Statues around Kostanai.

We took some pictures of the statues around the town. Some are really funny. There is one with a girl sitting on a bench using a laptop. Since we have been here the only laptops we have seen is our and ones at the computer store in the mall. You don’t see people sitting around coffee shops using them. We also noticed that you never see anyone sending text messages. When we asked if they have it here we were told yes. We guess it just hasn’t caught on yet.

Of course we visited Sophia today. She is really trying her best to walk. Today she took about five steps. Most of the time her upper body is going 90 MPH and the lower about 10. Needless to so the result is a very short attempt to walk resulting in one of us grabbing her. It seems like she does best when you don’t expect it and she just goes.

When we got home we went to do a load of laundry, by hand in the tub. You can see by the picture what the water is looking like today. It was worse on the hot side so laundry was done using the cold water gentle cycle today. We really hope this improves before our morning shower.

Yesterday morning we decided that we would head into town for breakfast after our visit at the baby house. We usually go back to the apartment and eat ceral or what ever we have. We had wanted to try a breakfast dish at Dolce Vita, one of our favorite places to eat without our translator present. We had eggs with ham, onions and tomatoes. It was served baked in a casserole dish. It did not have the egg yokes but was very good. Sitting next to us was 5 women also eating. They were doing vodka shots for breakfast. When we left they were on their second bottle. The funny thing is they looked like typical office workers. We're guessing they got off early.



City Hall.

Sophia found her nose.

Everything has been going good here. We are counting down the days until we leave. The last few days have been pretty average. Eat, sleep, visit Sophia, stimulate the economy…

On Friday night we ate at a restaurant I think was called Magnum. The food was very good and there was dancers. There was lots of drunk people dancing and one lady that looked like she was having convulsions. She was hysterical. We tried to get some good video but it was getting dark and I would have had to get within the danger zone of her flying arms. I wasn’t willing to risk it.

We also went to the French trading center which is really just a 4 story mall. We had to go get Melissa some of the Domino donuts. They sell them there at a kiosk. We’re told there new to the area. To be truthful I don’t think they will last. Each donut is 1 dollar which seems high for here. You can get fresh baked goods here for less the a quarter. As long as we’re here I sure Melissa will keep them in the black. When we were leaving the building there was music playing and everyone was looking up at the clock tower. We had seen the clock before but didn’t know it put on a show. Apparently every hour the face of the clock rotates around and there is a figure that is dancing. We’re told that the figures are changed hourly. We saw Marilyn Monroe singing “I Wanna Be Loved By You”. Now when we’re in the area on the hour we will be watching for the show and maybe get a better picture.

That’s about all there has been to our weekend. I know we are just to exciting.


We can't wait to show this one to Sophia's boyfriend one day. (In 25 years)

Return flights booked.

The only thing new and exciting over the past two days is that we booked our return flights home. We will be leaving Kostani on Sunday the 9th. We will have to stay in Astana until Tuesday morning for the next available flight. We are glad that we will get to see another city in Kazakhstan but we are so ready to get home. When we land we will have been off US soil for 72 days. It’s funny because on the return trip we gain 10 hours of time so we actually leave on Tuesday morning and arrive in DC that evening. It makes it seem like it’s a short flight bet we know better.

Today when we visited Sophia we noticed that she has a fake cough. If she hears one of us cough she too has to imitate it. It’s so cute. I guess we really need to start watching what we say and do since we will soon have a little copy cat around.
This picture is for Tara. We knew you would love it.

Happy Birthday Sophia!!!!

Today was Sophia’s 1st birthday. For the special occasion we decided to bring a cake and try our best to have a celebration. We ordered the cake from the home made restaurant that we had horse soup at. It wasn’t the typical looking festive child’s birthday cake but it served the purpose. It was caramel flavored with chocolate shavings on top. We put a big 1 candle on it and sang happy birthday to Sophia. We also had some ladybug napkins, paper plates and a birthday hat. The caretakers allowed us to give her about 4 bites of the cake before they stopped us. We also gave her some of our hot tea. She is use to getting hot tea with dinner here. She loved it all. She knew it was her special day. After the celebration we went to the private room. We put a cute little outfit on her and she had a blast. We had balloons, bubbles and she was given a Russian doll to play with. Her absolute favorite thing to play with was the gift bag the doll was in. Go figure. She was also mesmerized by the bubbles. We feel like we accomplished our mission to let Sophia know today was her special day but we can’t wait to get back home and have a real birthday party with real presents and a traditional birthday cake that Sophia can make a big mess with.

Sophia took her first steps.

We have been trying to get Sophia to improve on her balance skills and yesterday when I was a couple of feet away from her and she took a couple of steps. We keep doing this and she walks right to us now. It’s only 2 or 3 steps at a time but it’s a great start. When she reaches us she gets praised and seems to really know she is doing something great and wants to do it again. It won’t be long before we’re running to keep up with her.

We picked up a birthday hat, a candle, plates and napkins yesterday for Sophia’s 1st birthday tomorrow. We ordered a cake and are hoping that we will be allowed to give her a piece of it.

Here’s a follow up on the bowling. The game is played and scored the same as in the US. We decided that we wouldn’t publish our scores but will say we are bad. It’s been a while since I was bowling but this alley was dark. The pins were lit but the lanes were so dark you couldn’t even see the little triangles. It cost about $3.35 per game and you pay in advance. I thought it was funny at the table there was a list of items with prices on it. I asked what this was and was told the prices if you break something. They even had the balls listed at about $80 and the TV monitor for the score board was about $600. Thankfully we didn’t break anything.

We also went to the art museum over the weekend. It was less then 15 cents to get in for each person. Talk about cheep and it was a nice museum. However, if you wanted to take pictures you had to pay an additional 65 cents. Being the big spenders that we are we went all out and got the full package. There was even a painting of New York city with the Twin Towers still standing tall.

Check in tomorrow for the birthday party. It should be WILD!

Someone loves Cheerios. When she sees this container she gets so excited.
Can you see my tooth?

Sophia still has a cold.

For the last few days Sophia has still be feeling a little under the weather. Today she seemed to be much better but she seemed to get tired quickly. Even when she isn’t feeling well she still tried to entertain us by playing peek a boo and putting her books on her head because we laugh. Today we picked up a couple of pastries at the market on our way to the baby house. I just couldn’t resist giving her some. She was REALLY enjoying that. She also had a very small piece of chocolate. You should have seen the look on her face. She might only have one tooth but it appears to be a sweet one.

The other night after court we decided to try to eat at the Knight’s Castle again. We finally got in and had a meal. I had chicken breast wrapped with bacon, potatoes with onions, a salad and ice cream served with orange and kiwi slices. Melissa had pork sausage, mashed potatoes and greens. It was all very good and there was a live singer, dancers and a drunk guy for entertainment. The drunk was not part of the show but he sure like Oleysa and Melissa. When we were leaving he was offering me money to let them dance with him. It was tempting but I had to pass.

Tonight we are meeting with Nellie for dinner and we’re going bowling. Anyone who knows us knows how highly skilled we are at this sport so this should be fun. I’ll post the scores tomorrow. Maybe we will be lucky and it’s scored differently here.

I know there will be some cop/donut jokes here so I’ll explain the last photo. Melissa is the true donut fan and when we seen a Donimo’ Donuts stand that looks just like a Dunkin Donuts color scheme Melissa had to try her luck. She just started pointing to different donuts and the lady started filling up the bag. We weren’t to sure what flavors the filling was but it turned out very good. She ended up with lemon and cream filled. She keeps talking about going back to this place.
Give me more of that sweet stuff.

Being silly.


It isn't all fun and games over here. She looks so sad when she cries.

Melissa's new favorite snack.

Preliminary Court, DONE

We just got back from pre-court. We got there early and went into the Judge’s office and she looked through about a half of foot thick of paperwork. The head of the baby house was there, a lady from the Department of Education, our coordinator and of course us. The Judge had questions that she asked everyone and then she started to asked me a bunch of questions. They were all pretty easy and it went off without a hitch. The hardest one was: What child do you want to adopt? The correct answer was: Nadya Zuonaryeva. I guess I said it correctly since she didn’t say there was no such baby available for adoption. The only question Melissa had to answer was what is you birthday. The Judge has asked that she get a copy of some death certificates to show that Sophia doesn’t have any living relatives. She then said she would set a court date and there was discussions about dates (in Russian) and they finally said the date would be August 7th at 10:00 AM. The Judge then said that Melissa might get a present for her birthday which is the following day.

With all that in mind we are going to now try to figure out when we can get a flight out of here. We are thinking that we will return to the US around the 10th or 11th. The only sad thing is that we can't wait until Sophia is ready to come home with us. There is a mandatory appeal period of 15 days following court and then they will get her paperwork ready for her to come to the US. So it looks like I will fly back to Kazakhstan the first week of September to bring Sophia home where she will be allowed to eat ice cream, have cold drinks, see what a TV looks like, what air conditioning feels like and be allowed to run around without 10 layers of clothes on. These are all things that will be so new to her.

Tonight we are heading out for a celebration dinner. We’ll fill you in tomorrow.

Sophia likes the play room.

There really isn’t to much to post but here goes. We really only seen Sophia for a few minutes yesterday. All the kids seem to have a cough right now and in the morning she was in the “sea salt room” for treatment. When we showed up for the afternoon visit they were walking out the door with her. She had a doctors appointment for some blood work. Nothing to be concerned with just another requirement for the adoption. They could have atleast told u sin advance but I guess that's not how things work here. As a result we didn’t get any pictures of her yesterday. Sorry, bad parents.

Today we decided to skip the morning visit. Melissa was up most of the night with her coughing and when the alarm went off it was a time when sleep was good and much needed. We were also thinking they would be in the sea salt room again because we couldn’t get an answer when we asked.

For the afternoon visit we took Sophia to the play room again and she really enjoyed it much more today. She has been very funny and started to let out a scream when she laughs. She also grabbed a hold of a curtain today and all on her own started to play peak a boo. We don’t know where she learned this but it’s funny and we’ll try to get a video soon.

Tomorrow is pre-court. We are suppose to be there at 6:10 PM and have dinner plans after. We will post tomorrow to let everyone know how court was. For now it time to go to bed.

Sophia is unsure about the play room.

We were finally able to take Sophia to the play room today. At first she seemed like she was going to like it until she got scared by huge rubber ball. After that she was fussy and just sat there checking things out and she really wasn’t enjoying herself. Just when we decided that we were going to take her to our normal visiting room one of the employees came in and said, “excuse me, early on” and pointed down stairs. We thought she meant that Sophia was to young for this and to go to the other room. We didn't know how to tell her we had permission because our coordinator was late today. We later found out that there was a news crew on scene doing a story about the baby house and she wanted us to go to the visiting room which oddly enough in Russian sounds like early on. Who knew? It was all good since we wanted to go there anyway. We think we will have to let Sophia experience new things a little at a time. It’s a shame that the children here are into such a routine that one little change gets them worked up. She also seems to have a cold and is coughing so this might have something to do with her being upset today The doctor at the baby house gave us a prescription for some medication for Sophia which we picked up today. Hopefully it helps.

Just another day in paradise.

There hasn’t been anything really exciting to report so this might be a boring post. Sophia is still a doll. She loves her Mommy and Daddy and lights up like a Christmas tree when we show up. Today the caretaker was getting her dressed when we arrived and once she saw us she had a difficult time keeping Sophia still. Her eye is really looking black now. You can even see it in the photos. It should start going away soon. We should have some different pictures tomorrow. We were given permission to take her to the padded play area with a ball pit. We tried going up there this weekend but every door in the baby house was locked. We can’t wait to get her in a different environment.

The last three days here it has been doing some serious raining. See I told you this was going to be a boring post, I’m talking about the weather. It has only rained one other time since we have been here and it was nothing compared to the last few days. It was putting a lot of water down with some serious thunder as well. I have to say this because it has made a mess here. There is enough mud around here to hold a monster trucking event. Apparently there is no drainage here either. When it was actually raining the streets look like dirty swimming pools. I thought I was back in New Orleans minus all the crime. It just stared to rain again. It’s funny when it is raining here the cable TV goes completely out and when it stop it comes right back on. Word to the wise, you might want to keep up with the weather reports because once it starts raining your out of luck.

We did see a Cadillac hearse today parked in the street in front of a house and there was two dressed up people heading to the door. I’m only speculating but I have a strange feeling they worked for the funeral home and that someone died inside the house. What can I say, I’m a cop with professional training in these matters.