Cam's the man

Little Cameron stole our hearts this morning. During our first visit, he was running a fever and they say he has a virus (and one heck of a cough). But, he toughed through it and we had a great visit this morning. His fever broke about 30 minutes into our playtime. He really likes his teether and is perplexed by the bink. He has 2 teeth coming in on the bottom and there's no question that he has blonde hair. He was unhappy when we put him down for his nap at noon, though he was quite tired. We think he was having fun with us and didn't want it to end.


We had lunch at Ankara at the Tsum store with Nastia, our interpreter today. Buffy had some chicken / veggie dish and Brent had a cheeseburger with fries (who would have thought that Buffy would be the adventurous eater at our first meal out? Surely, no one had bets on that!). We then walked around the Tsum store and bought a few souvenirs as well as a pan whose teflon is not coming off, unlike the ones we used yesterday in the apt., and a couple of knifes that are sharp (and can cut things like onions and bread!).

We went back at 2 and Cameron was glad to see us. His fever was gone and they let us take him outside for a stroll around the grounds. He was really taking it all in. We were happy that he seemed to enjoy it, though the stroller was not a hit - he preferred to be held, which was fine with us. We played some more inside and he really enjoyed standing up and bouncing on Brent's lap. He also got up on his hands and knees and made motions like he was ready to crawl backwards - it's official, he's a genius and we've only known him for 6 1/2 hours. He rounded out the day with a very smelly diaper which we got to change. And again, he was unhappy when we put him down at 4. We put some cute doggy jammies on him and put him down with a bink and a blanket that we brought from home. Can't wait to see him tomorrow. Such a cutie!!

We're there

We were picked up at 6:15 this morning for the flight to Karaganda. It’s about a 25 minute trip on surface streets to the airport. We got there and our driver, Dima, went in with us to make sure we got through the ticket line. We use the word ‘line’ loosely, as it was basically a throbbing, heaving mass of humanity trying to get through a pair of tiny queues manned by a pair of harried ‘ticket checkers’ and several no-neck, no-nonsense looking security guards (with notably large and very impressive military caps). The line didn’t move at all for a while, and the people looked unhappy about that; eventually when an announcement was made about Karaganda, Dima looked alarmed (which made us alarmed – mind you we didn’t catch what was said). He began to shout at the guards in Russian; the guards shook their heads several times, then finally nodded and Dima prodded us to go to the head of the line, which didn’t make the crowd happy – dirty looks from them, confused looks from us. Dima got us through the queue, (which really pissed the teaming masses off) then the ticket checkers got mad and yelled at us to get back through; very dirty looks from the teaming masses. Then the ticket checkers and guard got into a heated ‘discussion’, several in the crowd were shouting at the checker too, and motioning toward us. Oops… When the ticket checker wasn’t looking, the guard motioned for us to stay, and got the checker to do us next. ‘Spaceba, spaceba!” (thank you!!!!!)

Next, we took our bags to the check-in lines. It’s very much like the check-in in the US, except a lot less orderly – there are no lines. Several times after announcements, people were pulled out of the big line to go to a smaller and quicker line, but then were herded back to the monster-long line; we stood in line, hot and worried for maybe an hour – there were two flights, one to Astana and one to Karaganda, but only one line; we would ask people “is this the line to Karaganda?” and they were very nice but as completely confused as we were – and answered us in Russian, which would be helpful if we were fluent. At 15 minutes before our flight, we were still standing in line, which made us panicky, but there wasn’t anything we could do. Mind you we were told that; a) we’d have to pay an ‘excess baggage weight fee’ of somewhere between $120 and a bazillion dollars, and we had no idea where to go to do that, and b) we were told these flights often are so crowded that people have to stand for the entire 2 hour flight; so early seating is WAY preferable. About 10 minutes before our flight, we finally got to the head of the line and were able to check in. We were fully expecting to pay a big over-the-weight-limit fee (the three bags we checked were over 71 kilos), but the check-in lady basically told us in sign language to ‘get the hell on the plane NOW’. We got through security to board the plane fairly quickly and then ran down some stairs, onto a bus and rode out to the plane. Expecting the worst, we rolled up to a beautiful Boeing 737 for the hour-long trip to Karaganda. It was a perfectly nice plane, complete with bathrooms and climate control (much better than what we were told to expect).

We arrived in Karaganda, disembarked outside of the airport and walked in. We retrieved our luggage and then Oxana, our interpreter / driver, met us and brought us to the apartment. The area surrounding Karaganda is rural and we saw lots of cattle, sheep and horses. It looked very pastoral. Like a very flat Missouri, with cattle, flat range and big blue skies. The landscape was dotted with little concrete homes, most of which were abandoned & falling over. Must be a holdover from the Soviet days.

The apartment is fine. It’s a one-bedroom with a good-sized living room and a hotplate will serve as our stove for the next few weeks. We also have a microwave. For the record, there aren’t any screens for the windows. However, it’s fairly cool in here, so we’ve kept the windows shut to preserve the coldness (there were screens on the windows in Almaty). We got groceries with Oxana’s help (thank goodness), checked out a park that we’d heard about and came home.

No other news to report today. Tomorrow morning we meet with Natasha, the coordinator here, and then we get to meet Cam! We’re both giddy with anticipation.

Technical Difficulties

If there are lapses in our postings, please be patient. We had a difficult time last night through this morning accessing the internet, and are told this is common. So, we'll do our best, and don't be confused if some of the postings seem out of order or slow... they will be (until we get this figured out).

In the meantime, here are some pics of our drive into Karaganda, around town, our apartment building, etc.

All the way to Almaty

We got into Almaty about 5 this morning (3 p.m. Tuesday, Eastern). We’re 10 hours ahead. After spending 60+ minutes waiting to go through customs, we walked through, got our bags and left. An interpreter and a driver met us at the airport and brought us to an apt. here. We slept for about 4 hours and then made ourselves get up at 11 a.m. We went to the Ramstore (Рaмстор) around 2 and exchanged money (118.50 tenge to the dollar), bought some groceries for dinner tonight and had some lunch. We met with the adoption coordinators this afternoon (ahead of schedule) and we leave for Karaganda tomorrow. They indicated that we’ll meet Cameron on Friday.

Almaty is a bustling, lively town where everyone takes their lives into their own hands when they venture out onto the streets, be it on foot or behind the wheel. Brent's never seen anything like it, but our driver Dima and our interpreter Olya were very nice, and we are SO glad to have someone to speak our language and get us where we need to go on time and still breathing. Not for the faint of heart, but worth the experience.

Our driver picks us up tomorrow at 6:15 a.m. to go to the airport for our flight on Air Astana.

We’re both dead tired, but glad to be here!

Half Way There, Part Два (we’re working on our numbers in Russian)

We stopped first at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. It was nice and efficient as you would expect the Dutch would do things, and we took a welcome rest. (if you ever have the chance to fly KLM, do it!)

Both of us found the “Comfort Seats” lived up to their namesake, as they were posh and comfortable. We’d have never dreamt of sleeping in an international airport, but with the road we'd travelled and the long flight ahead of us, we had no choice. Buffy found the camera and caught Brent indulging in some needed shuteye.


The plush toys were a little concerned, and kept asking “are we there yet?!?!?!” You know how they can be…

Halfway

We made it to Amsterdam, in one piece! It was a long flight, but a pretty good one. We made all our connections (so far), but nothing exciting to tell... which is good news! We are looking forward to embarking on the last connection later today to take us to Kazakhstan. The lounge area here at Schiphol is very nice. We had a decent lunch, they have a nice internet center and we have plans to check out the "Comfort Seats" which look like leather chaise lounges (a la Charles Eames). It would be great to bag a few z's before the next leg of this worldwide tour.

Sorry no pics just yet. It was going to cost an additional 16 Euros to upload pics - and in our current state, we just couldn't do the math.

Next stop: Almaty!

Hey - What's the weather?

Wondering what the weather is in Karaganda? Here you go...

Nursery

Here are some pics of the room that is waiting for a kid. We were originally going to do a Raggedy Ann and Andy theme, but then one day, Brent came home with a brilliant idea - and here it is (thanks April & TRG Studios). (If anyone wants some Raggedy Ann and Andy border, let us know!) We're hopeful that the neighbor's dogs will stop barking incessantly since the window faces their yard. But, if that doesn't happen, maybe Cam will learn to ignore them and sleep through it (high expectations are good, right?).

Kaz-a-huh?

Kazakhstan (KAH-zak-stan)
Kazakhstan is a pretty large country, but sitting next to Russia and China you might not pick up on that right away. Think of it as stretching from the US East Coast to the Rocky Mountains. It rests just east of the Caspian Sea, which is east of the Black Sea and REALLY east of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also two nations north of Afganistan; it rests directly north of Iran & the Persian Gulf. Time to pull out an atlas, huh?

Historically, it was a prime thoroughfare from Europe to the Far East, through which european traders (like Marco Polo) traveled the Silk Roads to the Far East, and was the stomping grounds of Gengis Khan and his roaming nomadic hoards – the Steppes (and the nomads) are still there. During the Russian Revolution, the USSR sent many into exile into Kaz (most notably Dostoyevsky) and established the notorious Gulags in this region of Siberia (which covers the northern portion of Kaz); later, they moved many Russian citizens there in forced relocations to farm & cultivate the region, in the process displacing some 2 million Kazaks.

Now, the culture is made up of roughly 40% Kazak, 30% Russian and 30% Asian. It is an emerging major player as an energy supplier, holding the third-largest oil reserves in the world; it also has rich deposits of fossil fuels such as coal and many other minerals, and is currently being courted by both Russia and China for their growing energy needs. This is also where Russia's space program is currently located.

Who we are...

Here we are looking forward to realizing our dream of finally expanding our family! In the beginning we didn't know where to go or what to do to reach our goals, but after learning all we could about adoption, encouragement from family & friends, as well as looking near and far to find what we needed to build our family, we settled on international adoption in Kazakhstan. It's already taken a lot of soul-searching and debate to settle on this journey, but having gone through all that we are ready to 'cast off' on this most amazing journey!

The pups - Good practice for child-rearing

Maizey and Jake are the 4-legged creatures that have been our practice run for child-rearing. For the past 6 years, things have gone well. They've never missed a meal or obligatory vet appointments and they both passed obedience school. How much harder could it be with a kid??