Boys!

Gregory and Andre!

Pictures!

Ok, Firefox is letting us attach pictures. It is slow but we will post a few...
The top one is Ken and Andre and the second is Gregory and Ken.

Schedule

We realized we forgot to tell you our schedule. We get to visit the boys from 10-11:00 in the a.m. and then from 4-6 p.m. Between 11:30 and 4 we go out for lunch as a group (there are 4 American couples including ourselves) and then we go to a grocery store, or to see local sites of interest. Then we usually head home for a while – where, as you can see, we often post to the blog.

In general we make breakfast at home – usually toast from fresh bread, or some oatmeal we brought with us. We have juice and sometimes oranges. We also are enjoying the hot chocolate we brought…

We haven’t done much for dinner yet as lunch usually tides us over for quite a number of hours. We did, however, buy pasta and what we think is spaghetti sauce. (I forgot to check with our translator before checking out at the store.) We also bought what looks like peroggis or pot stickers… We may be surprised when we cook them up but that is half the fun.
For lunches we have had a panini and a croissant chicken sandwich. They were ok but not great. Yesterday we went to a place and had shish kabobs. I loved them. Ken thought they were just fine…

Needless to say, we are not starving to death over here. There is an endless supply of tempting desserts everywhere we go too, but we try to refrain from buying and tasting them all. We did buy some baklava yesterday, though - a nice treat.
-Jenny

Washing Machine

So there's a washing machine in our apt which is nice. But we can't seem to figure out how to work it. A load has been in there for a few hours now and lots of strange sounds are eminating from it. Jenny went to bed and left me to fare with it. I'll probably wait another 10 minutes or so and then turn it off to try again tomorrow.

Today we took the boys outside by ourselves! We walked around the baby house and played on some playground stuff. It was mostly covered with hard snow and the boys had huge jackets on and boots that were a little too big but it was fun. Gregory would trip on his boots and just sort of roll on his giant coat until he was back on his feet :)

For our second visit we took the kids seperately to see what that was like. Not surprisingly it was much more mellow! And it was neat to have the two of us spend concentrated time with one boy and then the other. (Okay, I have to turn off the washing machine now b/c the monotonous noise is driving me nuts).

Ken

Few more facts

I can't seem to successfully load any pictures now, so I'll just add a bit more info. that I wanted to tell you about.
1. Both boys have cute dimples!!
2. Ken and I have successfully learned the Russian words for Thank you, Car, Ball, Peepee and Poop! Yeah us!!
3. The boys are learning Mama and Papa - thanks to the caregivers. It still surprises us whenever we hear it!
4. We have now experienced a temper tantrum, an accident that drew blood, and a potty mishap. Both boys recovered from these various issues in record time - and I have to say, Ken and I did as well. :)

Putting the Band Together

So I think Gregory will be the drummer and Andre will be the bass player. Although, if Andre really wants to play guitar, then I'll play bass. Parenting is about compromising afterall. This is my thought at 3:45 in the morning at least.

The Boys!

We've met with the boys twice now and will see them again in a couple of hours! How do you describe the first meeting with your new sons?? Gregory came bounding in and went straight for my lap! What a cute guy!! Andre came in a little more hesitant, and shy but went straight for Jenny. And there we were. The culmination of countless hours and prayers. Worth every minute of it! We spent a short while with the boys in the director's office and then headed to the play room where we spent quite awhile longer. Today we saw them again in the play room. They are a handful! Or rather, two handfuls! Good thing there are two of us!!

Okay, now that I mentioned the most important part, I'll give a little more info on the other aspects of our journey since last posting. We went back to the Almaty airport and borded a small 40 person plane. It had what can best be described as jump seats and we carried our own luggage up through the back end. Very challenging with the huge bags we have!! Fortunately we made it aboard and into our tiny seats! I think the plane ride was about 2 hours but I fell fast asleep so you might have to ask Jenny. After arriving in Semey we traveled to our apartment which is very nice! The outside and entrance stairwell are a little iffy but the inside is beautiful. We went to the baby house after freshening up.

We've been around Semey a bit and it's a fascinating city! The buildings look old and non-descript, but there are many storefronts with colorful signs and the pedestrians are very stylishly dressed. The mixture of Russian and Asian ethnicities is also interesting. We just came back from shopping at a grocery store and the items are very similar to the US, except the carts are way better! All 4 wheels swivel! What a novel idea! I've also seen the new little Nissan car with the round headlights driving around.

Back to the boys, actually, I'll let Jenny write some...

Ken

Gregory (nicknamed Greesha in the baby house) was thrilled to find a car and a book as soon as we went into the "bonding" room (play room) last night. He kept yelling the word for car he was so excited. Andre was interested in all the toys. He would take one or two, play with them for a few minutes and then neatly put them back where he got them and take out some others.

Today we picked the boys up from their little toddler suite and we all headed off hand-in-hand to go play again. They are so cute!! They love toys that make noise, but also love books and the huge (bigger than they are) stuffed animals. I found great satisfaction from taking a particularly huge, fuzzy, cat stuffed animal, crying "Meow!" and fluffing it around the boys' faces. They giggled and chuckled- so cute!!!

I know this is long, so we'll be going. Just wanted to get a bit of info. out to you!
Love,
-Jenny

We've arrived Folks!

Two 8 hour plane rides and one 5 hour layover and we're finally in Kazakhstan! For someone used to flying in 1960s era Southwest planes, it was the lap of luxury! TVs on the backrests! Who would have thought of such a thing. Also, the restrooms were on the lower level so we had to take stairs down to them. I've never been on a two level plane before! Although it's cruel to make you walk through the "royalty" seats in first class to see all the leg room they have! And how much butt room! :) Anyhow, the flights were all great and uneventful.

We arrived at our hotel in Almaty at 2 AM and just finished our first Kaz breakfast of bread, jam, fried pancakes, potstickers, and oranges. I caused a minor flood in the bathroom trying to figure out the shower head but everything ended up okay. :) I'm also surprised at the number of Western style cars in Almaty. VW hatches, Camrys, stuff like that. Germany had almost all VWs. Which made sense once I thought of where we were :).
-Ken

So, we fly to Semey around noon today. It takes a few hours to get there and then we have around 30 minutes to get dressed before meeting the orphanage director and the boys!!! We're going to have quite a time trying to iron our clothes that we had to pack in our carry-on (which ended up being too big to be a carry-on and had to then be checked at the last minute- thanks to John and Irene for their smaller carry-on that we had our most important items in!!) Anyway, we are happy and healthy and very excited...

Oh, plus we are traveling with a couple from Ohio so we have buddies in this travel process!! Oh, and we bought some delish. chocolate at the duty free store during our Frankfurt layover. Just had to tell you that oh-so-important thing. :)

We're at the hotel's business center right now. It may be a few days before we have our internet set up in our apartment but we'll try to hurry up with it so we can post again.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers!!
-Jenny

It's almost time!

Thank you all for your well wishes! We feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. A calm has settled over us and we're ready to finally board the plane and go off on our great adventure!

T Minus LESS THAN 24 HOURS TO GO!!

We're watching the Amazing Race in Almaty! How coincidental to have it air the night before we're going!! I don't know the next time I'll get a whole night's sleep!!
Ken