Sunday, June 21, 2009

It's official - He's all ours!

Finally home! Sorry for the interval in the blog entries, but there’s not much connection at 36,000 feet and then there was the jet lag…

Update – Court went perfect on the 17th, apparently our report to the Judge covered all the bases with only a handful of follow up questions asked, and all of these were in the initial report anyway. After a couple of paperwork stops, we were given the evening off until 11:00 when it was time to leave for the airport in Astana. We were able to visit Danny for a half hour to say good-bye (for now), then cooled our heels until Erken came to pick us up.

The Airport in Astana is very modern, with signs and announcements made in both Russian and English, everything went smooth as we headed out on the 15 hour (actual flying time – not counting layovers) travel back home. We aren’t sure what was more tired, our bodies or our butts!!

So now we are back at home waiting for the next trip to bring him home. At this point it looks like we’ll travel the 18th of July and be home up to 2 weeks later. First we fly into Astana, and then take the 6 hour round trip car ride to pick him up from Sucinsk. Our next stop is a plane to Almaty for the US Embassy (about 1 ½ to 2 hours). This trip is all US Embassy stuff so should be a piece of cake.

Then… it will be 17 hours of flying time plus layovers with a 2 year old. Pray for us!

Our next entry likely won’t be until we return near the 1st of August, so stay tuned.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

June 14th, 2009 - It’s a warm, partly sunny day here in Sucinsk, Kazakhstan. Daniel was in a great mood this morning and it’s my 44th Birthday! After awakening to a hand-drawn card by my wonderfully talented wife that has captured the essence of our trip here, we spent the morning with our boy, then to my surprise our translator and driver made it even better by presenting me with birthday gifts from Kazakhstan: A beautiful picture made from the local birch trees, a big box of really tasty chocolates…and… a bottle of Kazakhstan Vodka! Oh, it will be a really happy birthday now!!!!

This afternoon we are planning to slip our chains and venture out to the ruins of an old W.W. II German POW camp…not quite the same as climbing a mountain (Something that has become a tradition for Sue and me on my birthday) but those of you that know my love of military history know it is close. That is, as long as I can resist the Vodka’s siren song as it sits here by my elbow…

We only get to visit Danny one more day (tomorrow) before court, then a quick goodbye with him on Wednesday before we head back to Astana to fly home early the next morning. Now for some parting thoughts in case this is our last entry before leaving:

Things we’d never thought we’d say:
Great, there’s camel poop (or use your imagination!) on the stroller wheels again.
I like the Mushroom soup flavored Lay’s potato chips better than the Shish-kabob ones… and my favorite – what flavor are they depicting on the package????
This Snicker’s bar tastes like ….. I’m not eating any more chocolate – you finish it. (That was before they gave me the good stuff!)
Look honey, there’s a FOUR legged dog!
Let’s save the last Mac-n-cheese for a special occasion.
I’m looking forward to airline food.
It’s right there on the shelf next to the canned horse meat…
What flavor is that supposed to be? (the label says bacon, but the picture doesn’t seem to match)

Things we thought we’d never have to experience:
Getting busted by the national park trash collectors because we didn’t have our papers…at the top of the mountain we just climbed… where our translator and driver had to come claim us….
Stepping around the goat being milked on the sidewalk
Having my head wound taken care of by an American Veterinarian instead of their doctors, and damned happy about it!!!
Three layers of clothing and a stocking cap for our child on an almost 80 degree day (not OUR choice!)
Snow on Memorial Day
Buying “Gifts” for the court officials consisting of toad prosperity statues (Not our choice either – we’re waiting to see if our translator is setting us up for a jail sentence)
Buying court “gifts” the same place they sell water bongs and heroin incense – cheap too! 3000 Tenge (about 20 US$) for a large beautifully crafted model. (Not that I’d know!!!!)
Getting out of being shaken down by the criminals posing as cops because we didn’t speak the language (Russian), how were we supposed to know what they wanted???
Being afraid to eat the chocolate – see above

Things we miss or look forward to:
Standing under a hot shower – for a long time
Eating raw produce (Salads baby, yeah!!!!)
McDonalds – with American beef (and being sure it’s really beef)
Not having to boil our drinking water
One stop shopping – “sorry, no eggs again.”
Not watching where you step so as not to impale yourself on broken beer bottles or hypodermic syringes
English language!!!!!!!!


All for now!
Eric

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Still surviving

For those of you still following this blog, here is another entry. We will be going to court next Wednesday, and on Tuesday, we will go to have our hair done and be prepped by our facilitators here on what to do. (Apparently Eric’s growing 70’s hairstyle won’t cut it for court.) Actually Eric is having his hair cut, Sue is chicken-she has seen some of the styles on the street.
Our last real hike was last weekend up our little mountain here in town. It allowed us to get some nice panoramic views of the nearby lake and of the town below.
Most of our bonding time with Daniel has been fun, however, we are finding out about 2 year old attitude as well! How crazy is it to jump into parenthood during the terrible twos? He has been shuffled back to his original group now that the remodeling is over, so just finding him (!) and adjusting to his new time schedule has been a new challenge. He seems accepting to change, provided it is done slowly. We will need to gradually introduce him to change and not throw too much at him once we are home to continue to ease his adjustment from a Russian-speaking orphanage to an American home.

That’s all for now. . . .

Friday, June 5, 2009

Court date set!

Great news – we finally have our court date – June 17th. We’re flying the heck out of dodge at 4:50 am the next morning after a midnight run back to Astana, no sleep for a while! The first stop in Frankfurt (if there is time) is McD’s!!!!!!! Daniel will stay at the orphanage until we return around mid July to finish the US Embassy paperwork, etc.

The news from the orphanage is the same, we walk around the same old blocks twice a day to the point that the mongrel dogs no longer even bother to bark at us. Danny is getting almost as bored with the routine as we are. I’m starting to understand what animals at a zoo feel like! (He still loves his swing though.)

We took an “excursion” yesterday to their most famous national parks – Borovoe. Beautiful country with mountains and lakes, and were even provided with a guide for the trip who is a local secondary school teacher (teaches Russian). We got a much greater understanding of their culture and history, specifically why all peoples (Muslim and Christian or whatever) get along here – that’s a huge part of their culture with strong historical precedents. We also got to see the president of Kazakhstan’s retreat – well sort of – we saw his fence and guard houses! It was kind of like Camp David but not nearly as secretive or extravagant. We took lots of photos which you’ll have to hit us up to see when we get back. We’ll post a couple of “teasers” now. Yesterday was our translator, Medina’s, birthday as well, so we took our driver, translator and guide out to a Kazakhstan lunch. It was really good!! Actually the plov (a rice, meat and vegetable mixture) that we all ate is actually Uzbekistani according to Medina, which explains the taste and digestibility!

That’s it for now. It is time for our nightly movie.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Bonding Period over!!!!!

Day 14 of our voluntary captivity. Today is our last official bonding day. Now we submit papers to the court and wait….and wait…and continue to visit Daniel in the orphanage. It’s been a rainy couple of days so the sidewalks are once again quagmires and it has limited our mobility, but the sun is out now and has lifted our spirits.
Danny’s group finally moved into their remodeled room today – which in itself is an interesting story. Danny had previously started bonding with another couple a few months ago, who found out upon their arrival here that the woman was unexpectedly pregnant! They chose to stop the bonding, gave all their gifts (we may have already wrote about this…) and donated the rest of the program money for remodeling of the orphanage – thus Danny’s group’s new room compliments of his previous aborted adoption.

As we are starting the legal process now, our entries will be further apart since we will be occupied with other matters.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Children's Protection Day

Today was Kazakhstan’s national holiday celebrating children, roughly translated to Children’s Protection Day. We were treated to a special show featuring many of Danny’s group. (The easiest one to point out is the only little girl) The children sang, danced, recited and played games with the teachers (in costume). Many of the dances were to (we presume!) their cultural folk songs.
We didn’t understand hardly any of it, but it was fun just the same and will be an important addition to his life book. Danny seemed to enjoy it as well and clapped along with the tunes, and was rewarded at the end with a bag of sandbox (beach to us!) toys and a really messy chocolate covered sandwich cookie.
It is customary to give your children gifts or in this case their care-givers. We presented the orphanage director with a box of Russian Bonbons for the staff (I don’t know how it made it 2 days in the refrigerator untouched!) which he seemed to be genuinely surprised and pleased to receive. We'll see tomorrow after he opens the card which we signed in cyrillic if we did it right...
Danny is showing off his new pair of shades (and American attitude!) in this photo.

It’s been raining and will continue to do so for a few days. The mud here is terrible so even if it stops for a bit it is not too inviting to venture out. Still stir crazy in our apartment – today Eric tried to cheat Sue out of her turn to wash dishes for something to do – unsuccessfully. Tomorrow is the last official bonding day – then it’s waiting for the court date which could be a few weeks out. We’ll see…