Day 5 (Thursday May 1, 2003) – Relief for us on a Kazakh Holiday

Relief in many differing realms today.  The weather, the crying, some inconvenience concerns and some reassurances.

Today it has cooled off quite a bit.  Actually needed a jacket today.  (Of course, you now can see the weather update from a link on our home page….another of the many thanks that go out to our webmaster extraordinaire, Al Schwartz!  I also dig the Kazakh flag waving.  Nice touch, Al.)  Roza picked us up at the usual time (10:00 am) and off we sped to the orphanage.  Roza has been nice enough to take a different route each day, so that we can see as much of the city as possible.  I think she’s also doing this to confuse us so that we don’t make any midnight runs to the orphanage on our own!

It was a breakthrough on the crying circuit as well, because this was the first day she (Alia that is) didn’t cry as soon as she was brought to us.  Actually Alia was quite happy and content all day.  Kerstan is just a blast, smart as a whip and progressing each day on his bonding with Pam.  We are kept in the same room during visitation, which I hear is unusual, but is a good idea in our case.  Since we’re in the apartment together, we’ll have the kids together with us after court and until we leave (up to a week).  So it is good that the kids get used to all of us together.  Also Pam has been a wealth of knowledge and support, we really are very happy with our situation here in Almaty (great apartment in a decent area, awesome roommate and the Frank Foundation has some tremendous people working for us: Gallina, Roza and Sagat).

In case I haven’t mentioned this before, our visitations are from 10:30 until noon and 2:30 until 4:00.  We therefore, always have about 2 ˝ hours to kill during lunch.  Today we visited the Ramstore again.  We had lunch (shish kebobs) and I spent some time at the Internet café finishing up Day 4’s update.   We then went back to the apartment to discuss finances with Gallina and for her to answer questions.  We found how much our per diem was (and I think we are getting a GREAT deal, seriously) and we were also able to give her the money today.  Thank the Lord.  I was getting so tired of having that money pouch hanging over my neck and under my clothes.  One, I was just a little uneasy carrying that much cash around and two, it was just plain uncomfortable wearing.  She also mentioned that we probably wouldn’t be able to get out on our scheduled flight (May 16^th) but she was going to give it the old college try.  She told us not to make any changes yet, and we’ll know a little better after court (still scheduled for Monday May 12^th).  There is a lot that goes on after the adoption proceedings.   First, the birth certificate is issued along with an amended birth certificate with us as parents.  Then, Gallina has to fly to the Kazakh capitol Astana to get Alia’s passport issued.  We then have to go to an American Medical Center to have the baby checked out and ok’d for entry into the US.  Then the next step is to the US Embassy here in Almaty to get her US immigrant Visa.  After all of that is done, we can then come home.  And unfortunately each of those steps cannot be done until the previous step is finished.  Can’t get the passport without the amended birth certificate, can’t get the physical without the passport, etc.

We returned to the orphanage a little after 2:30 with the kids waiting for us.  The kids are set up in some really “interesting” outfits and are always (even when it was in the 90’s) bundled up in several layers.  Today they each had four layers on.  Today is also a Kazakh national holiday (there equivalent of Labor Day), so the staffing is somewhat limited at the orphanage.  The way they work it here is, they celebrate the holiday today (Thursday) and give everybody off Friday as well and Saturday is a regular day off, but since they got those three days off they’ll have to go into work on Sunday.

We had an interesting conversation with Gallina (through Roza of course) while visiting the kids.  Gallina mentioned to Pam that Karsten was definitely an orphanage favorite.  He was actually wanted by a Kazakh politician’s family at one time, it fell through obviously (Thank God) and Pam is going to have no problems with Karsten’s development because he’s so smart.  Gallina also mentioned that the Frank Foundation had called Gallina personally after our first referral fell through and said, “Please, please, Gallina find perfect baby for Yannone family.   They good people find best baby girl for them.”  Well, we can’t be happier with the baby Gallina found for us.  She’s a winner and we will be forever grateful for Datz, Frank and particularly Gallina for putting us together with our daughter.  She also said we should have no problems with the rest of the process and the court petition.  Whew!  Oh yeah, we did play with the kids too this afternoon.  Alia was quite fetching in her Amish hat and again was pleasant and fun to be around.  Kerstan is also one of the best peek-a-boo players in all of Central Asia and soon-to-be vying for the title in the Chicago area as well.

We did a little rug shopping after we left the orphanage.  And Leilani is working me for a Kazakh or Persian rug for the kitchen AND dining room.  Do I have to go back into my question of…why do we have to buy something just because it’s a great deal?  I guess $80 for a 6’ x 9’ handmade Kazakh rug is a good deal, but we still would have to get it home.   We’ll see.  After rug shopping, we hit the market the local food market for my first venture into preparing a Kazah-style pasta dinner.  I made some garlic bread and some tri-color pasta with a homemade marina sauce with fresh tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, cured olives but unfortunately no basil to be found anywhere.  It came out darn good (if I say so myself).  Look for the recipe in my next cookbook “Joey cooks Kazak”.

The ladies hit the rack at around 10:00 pm.  I as usual could not go to sleep and tried hooking onto the net around 11:00 pm.   Well I found the answer to a quicker connection; wait until late at night.  I was actually able to download all the files for days 3 & 4 at this time.  Happiness is a stable Internet connection at apartment.

Write to you all soon.

 Click on the Thumnails to Enlarge the Picture

Calling Fashion Emergency! This is how our beauty greeted us this morning. Biggest breakthrough...not a tear on seeing us. And she's very happing at her new clapping ability (actually she was applauding cuz I said I'd put the camera away soon).

The mighty Karsten showing off his weightlifting skills to his proud mama.

Moooooom! Didn't Dad promise to put that camera away?

I'm a walkin Can't ya see I'm a walking Just you and me.....

Daddy makes me laugh! (Was there any doubt?) By the way...note to readers...that's just an optical illusion on the back of my head...in no way is that hair loss...really....I mean it....nifty trick photography, huh?

Karsten blowing a huge bubble (actually playing ballon catch with Pam). Notice that the orphanage is pushing his future alma mater Georgia Tech.

There's our coordinator Gallina assuring a smile out of Alia

I told you it wouldn't be long before we saw major smiles from our main man Karsten. He & Pam enjoying a laugh (I told them I would cook dinner tonight).

Still not used to those American pacifiers yet. She keeps putting the hard plastic part in her mouth instead of the nipple (major teething going on here).

Leilani in another zone while Alia reads.

Motoring along showing off her crawling skills to mommy.

Here's the photo that will cause a collective "aaawwwwwwww, how cute!" out of the entire Yannone family. Alia petting the picture of her big cousin (and Godmother) Nicole. Yeah, see seemed real interested in you too Chris.

Kartsten playing peek-a-boo. He says "Hello. Can't wait to meet my big sisters Olivia and Taylor and the rest of the Oettel clan." Quite the vocabulary on the little guy.

This is the outfit that greeted us in the afternoon. She's very pleased to see mommy and is happy that she won't need to wear the amish outfit after she gets back to the US.

Chowin' down on a little plastic duck (quite the delicacy I'm told).

Karsten playing with one of his new toys.

Alia making her audition tape for American Idol.

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