Friday

Another adventurous day in Karaganda!!!  Went to Baby House for morning visit….it was kind of drizzling so we did not go outside for a walk.  Someone fell asleep again on cue at 11:00 AM.  He is getting much better at sitting up on his own.  It is hard to make him “practice” since all you want to do is hold him!

Between visits we walked over to the grocery store, as we needed more water.  Jim and I both have sore throats but no other symptoms.  We think it has to do with the dry air.  I have little dishes/cups of water all over our room…you have to be careful where you sit/walk.   We needed more milk BUT we were not sure which to buy.  We had hoped it would be in the same container but it was not….I guess it will be Grandpa’s Cereal (aka Cream of Wheat) again tomorrow AM. 

Also between visits I did my first “load” of laundry.  That was comical.  I have pics to prove it.  I had quite a system going.  The best thing is that the shower is one with a removable shower head, which helps with the “rinse” cycle.  Of course now all the laundry is everywhere trying to get it to dry. 

We had to be ready at 3:00 PM to go to the notary.  It was not too far from the hotel.  We verified some of the numbers (as it was all in Russian) and signed our names.  The funniest part was one of the other mom’s getting in trouble for not having a coat on.  Understand indoors of all the buildings are all hot….but she was told she needed to stay healthy! 

We left there and went to the Baby House.  There were 6 new families at the Baby House so we did not go to our regular room but rather stayed in our kid’s playroom.  All our kids are from the same room so it makes it easy for us.  THEN the real fun began.  He had his bottle as usual and that was easy but then came the food….Dad got to take this one on.  We think it was some sort of apples.  It looked like long slices of apples (like shoelace fries size) Dad was not quite as fast as he was suppose to be.  Someone would reach for the bowl when he was taking too long.    Needless to say the bib from today had to be washed.  (Disposable bibs would have been good…..).  We did finally get a little crying today.  He is also getting better at the crawling.  I pulled out some of the outfits we brought to leave for him when he is escorted to meet us, and I realized how big the clothes will be on him!  Oops!  Hey – in my defense it is hard to buy for a kid that you don’t know how old/size he is. They will just have to roll things I guess.  (Jill – the 2 piece blue Gap outfit should fit him perfectly though…I will take that next week to try on him.  They will love that because it will be a WARM outfit!)  Tomorrow is our last 2-a-day visit.  Next week we will go to 1 visit per day for 4 hours to be able to accommodate all the other families that have arrived from Spain.

On the way to the notary we saw quite a few “wedding cars”.  We talked for a while about the “wedding” process here.  First of all she said there is no rehearsal.  She wanted us to explain the “point” of doing that, as she did not understand it.  She explained some of the “traditions” of weddings here – many times the couple is married first in “court” then goes to a church and then to a restaurant for a reception.  She also said the couple will go around the city taking pictures and leaving flowers at various important places. 

Thanks for all the suggestions on the hiccups.  We took a sippy cup today and he did not seem to like it so much.  AJ – the singing thing…not sure how that well that will work but I will try….today we sang Christmas songs because we could not think of any other songs.  Poor child. 

Ok….we have tried for over 24 hour to send more pics out but is just not working so will have to wait until AM….

Thanks to everyone for your support….I tell BK/A everyday about emails and support he has waiting for him back home…he nods and says he appreciates it also and can not wait to get home to meet all of you !!!