... tapping on the windows, walking to the other side and tapping on the other windows. I never felt my safety was in danger, but it was just very uncomfortable and awkward. They finally realized that we weren't giving in and continued walking down the street doing the same thing to others they came across.
After the quick pitstop, it was back in the car with Sasha for another quick trip to the Ramstore (it's a mall with a grocery store). We had planned on going to the internet cafe there, but after getting there Sasha informed us it had closed a while ago and was no longer there.
We explored the Ramstore and picked up some batteries and watched some of the kids ice skating on the indoor rink in the Ramstore. We still needed an internet connection so we could touch base with home so we had Sasha stop by another place on the way home.
I believe the place was called Venetia (or something like that) and had 16 new PCs with flat panel screens. It was basically dial-up connection speed. The lady that ran the internet cafe was not excited to work with Americans... until we were ready to leave... then she was more than happy to take our money! She wasn't mean or anything, just didn't want to try to hard to communicate with us.
From there, our night was done and we headed back to the apartment for some much needed rest. This whole trip has been pretty surreal so far as I feel like I'm finally living all the blogs and journals that I've been reading for the past couple of years. My stomach was in knots tonight as I realized this is becoming a reality and we might finally get to meet our daughter very soon. I fell asleep on the couch around 5:30pm or so and ended up sleeping on the couch the rest of the night. I was up several times throughout the night but didn't have any trouble falling back to sleep this time!
Last night Tom went to bed around 7 because he was tired. I stayed up later thinking it would help me get adjusted so I would be more tired and sleep through the night. Let me go on the record to say this is the first time I've ever been wrong. Tom slept through most of the night and I awake from 12:30-6! There's a lot of really weird stuff on Kazakh TV that late at night (or early in the morning) and several channels that made me blush as I flipped through the selection.
We had an appointment at the office with the sisters at noon. Sasha picked us up and away we went. We got there right on time and in less than 10 minutes we had the legal paperwork signed and ready to go. Gulbanu got held up in some other meetings and didn't make it to meet with us until nearly an hour later. The office staff took very good care of us and made sure we knew what our next steps were. We found out that our flight to Uralsk was tomorrow morning and we would be leaving the apartment for the airport around 4:45am.
After our meeting, we had Sasha drop us off at Mad Murphy's Irish Pub... it's the main American-style restaurant that we've heard the other adoptive families rave about... and I am thrilled to say we enjoyed it as well. The waitresses spoke english and the menus were in english. Tom ordered a chili cheeseburger with fries and I had macaroni and cheese (!) that also came with fries... just can't get enough carbs! The food was great and it was nice to hear some people speaking english again.
After lunch, we stopped back at the office to pick up a package that Gulbanu had prepared for us to take with us to Uralsk and give to Olga. It was a quick stop and I simply ran in and came right back out with it. While we were waiting for Sasha to come back to the car we decided to stand outside for a bit since the weather was pretty nice. It wasn't but a few minutes and a family approached us begging for money for food. There were 2 men in their 30's and a woman that was slightly older. One of the men was carrying a sleeping toddler that was under 2 and there were 2 other little boys walking with them that were probably around 3 years old. It was an awkward situation... The guy holding the child came to me first and was asking for money and kept motioning to his child and then to his mouth.
Unfortunately, we aren't in a position to help people like this especially when the driver or interpreter weren't around. The man finally walked away from me and over to Tom who was coming over to see what was going on... then the woman (with a mouth full of gold teeth) came up and kept motioning the same way, and then the other man. We were very near the car and simply opened the doors and hopped in the car and locked the doors. But they continued trying to plea for help... tapping on the windows, walking to the other side and tapping on the other windows. I never felt my safety was in danger, but it was just very uncomfortable and awkward. They finally realized that we weren't giving in and continued walking down the street doing the same thing to others they came across.
After the quick pitstop, it was back in the car with Sasha for another quick trip to the Ramstore (it's a mall with a grocery store). We had planned on going to the internet cafe there, but after getting there Sasha informed us it had closed a while ago and was no longer there.
We explored the Ramstore and picked up some batteries and watched some of the kids ice skating on the indoor rink in the Ramstore. We still needed an internet connection so we could touch base with home so we had Sasha stop by another place on the way home.
I believe the place was called Venetia (or something like that) and had 16 new PCs with flat panel screens. It was basically dial-up connection speed. The lady that ran the internet cafe was not excited to work with Americans... until we were ready to leave... then she was more than happy to take our money! She wasn't mean or anything, just didn't want to try to hard to communicate with us.
From there, our night was done and we headed back to the apartment for some much needed rest. This whole trip has been pretty surreal so far as I feel like I'm finally living all the blogs and journals that I've been reading for the past couple of years. My stomach was in knots tonight as I realized this is becoming a reality and we might finally get to meet our daughter very soon. I fell asleep on the couch around 5:30pm or so and ended up sleeping on the couch the rest of the night. I was up several times throughout the night but didn't have any trouble falling back to sleep this time!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
In Almaty!
WARNING: Super long post today! You can click on the pictures in this post to see larger versions of them! (I'm trying to jot down thoughts to jog memories later on.)
We're here! It was quite an experience to get here. A smooth one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
Mom and Dad dropped us off at the airport on Sunday afternoon around 4:30. The flight wasn't slated to leave until almost 7pm but we were told to be there early to go through security and to spend a few extra minutes at the check-in counter to see if we could get better seats on all of our flights. Check-in was a breeze and we were sitting in the airport waiting area in about a half hour.
Tomorrow is the OSU/Florida national championship game and the airport was all desked out for it. A few days earlier the traffic at the airport was really heavy and there was a LOT of scarlet and gray -- even when we were there the day before the game and most of the games folks had already passed through. The entire airport staff was very cheerful and even the security personnel were chatting and joking with people as we went through the lines. That NEVER happens. You're usually lucky to get them to smile. Another thing we picked up on was that the screens that display the flight listings had been converted to scarlet and gray color screens as well. Wow. Even the LED signs at the gates that display the flights had extra OSU sayings like "Hang on Sloopy... O-H-I-O".
From Columbus we took a flight to Minneapolis. That flight took about 2 hours and we both got some extra rest on the flight. We thought we would have a while in Minneapolis before the connecting flight to Amsterdam but it seemed to go pretty fast. The guy at the gate said that if we walked to the other terminal/gate we might have 10-15 minutes to spare before we had to go through the international procedures. Not much time, but we had time to grab a sandwich at McDonald's to eat while we waited.
There were no extra security checks to go through other than to show our passports when we checked in at the counter. Other than that, we just waited and got in line when it was time. It's amazing how smooth the trans-atlantic flights were. I figured we would have turbulence while going over the ocean but it was incredibly smooth. The airline staff were also incredible. We ended up sitting in the middle of a row of 4 people. It was a long flight and we tried to sleep as much as possible.
There were mini video screens on the back of the seats in front of us... but mine wouldn't work the entire flight. I glanced at Tom's every now and then, but mostly just slept and listened to my iPod for a short while. I sat the whole flight, but kept stretching my legs and exercising my feet/ankles. Even then, I could feel my feet had swollen during the flight. When I went to put my shoes back on, my normally loose shoes were really tight. The air on the flights is also really dry. Not so good for the sinuses.
We arrived in Amsterdam about an hour ahead of schedule because of the great tailwinds. I believe we touched down in Amsterdam around 11:30am and didn't have to meet our flight to Almaty until 5:45pm for check-in and loading. The Schipol/Amsterdam airport was an interesting experience in itself.
The people there were very nice and there were a lot of different nationalities there. We took a short walk after getting off the flight to find where our next gate was so we knew where we needed to get back to and then we explored a bit. The Schipol airport has a LOT of shopping opportunities and no we didn't buy stuff. We spent the bulk of our time resting in the wireless hot spot area. We sent a short posting to our websites to let people know we had made it that far because we didn't know how soon we'd have internet access in Almaty.
We also had our first international McDonald's experience. (Have you noticed the McDonald's theme yet?) In the upstairs of the Schipol airport is a small food court. The prices were listed in euros but we could order in English... sort of - we did a lot of pointing and panta-miming. We ordered a big mac combo (large fry and drink) and a regular fry and a small drink... and it was about $15! At least they tasted good and the stomach pains went away! After eating, we went to the gate ahead of schedule to hang out and get some rest... and we found out the gate had changed... to the complete other side of the airport! That's okay, we had plenty of time and could use the exercise.
We made it to the gate with over an hour to spare. Fortunately, it was a quiet part of the airport and we took turns walking around and sitting back with the carry-ons. (Schipol offers free carts that you can use in the airport for your luggage... what a lifesaver!!!) As we got closer and closer to boarding time the knots in my stomach started growing. I had done really well until this time. Now the anxiety was kicking in but I was prepared with TUMS! I wasn't in great humor for much of the trip, but started feeling better part-way through the flight.
For other adopting families coming after us: The whole boarding process when leaving Amsterdam was totally different. We had to go through security all over again when they called for everyone to start loading. Basically the same security process as the USA but instead of 1 security area, Schipol seems to do security checks at each gate. They had the same rules about 1 bag of small liquids... like travel sized toothpaste, mouthwash, etc. Nobody else had taken their shoes off so I didn't either... and I got frisked! Oops. The lady was very nice (and very thorough!) but it was painless and we weren't held up long.
Once we made it through security, our passports were checked along with our boarding passes and then we were moved into another waiting room. When the plane was ready for boarding a lady walked through the room and called for families and elderly - who immediately stood up and followed her through the door and they were IMMEDIATELY followed by everyone else in the waiting area. There was no 2nd call for the rest of us to join and people didn't seem to know (or care) what lines were... Even though everyone had assigned seats, it seemed that everyone hurries to get on the planes and don't mind cutting in line to do it.
Fortunately for us, on this leg of the flight, our seats had been changed (when we checked in at Columbus) so that we could sit together on a side aisle. Tom had the window and I had the aisle seat... and both of our video screens worked! The only bummer on this 6 hour flight was that directly in front of us was a mom and her 2 1/2 year old daughter... who whined, sobbed, and cried almost the entire flight. She cried when they buckled her in, she cried before she fell asleep, she cried when she woke up, she cried when she didn't like a toy that the friendly family ahead of them had offered, she cried if you smiled at her, she cried when she didn't like the food... did I mention she cried a lot? Thank goodness for headphones and the video/music distractions!
The neat part of this flight and the previous one was that you could track the flight as we traveled. They had a map on the screen and you could see how far we'd come, what cities we were over and it even stated an approximate arrival time and temperature outside. This was nice on the flight to Kazakhstan because we actually flew directly over Uralsk and even though it was dark out we could see lights, fires, etc. There weren't many lights, but there was a section that we could see a lot of orange flames in big areas and some of them were flickering. I don't know if those were businesses, villages, or what but will ask when we get to Uralsk.
Landing in Almaty was pretty uneventful as well. The airport had a little over an inch of snow and lots of pretty lights. We were the last to deplane and followed the crowd through a long walkway, down some flights of stairs and into another part of the building that basically dumped us into the passport control room where a couple hundred people were standing in a mob (but were supposedly in line to pass through immigration). We grabbed our immigration paperwork and filled it out as soon as we joined the shortest line. A bit later, a nice lady from Holland hopped in line behind us. She was a great distraction, very friendly, and spoke English! She had traveled to Almaty and Tashkent several times to projects for the European universities. She helped me feel better that we were in the right place and following the correct procedures to get through immigration. She also filled us in on a bit of the Kazakh culture and told us what we would need to do once we got up to the immigration window.
Remember, we got in the shortest line??? We were the last ones from the room to get through customs... including a couple dozen that came in from another plane! Oh well, go with the flow. The good part in that was that we quickly found our luggage because there were only a couple of bags left and then as we exited the airport we immediately found our driver, Kirill (or Killio?) Not too many words were exchanged with our driver but he told us the girl from the office was in the car and he grabbed two of our bags and walked QUICKLY to the car while we tried to keep up.
Dilnoza was in the car and very quietly gave me the instructions for our apartment and told us our appointment at the office was tomorrow at noon. (We flew into Almaty at about 5:30am and were through immigration by about 6:30am) So, we had an entire day and a half to kill before our big meeting which is WONDERFUL so we get some time to rest up. Killio took us to our apartment and again, quickly grabbed a couple of bags and hiked up three flights of stairs to help us in. I think he was at the top of the steps and in our apartment by the time I figured out how to pick up my rolling duffle!
We didn't stay up long but went to sleep. We told Dilnoza that we would call the office to arrange for a driver to come pick us up at some point so we could get some food and water for the apartment. We slept until about 4pm when I heard the phone ring... it was Dilnoza worried because she hadn't heard from us yet. We had her arrange for Sasha to come pick us up at 5 to take us to the Ramstore. Sasha is a very likeable guy. He doesn't talk much unless you talk to him first. As Tom says... he's got a good look going, winter pants and coat and long hair with a leather hat/sunglasses attached. I had to run down to get him so he could show us how to lock up the apartment from the outside. Not too hard, but totally different by American standards.
Sasha drove us to the Ramstore and took us in to show us where the money exchange was and how to get into the supermarket. He also pointed out the food court downstairs. Shopping was an experience and Tom found the sheep heads in the meat section right away! We did a lot of looking at pictures on the cans and so far, I think we did okay with buying the right stuff. We bought water, a little pop, bread, swiss cheese, fruit juice, butter, milk (in a box on the shelf), a frozen pizza, ramen noodles, and some ice cream type snacks. We got back to the apartment and ate and as I unloaded groceries I checked out the fridge and oven... fridge/freezer doesn't seal all the way so I'm not sure how cold everything will be and the oven is going to be a puzzle to figure out.
Our meeting with the sister's at the office is tomorrow at noon. There's a good shot we could be on a plane to Uralsk at about 6am tomorrow morning. Other than that, not much going on right now!
We're here! It was quite an experience to get here. A smooth one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
Mom and Dad dropped us off at the airport on Sunday afternoon around 4:30. The flight wasn't slated to leave until almost 7pm but we were told to be there early to go through security and to spend a few extra minutes at the check-in counter to see if we could get better seats on all of our flights. Check-in was a breeze and we were sitting in the airport waiting area in about a half hour.
Tomorrow is the OSU/Florida national championship game and the airport was all desked out for it. A few days earlier the traffic at the airport was really heavy and there was a LOT of scarlet and gray -- even when we were there the day before the game and most of the games folks had already passed through. The entire airport staff was very cheerful and even the security personnel were chatting and joking with people as we went through the lines. That NEVER happens. You're usually lucky to get them to smile. Another thing we picked up on was that the screens that display the flight listings had been converted to scarlet and gray color screens as well. Wow. Even the LED signs at the gates that display the flights had extra OSU sayings like "Hang on Sloopy... O-H-I-O".
From Columbus we took a flight to Minneapolis. That flight took about 2 hours and we both got some extra rest on the flight. We thought we would have a while in Minneapolis before the connecting flight to Amsterdam but it seemed to go pretty fast. The guy at the gate said that if we walked to the other terminal/gate we might have 10-15 minutes to spare before we had to go through the international procedures. Not much time, but we had time to grab a sandwich at McDonald's to eat while we waited.
There were no extra security checks to go through other than to show our passports when we checked in at the counter. Other than that, we just waited and got in line when it was time. It's amazing how smooth the trans-atlantic flights were. I figured we would have turbulence while going over the ocean but it was incredibly smooth. The airline staff were also incredible. We ended up sitting in the middle of a row of 4 people. It was a long flight and we tried to sleep as much as possible.
There were mini video screens on the back of the seats in front of us... but mine wouldn't work the entire flight. I glanced at Tom's every now and then, but mostly just slept and listened to my iPod for a short while. I sat the whole flight, but kept stretching my legs and exercising my feet/ankles. Even then, I could feel my feet had swollen during the flight. When I went to put my shoes back on, my normally loose shoes were really tight. The air on the flights is also really dry. Not so good for the sinuses.
We arrived in Amsterdam about an hour ahead of schedule because of the great tailwinds. I believe we touched down in Amsterdam around 11:30am and didn't have to meet our flight to Almaty until 5:45pm for check-in and loading. The Schipol/Amsterdam airport was an interesting experience in itself.
The people there were very nice and there were a lot of different nationalities there. We took a short walk after getting off the flight to find where our next gate was so we knew where we needed to get back to and then we explored a bit. The Schipol airport has a LOT of shopping opportunities and no we didn't buy stuff. We spent the bulk of our time resting in the wireless hot spot area. We sent a short posting to our websites to let people know we had made it that far because we didn't know how soon we'd have internet access in Almaty.
We also had our first international McDonald's experience. (Have you noticed the McDonald's theme yet?) In the upstairs of the Schipol airport is a small food court. The prices were listed in euros but we could order in English... sort of - we did a lot of pointing and panta-miming. We ordered a big mac combo (large fry and drink) and a regular fry and a small drink... and it was about $15! At least they tasted good and the stomach pains went away! After eating, we went to the gate ahead of schedule to hang out and get some rest... and we found out the gate had changed... to the complete other side of the airport! That's okay, we had plenty of time and could use the exercise.
We made it to the gate with over an hour to spare. Fortunately, it was a quiet part of the airport and we took turns walking around and sitting back with the carry-ons. (Schipol offers free carts that you can use in the airport for your luggage... what a lifesaver!!!) As we got closer and closer to boarding time the knots in my stomach started growing. I had done really well until this time. Now the anxiety was kicking in but I was prepared with TUMS! I wasn't in great humor for much of the trip, but started feeling better part-way through the flight.
For other adopting families coming after us: The whole boarding process when leaving Amsterdam was totally different. We had to go through security all over again when they called for everyone to start loading. Basically the same security process as the USA but instead of 1 security area, Schipol seems to do security checks at each gate. They had the same rules about 1 bag of small liquids... like travel sized toothpaste, mouthwash, etc. Nobody else had taken their shoes off so I didn't either... and I got frisked! Oops. The lady was very nice (and very thorough!) but it was painless and we weren't held up long.
Once we made it through security, our passports were checked along with our boarding passes and then we were moved into another waiting room. When the plane was ready for boarding a lady walked through the room and called for families and elderly - who immediately stood up and followed her through the door and they were IMMEDIATELY followed by everyone else in the waiting area. There was no 2nd call for the rest of us to join and people didn't seem to know (or care) what lines were... Even though everyone had assigned seats, it seemed that everyone hurries to get on the planes and don't mind cutting in line to do it.
Fortunately for us, on this leg of the flight, our seats had been changed (when we checked in at Columbus) so that we could sit together on a side aisle. Tom had the window and I had the aisle seat... and both of our video screens worked! The only bummer on this 6 hour flight was that directly in front of us was a mom and her 2 1/2 year old daughter... who whined, sobbed, and cried almost the entire flight. She cried when they buckled her in, she cried before she fell asleep, she cried when she woke up, she cried when she didn't like a toy that the friendly family ahead of them had offered, she cried if you smiled at her, she cried when she didn't like the food... did I mention she cried a lot? Thank goodness for headphones and the video/music distractions!
The neat part of this flight and the previous one was that you could track the flight as we traveled. They had a map on the screen and you could see how far we'd come, what cities we were over and it even stated an approximate arrival time and temperature outside. This was nice on the flight to Kazakhstan because we actually flew directly over Uralsk and even though it was dark out we could see lights, fires, etc. There weren't many lights, but there was a section that we could see a lot of orange flames in big areas and some of them were flickering. I don't know if those were businesses, villages, or what but will ask when we get to Uralsk.
Landing in Almaty was pretty uneventful as well. The airport had a little over an inch of snow and lots of pretty lights. We were the last to deplane and followed the crowd through a long walkway, down some flights of stairs and into another part of the building that basically dumped us into the passport control room where a couple hundred people were standing in a mob (but were supposedly in line to pass through immigration). We grabbed our immigration paperwork and filled it out as soon as we joined the shortest line. A bit later, a nice lady from Holland hopped in line behind us. She was a great distraction, very friendly, and spoke English! She had traveled to Almaty and Tashkent several times to projects for the European universities. She helped me feel better that we were in the right place and following the correct procedures to get through immigration. She also filled us in on a bit of the Kazakh culture and told us what we would need to do once we got up to the immigration window.
Remember, we got in the shortest line??? We were the last ones from the room to get through customs... including a couple dozen that came in from another plane! Oh well, go with the flow. The good part in that was that we quickly found our luggage because there were only a couple of bags left and then as we exited the airport we immediately found our driver, Kirill (or Killio?) Not too many words were exchanged with our driver but he told us the girl from the office was in the car and he grabbed two of our bags and walked QUICKLY to the car while we tried to keep up.
Dilnoza was in the car and very quietly gave me the instructions for our apartment and told us our appointment at the office was tomorrow at noon. (We flew into Almaty at about 5:30am and were through immigration by about 6:30am) So, we had an entire day and a half to kill before our big meeting which is WONDERFUL so we get some time to rest up. Killio took us to our apartment and again, quickly grabbed a couple of bags and hiked up three flights of stairs to help us in. I think he was at the top of the steps and in our apartment by the time I figured out how to pick up my rolling duffle!
We didn't stay up long but went to sleep. We told Dilnoza that we would call the office to arrange for a driver to come pick us up at some point so we could get some food and water for the apartment. We slept until about 4pm when I heard the phone ring... it was Dilnoza worried because she hadn't heard from us yet. We had her arrange for Sasha to come pick us up at 5 to take us to the Ramstore. Sasha is a very likeable guy. He doesn't talk much unless you talk to him first. As Tom says... he's got a good look going, winter pants and coat and long hair with a leather hat/sunglasses attached. I had to run down to get him so he could show us how to lock up the apartment from the outside. Not too hard, but totally different by American standards.
Sasha drove us to the Ramstore and took us in to show us where the money exchange was and how to get into the supermarket. He also pointed out the food court downstairs. Shopping was an experience and Tom found the sheep heads in the meat section right away! We did a lot of looking at pictures on the cans and so far, I think we did okay with buying the right stuff. We bought water, a little pop, bread, swiss cheese, fruit juice, butter, milk (in a box on the shelf), a frozen pizza, ramen noodles, and some ice cream type snacks. We got back to the apartment and ate and as I unloaded groceries I checked out the fridge and oven... fridge/freezer doesn't seal all the way so I'm not sure how cold everything will be and the oven is going to be a puzzle to figure out.
Our meeting with the sister's at the office is tomorrow at noon. There's a good shot we could be on a plane to Uralsk at about 6am tomorrow morning. Other than that, not much going on right now!
Monday, January 08, 2007
Halfway there!
I finished packing our bags at 2:00am on Sunday morning and then caught a hours of sleep before getting up for church around 6. The good part was that I felt very rested in just those few hours.
We had a great send off from church and then went home to quickly wrap up a few more things before my mom and dad came to give us a lift to the airport. We met up with Tom's parents and Ryan for a quick farewell on the way.
So far, everything has gone amazingly smooth. At the Columbus airport, everyone was of course in great spirits as the OSU game was just a day away. Security was a breeze and even the security folks were laughing and joking with everyone. We got off to a great start.
Columbus to Minneapolis was a breeze... only snag was a girl behind us that talked non-stop for over 2 hours. Sleep was a good solution to that problem!
We only had about 10-15 minutes wait once we got into Minneapolis before we were off to Amsterdam. No time to get nervous there! That process went very smoothly as well and there were no extra security checkpoints to go through at all. That flight was quite comfy as well. We had middle seats, but the food was wonderful and everyone had their own mini-tv's and could watch movies, listen to music, play games, etc... everyone that is except for me. ;-) Again, sleep and an iPod were good solutions to that problem!
We're now sitting in Amsterdam. In Ohio it's about 7:30am, but here it's 1:30pm. We don't leave here until after 6pm tonight for Almaty.
The picture included in this post is the not so subtle marketing that is used on ALL cigarette boxes in the airport. Every brand, every carton. This American finds it intriguing.
We had a great send off from church and then went home to quickly wrap up a few more things before my mom and dad came to give us a lift to the airport. We met up with Tom's parents and Ryan for a quick farewell on the way.
So far, everything has gone amazingly smooth. At the Columbus airport, everyone was of course in great spirits as the OSU game was just a day away. Security was a breeze and even the security folks were laughing and joking with everyone. We got off to a great start.
Columbus to Minneapolis was a breeze... only snag was a girl behind us that talked non-stop for over 2 hours. Sleep was a good solution to that problem!
We only had about 10-15 minutes wait once we got into Minneapolis before we were off to Amsterdam. No time to get nervous there! That process went very smoothly as well and there were no extra security checkpoints to go through at all. That flight was quite comfy as well. We had middle seats, but the food was wonderful and everyone had their own mini-tv's and could watch movies, listen to music, play games, etc... everyone that is except for me. ;-) Again, sleep and an iPod were good solutions to that problem!
We're now sitting in Amsterdam. In Ohio it's about 7:30am, but here it's 1:30pm. We don't leave here until after 6pm tonight for Almaty.
The picture included in this post is the not so subtle marketing that is used on ALL cigarette boxes in the airport. Every brand, every carton. This American finds it intriguing.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I think I'm supposed to be packing?
Tommorow afternoon, Tom and I will be hopping in the car with my parents and heading for the airport. We'll say goodbye to our family, our friends, our pets and our house - not to see them again for nearly 2 months.
The last couple of weeks are starting to blur together. We did get moved into the new church just in time for us to begin meeting there for our Christmas service. We can breathe a bit easier now that that's done. We also found out last week that we would be able to move our store this weekend. (Great timing, huh?) We have a wonderful set of employees and volunteers that will be boxing things up at the close of business today. We can't thank you enough for taking care of this while we are focusing on packing and getting ready to leave. (Amy S. - a special thank you to you for all the extra work you've put into the store these past several months and for all the calls and arrangements you've made when this kicked into high gear! You're very much appreciated!)
For those of you that visit our store - it will be packed up this weekend and set up on Monday and on Tuesday at 10am it will re-open at it's new location in the Kohl's Center just off of Rt. 95.
I've got all day today to start/finish packing. That's right, we haven't started packing yet! No need for alarm, this is how I generally operate. We've been making packing lists and doing laundry. I still need to pick up a few minor things in town today but we're going to make this deadline. We've been told that most things are available where we're going so aside from taking the right clothing that we're comfortable in and taking our precious paperwork updates I'm resting easy.
Tomorrow is going to be a non-stop day. Tom is planning on preaching tomorrow and I will fulfill my regular Sunday morning duties. After church, we'll grab a quick bite to eat, head home to make sure all the final house checks are done and then in early afternoon my parents will pick us up to shuttle us off to the airport. We're meeting up with Tom's parents one last time before we leave and then off to the airport for us.
It's still early yet, I should probably go have my breakfast of champions and keep the laundry rolling. Thanks for following along! We greatly appreciate you prayers!
The last couple of weeks are starting to blur together. We did get moved into the new church just in time for us to begin meeting there for our Christmas service. We can breathe a bit easier now that that's done. We also found out last week that we would be able to move our store this weekend. (Great timing, huh?) We have a wonderful set of employees and volunteers that will be boxing things up at the close of business today. We can't thank you enough for taking care of this while we are focusing on packing and getting ready to leave. (Amy S. - a special thank you to you for all the extra work you've put into the store these past several months and for all the calls and arrangements you've made when this kicked into high gear! You're very much appreciated!)
For those of you that visit our store - it will be packed up this weekend and set up on Monday and on Tuesday at 10am it will re-open at it's new location in the Kohl's Center just off of Rt. 95.
I've got all day today to start/finish packing. That's right, we haven't started packing yet! No need for alarm, this is how I generally operate. We've been making packing lists and doing laundry. I still need to pick up a few minor things in town today but we're going to make this deadline. We've been told that most things are available where we're going so aside from taking the right clothing that we're comfortable in and taking our precious paperwork updates I'm resting easy.
Tomorrow is going to be a non-stop day. Tom is planning on preaching tomorrow and I will fulfill my regular Sunday morning duties. After church, we'll grab a quick bite to eat, head home to make sure all the final house checks are done and then in early afternoon my parents will pick us up to shuttle us off to the airport. We're meeting up with Tom's parents one last time before we leave and then off to the airport for us.
It's still early yet, I should probably go have my breakfast of champions and keep the laundry rolling. Thanks for following along! We greatly appreciate you prayers!
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
4 days and counting...
The countdown has begun... at this time on Sunday I will be sitting in an airport waiting for them to tell me I can board the plane - the plane that will ultimately take us to find the daughter that God has in store for our family. When we go to court in approximately a month, we will officially become a family of 4.
I told Tom last night that I feel like I've been cramming for an exam for 2 years and it's quickly approaching. Our agency has a 100% success rate with adoptions so I feel like I'm going to pass the test, but what if I forget something along the way!
I had a wrap-up phone conference with my coordinator this evening and feel like I'm actually pretty well prepared for this trip. I mean who shouldn't be after reading up on the topic for over 2 years! I feel like I can scrap my way of life for a few months and adapt to whatever is in store... well, almost. I'm not so sure about the variety of food that I'll be eating but if I can get some bread and water I'll be fine... please just don't ask me to eat those lovely summer salads that everyone else boasts about (cucumbers, tomatoes and mayo... no lettuce, cheese, croutons, or sweet and sour salad dressing!) I can't stand the taste of alcohol and don't want to offend anyone over there so please don't ask me to toast with vodka or rum... maybe I'll raise a non-carbonated bottle of water when everyone else raises their glass! Did I mention the horse that appears on many of the menus? Yes, folks, Mr. Ed and My Friend, Flicka are on the menu in Kazakhstan and actually considered to be a common item over there.
Anyway... we're on our way. Packing lists are being crossed off and I'm trying to picture how all that stuff in the nursery is actually going to fit into 4 suitcases and a couple of carryons.
Please continue to keep us all in prayer... including those we are leaving behind. Our parents are already trying to figure how they'll cope with us being so far away for so long and it's going to be awful rough leaving Ryan behind to continue with his freshman year at school and life in general. Sadly, we're going to miss his 15th birthday while we're gone but we'll be sure to celebrate from the other side of the world!
Again, thanks for following along on our journey... it's only just begun.
Take care and Be Blessed!
-jenni
I told Tom last night that I feel like I've been cramming for an exam for 2 years and it's quickly approaching. Our agency has a 100% success rate with adoptions so I feel like I'm going to pass the test, but what if I forget something along the way!
I had a wrap-up phone conference with my coordinator this evening and feel like I'm actually pretty well prepared for this trip. I mean who shouldn't be after reading up on the topic for over 2 years! I feel like I can scrap my way of life for a few months and adapt to whatever is in store... well, almost. I'm not so sure about the variety of food that I'll be eating but if I can get some bread and water I'll be fine... please just don't ask me to eat those lovely summer salads that everyone else boasts about (cucumbers, tomatoes and mayo... no lettuce, cheese, croutons, or sweet and sour salad dressing!) I can't stand the taste of alcohol and don't want to offend anyone over there so please don't ask me to toast with vodka or rum... maybe I'll raise a non-carbonated bottle of water when everyone else raises their glass! Did I mention the horse that appears on many of the menus? Yes, folks, Mr. Ed and My Friend, Flicka are on the menu in Kazakhstan and actually considered to be a common item over there.
Anyway... we're on our way. Packing lists are being crossed off and I'm trying to picture how all that stuff in the nursery is actually going to fit into 4 suitcases and a couple of carryons.
Please continue to keep us all in prayer... including those we are leaving behind. Our parents are already trying to figure how they'll cope with us being so far away for so long and it's going to be awful rough leaving Ryan behind to continue with his freshman year at school and life in general. Sadly, we're going to miss his 15th birthday while we're gone but we'll be sure to celebrate from the other side of the world!
Again, thanks for following along on our journey... it's only just begun.
Take care and Be Blessed!
-jenni
Monday, December 25, 2006
Travel Dates!
We're leaving for Kazakhstan on January 7th!!! It's time to turn preparations into TURBO mode!
We've got the neighborhood alerted that we will be gone and they will be keeping an eye on the house as well as my parents, who will be stopping out on a regular basis to take care of the cats and keep them entertained.
I don't have any bags packed yet, but the crib is unusually full of all things travel related. I have a mental packing list put together but will not pack our bags until a few days early so we can avoid over-packing. We can only take 2 suitcases each and they each have to be under 50 lbs. Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen!
Mom and Dad came over last week to help me sort through all the donated clothing and we filled the dresser in the nursery with all the clothes from 3-9 mos. and have about 6 boxes and bags of larger clothing that we need to haul back downstairs to save for a rainy day.
In the meantime, we're working on ordering the money we need to take with us and trying to make arrangements to get fingerprinted all over again for INS.
I've been working on locking in the cash order for about 3 weeks now. I asked about the procedure several months ago and was assured it would not be a problem and there are not extra costs involved. However, when I went to the bank to place the official order I was told there was now a $110 fee for this... not charged by the bank but by Brinks for handling fees. Jon at the bank did everything in his power to try to get this fee waived for us but could not... so we are stuck with either paying this fee or asking the tellers to start holding back like-new bills for us. With the stress of everything else in our lives right now I'm biting the bullet and paying the fee to order the bills. I guess in the whole scheme of things what's $110? But, when we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel to pay for travel, apartments, etc. it's less we have to take out of our savings account. And, if nothing else, it's the point of it all. I'm tired of getting charged extra fees by banks to use my own money.
Fingerprints... again? Yup! In total, this will be the 5th time we are each getting fingerprinted for this adoption! I've honestly started to lose track! I know we initially were printed for INS clearance and again for FBI clearance and I "think" we also had local police reports run on us. Then, in the past couple of months our FBI prints expired (were over 1 year old) so we had to have them done again. Now, we're told that our INS paperwork (our 171H) is still good for another couple of months but the fingerprints for that paperwork will expire while we're in Kazakhstan. INS will allow us into Kazakhstan but unless we get reprinted we might have quite a bit of trouble getting clearance to re-enter the US on our way back home! Sheesh!
You know, all in all... these snags are really starting to get kinda funny... in a really demented sort of way.
Well, enough for now... Merry CHRISTmas everyone!
-jenni
Friday, December 15, 2006
12/15/06 test blog entry from MacJournal pictures
Subject:test blog entry adding pictures!
LOOK! It's Tom, Jenni & Ryan!
I just wanted to try adding another blog entry but this time I want to try adding some pictures to see what happens... here goes!
I created these cartoon versions of our family at www.weemee.com and then photoshop’d them into one file.
-jenni
What a month!
It's been crazy lately to say the least! Shortly after Thanksgiving
we received travel dates to go to Kazakhstan to begin the adoption of
a little girl. We are scurrying around right now trying to get
everything ready to bring our little baby home.
Since our adoption process is taking so long and paperwork
requirements are steadily changing we've had to re-do a lot of our
dossier. We had to get 10 more documents re-done and each one had
to be notarized, authenticated and apostille... just that alone cost
me $58 let alone all the mileage put on my car to follow-up on
everything. We've had to get a second visa for each of us because
our travel dates came later than expected.... that's another $250.
We are supposed to order new $100 bills to take with us on our
journey. Our bank was going to have to charge us $110 just to order
the money because Brinks was passing that cost on to them. And... on
top of all those unexpected costs, because we are traveling to Europe
the week after New Year's we will be joining quite a few Africans and
Europeans on their way back to their homelands.... it will be fun,
but we're told that flights are filling up quickly and because it's
the holiday season... you guessed it... tickets on those planes are
higher than anticipated as well. We may not come home with much
money in our savings account but we'll have a beautiful little girl
to love and cherish!
We're still in the process of trying to get our Christian Bookstore
(shopthenook.com) moved to the other side of town. We were told we
could probably be open for the big sales the day after Thanksgiving
but several weeks later we still aren't allowed to move in. The
construction crews are still waiting for inspections to take place
and we have to have a certificate of occupancy before we are allowed
to move in and set up.
I'm looking forward to celebrating Christmas with my family this
year... but I'm looking forward to getting on that plane to
Kazakhstan and leaving all this stress behind me!
Be Blessed!
-jenni
jhypes@treca.org
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Hurry Up and Wait!
Ok,
so I'm on several adoption mailing lists where those going through the
same process as we are can chat and ask questions and share our
frustrations. This weeks biggest concern is the long wait.... Here's a
snippet of someone's response to the frustrations:
I just wanted to share this with everyone so you can understand part of the frustration that comes with adoption. Whoever said "You're taking the easy route by adopting." is sadly mistaken. We, adoptive parents, have our own kind of stretch marks and hormonal ups and downs. One day you're "scheduled" to travel in the spring and the next day something has changed and your approximate timeframe for travel has been pushed back 3-4 months. It's all part of the process and it's something we adoptive parents go through.
Several of the moms-to-be on our list have been known to put the car seat in their cars and take their pets and stuffed animals for a ride. Another mom-to-be put a teddy bear in her stroller and took it for a jog around the neighborhood. Another put all the baby stuff in the nursery, locked the door and gave the key to her neighbors with strict instructions to not give her the key until she had a referral.
It's hard - this adoption process. We are at the mercy of so many people on a completely different side of the world. Our friends and family continue to have babies and we find ourselves living vicariously through their experiences. We also witness those families at the mall or grocery store that just can't seem to treat their children with love and kindness, those families that yell and scream at their children... those instances make our stomachs turn and our hearts ache. I'm not saying those that aren't adopting don't experience these same things but I've noticed those feelings have gotten magnified since we started the adoption process and the longer we wait the more intense those feelings become.
Right now, these are normal emotions. If I start dressing up my cats in baby clothes and walking them around the neighborhood... well, I hear this is normal too! If I get to that point - I pray my family and friends will love me enough to tell me I need a vacation! ;-)
Yes, this is a trying time for us. We have completed all our paperwork so we don't have that busy work to keep us occupied and make us feel like we're progressing. Our busy work right now is preparing the house for a baby and before long we'll be able to work in the flower beds and yard. There's nothing we can DO to make this process go any faster. We simply wait.
In the mean time, we stay encouraged that God knows the right timing to bring this baby into our lives. It's certainly not the same time frame I have in mind... but we're learning new things because of this process every day. Some day in the near future we will have our own special blessing in the form of a little girl and none of this waiting will matter. We will have our whole lives to spend together and grow memories together as a family... for that, I can't wait.
Be Blessed!
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