Look Susan, she can point her toe 

October 8

Friday-
Today we had pre-court (instead of the morning visit). It was easy because we already knew what we planned to say. The only tense moment was when the judge asked when my passport was taken. I guess I don’t look like the pic. The session only lasted about 15 minutes.
We went to the bazaar with the Sarvers in the afternoon (it has warmed up to a balmy 55 degrees). Some items at the bazaar are very inexpensive. We found suede gloves to give to our driver for only 300 Tenge (about $2.25) -and they are very nice gloves. Mike was wanting them for himself, but only 1 pair left. The Sarvers found a Columbia jacket for the boy they are adopting for 1500 Tenge. We were looking for toys to donate to the baby house, but they are more expensive at the bazaar than at the big market (mall).
At the end of the afternoon visit, 2 people from the Ministry of Education came to observe us with Krysta. Darren & Crystal came in at the same time. So really, all anybody saw was us trying to interact with Krysta and Krysta staring at all the new people. Then a care giver brought the Sarver’s girl in and everyone left - but not before they wished us joy with our new babies.
For dinner, we went to the Chagala and had pizza and watched CNN. The pizza was good, but not like at home. Mike had a Russian beer, which he liked. It was good to watch TV and not have an interpreter interfering with hearing the English.

This is the living room. It's not small, and not big either. 

Here is a pic of our bedroom in the apartment 

October 6

Krysta has a runny nose and a cough so we spent a good portion of our visit cleaning her face. She was not pleased with this. Also we don’t have any new pix because the smiles were few. By the time we arrived for the afternoon visit, she was back in isolation. The doctor informed us this was because of her runny nose, cough and fever (we didn’t notice a fever). We had a pretty quiet visit, though she did do some dancing. She gets a smile on her face when she dances, and she will throw in some singing sometimes.
Olga and Assia came over to brief us on pre-court tomorrow - sounds like some of the questions we answered for the Dept of Education are the same - and we will repeat the same next week in court...
This afternoon, Philipige delivered a small space heater, which is supposed to get us through. The heat is not tuned on until Oct 17th, and by that time we will be on our way to Almaty. Anyway, as you can guess, the only way to benefit from the space heater is to sit directly in front of it on the floor....so that’s where I am and will remain til bedtime.
Mike here.....we were informed that pre-court will last about 15 minutes. The judge will direct the majority of the questions to me. The baby house director and a rep from the Dept of Education will also be on hand. We have a good idea of what will be asked of us tomorrow, so no anxiety here.
-the weather got a little warmer today- into the 50’s and is expected to be up there again tomorrow. Tonight we ate at New City and had Logman and Pepsi for all 4 of us. The total cost was 950 Tenge (which equals about $7 for all of us to eat a full meal - and Eileen was right that it is good.

October 6

Wednesday
- My tummy is better today so I’m up for a bit of journaling. It is quite cold here all of a sudden. Imagine my surprise when I reached in the pocket of my leather jacket to find I only brought 1 glove. Well, if you look on the bright side - at least 1 of my hands is warm.
Olga came to the baby house during our visit(to collect $ for plane tickets back to Almaty). Pre-court has still not been arranged, but hopefully it will be on Friday. Krysta was tired & yawned through both visits. I think it’s cuz the room is so cold and she is bundled and toasty. She almost fell asleep during both visits, but kept jumping up when she heard voices in the hallway. She’s really nosey and just has to know what’s going on - takes after her parents I guess.
Today Darren & Crystal invited us out to lunch at the University Cafe. Mike had his heart set on making an egg sandwich and declined. Well when we finally found the cafe (it’s on the 4th or 5th floor) it looked like someone’s kitchen. We could see over the counter and it didn’t look so clean so we headed out. Actually Darren wanted to try it but Crystal and I outvoted him. So there we were back on the cold sidewalk and still hungry with no plan. We passed a place with English letters - New City. Hey! They must have an English menu. We opened the door and there was this staircase leading down and then another long hallway - not a soul in sight. Crystal and I sent Darren ahead. A few minutes later he came back and said he found it. He led us down into this deserted restaurant where we found out there was no English menu. He asked if the had the Logman (the national dish of Kaz). They said yes- so he held up 3 fingers and asked for Coca Cola. We sat down and someone brought us 3 bad smelling placemats & I just knew we were in for it. I was wrong (yes-me!). The Logman was huge and wonderful, sort of a beef lo mein in a rich tomato beef broth. Wow, it was so good and filling - And CHEAP - less than $3 a piece.
After that big lunch, we weren’t that super hungry for dinner. We went to Kamelot and I had a salad and chipped potatoes - the salad is called Amazement with apples, oranges, boiled eggs & roast beef pieces. Mike (who only had an egg sandwich for lunch) had roast meat Vienese style. It was excellent. It had stew beef, kidney beans, potatoes and carrots in a sour cream based sauce. I’m going to have it if we go there again. Crystal had the schnitzel again and Darren had somebodys island pork (sorry, some wierd dish names are difficult for my little pea brain to remember). We came home and continued our Uno tournament in the Sarvers apartment because they have a space heater (our apt does not). Now it’s time for bed because it’s cold. Ciao!

Tuesday

Tuesday - 1 week left in Uralsk
Mommy is sick today. She has a stomach bug.
Krysta apparently is doing better since they moved her out of isolation and back with the group. When we saw her this morning she had red cheeks. They had just fed her and that is a bad thing for our visit. She has too full of a stomach for us to be playing with her. Needless to say, she threw up - about 4 times. We weren’t moving her around a lot since we knew she just ate. But she threw up anyway. And she was all bundled up again since the room was cold. Because the room was cold, they didn’t want us to put her down on the ground. So we had to change her clothes. We did get some smiles in between the urps.
After the visit, we met the Sarvers at the “mall” It is 3 floors with many little stores inside. The 2nd floor is not completed yet - about half full so far. We found 2 little toys to bring to Krysta to break up the monotony and a sweater jacket to put her in during her visits so she can move around. The jacket cost 650 Tenge, which comes to about $4.81. We will go back there to buy toys for the baby house.
We must be getting close to time to leave since they are asking us for money for plane tickets to Almaty next week - Yeah!!

Maybe I don't want to smile 

Let's see what is in Daddy's mouth - open up Daddy 

All bundled up to play inside 

October 4

Monday
- A frustrating morning today. On the drive to the morning visit, pedestrians were apparently playing chicken with the cars. They would walk almost into the car as it drove by, squeezing us into the traffic on the other side of them. The visit with Krysta started out fine. She had urped on herself again (she does almost every morning now- they must feed her just before we get there). So we had to change her outfit. Then about a half hour into our visit, we could tell that she had pooped and needed changing. We could not change her since we had no wipes or place to change her on. The doctor came in and apparently thought Krysta was cold - she had felt Krysta’s nose and was gesturing it was cold. She wanted us to put Krysta’s jacket on her. Well, we couldn’t since she had urped a little on the jacket. We gestured to the doctor that Krysta had a stinky diaper and gave her to the doctor with the new diapers we brought. The doctor said “paca, paca, paca” (bye in English) and took Krysta away. Eileen said “see you in a few minutes” But since the doctors spoke no English, it meant nothing to them. Masha was not around at this time. Her jacket was still in the room so we thought she was somewhere in the baby house. After we waited 10 minutes for Krysta to return, I started to look for Masha so we could find out if they were going to bring Krysta back up so we could spend more time with her. I went outside and noticed Masha’s car was not there - so I went into the room where they were keeping Krysta and didn’t see anyone in there to ask about her. I saw one of the doctors that took Krysta and asked if Krysta was going back upstairs to us. She gestured up and said something in Russian, so I thought they had already taken Krysta back up. When I arrived back in the visiting room, Eileen was there alone. We looked out the door for a while, but since it was now about 20 minutes since they took Krysta, we figured they were not going to bring Krysta back to visit.
We left, slowly, to meet Philipige to drive us home. We were hoping Masha would return so we could check on what had happened. We didn’t see her as Philipige drove us home. We were not happy with this situation and were unsure what the doctors were thinking. Were they thinking that we didn’t want Krysta back since she was stinky? Would this cause a problem with our future visits? About 10 minutes later, Masha came knocking at our apartment door. She said that when she got back to the baby house, the doctors gave Krysta to her and when she got to the visiting room we were gone. We explained what had happened at the baby house. She said the doctors DID think that we didn’t want Krysta back since she was stinky. Masha said she mentioned we had a child already and didn’t think that would be a problem. We asked Masha to explain that we could not change Krysta, but would have if we could have. Masha understood and said she would explain the situation to the doctor.
When we got there for the afternoon visit, the doctor wanted us to put on a hat and jacket while we visited inside. Krysta was too bundled up to really move. She had a onesie, tights, shirt, pants and another top on already, then we had to put the jacket on top of all that. It was too much and Krysta didn’t move around much during that visit. They said it was because the room was cold - which it was. So the afternoon visit was a quiet visit as we watched Krysta struggle to get up or crawl.
For dinner we went to Kamelot restaurant. This time we had soup to warm us up. Did I mention that it got cold outside? It was in the 40’s this morning and may have warmed up to 50 - and with a good breeze to add to the wind chill factor. The soup we got was good, and they also have good salads. We got ice cream for dessert....the Sarvers got a ‘banana spleet’ which was ice cream with bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate. We got ‘Tsunami’s treat’ which was ice cream with shaved chocolate and walnut. Both desserts were good.
*****We are READY to go home - we miss our Logan

Sunday

Sunday
Had a very quiet morning visit today. The very 1st thing Krysta did was throw up on Mike’s arm. Good thing he had 2 shirts on. After lunch (Ramen noodles & leftover roast chicken) we walked to the bazaar to buy tights for Krysta. The bazaar is like a HUGE flea market with lots of people pushing and shoving. We didn’t find any infant size tights and it was mighty chilly. We made a quick stop at the grocery store and then headed home to get warm. Tomorrow Masha is going to take us to a store that will have small tights. I have to keep my baby warm & toasty you know!
Oh, last night we watched my all time favorite movie on TV- ‘Silence of the Lambs’ I’ve seen it so many times (at least 12 x’s) that the Russian translation didn’t bother me at all. Mike got a kick out of the interpreter translating “Dr Lector” after Clarice said it in English (the translation was the same working):
“Dr Lector?” translated to “Dr Lector” so we heard it about 3 times each. Guess you had to be there. Anyway, it was a nice treat to have good television for once. Though we did get to watch the audition show for Superstar Kaz (their American Idol). We got to meet their judges and see the ‘bad’ auditions. Though it was hard to tell if it was bad singing since they were singing in Russian. Some were obviously bad - in any language.

All together