Monday, 24 April

Hello, it was another sunny day in Karaganda and a bit warmer too, which is always a bonus in my mind. We didn’t venture out of the house until about 1430 and took a walk to the big park with the lake. The boys drew with sticks in the sand and played kick the empty Coke bottle while watching 3 Kazakh boys swim in the very cold and very dirty lake. They seemed to be having a great time. All the power to them by making the best of what they’ve got! I was envious of all of the runners enjoying an afternoon run in the sun. I know not being able to run on a daily basis has added to a bit of my grumpiness about being here for what seems like forever and a day. I really miss my daily runs amongst the Amish Farms. I miss my extended family, my friends and my daily life in the United States. We found out today Tim and Ian will depart early Sunday morning for Almaty. They should arrive in Almaty around 1030 and don’t depart for Frankfurt 0145 Monday morning, so I think they’ll have to spend the day in a hotel or be quite bored in the Almaty airport for hours on end. We had read that there was an evening flight that they had hoped to take, but no such luck. It’s really sinking in that I’ll be leaving Ian for nearly a month. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tim with all of my heart, but we are accustomed to leaving one another on a regular basis due to his job. Now my Ian, well, I’ve never been away from him for more than 2 days in his entire life. I will miss him dearly and although I know he will be safe and happy to be at home with his Daddy, his Grammy Mim and his Honey, his friends from preschool, his house, his toys, etc.; as a mother I feel a great sense of abandonment about leaving him for so long. After our afternoon jaunt we headed to the Assorti Café 2 blocks down the street for dinner around 1800. We ran into about 4 or 5 American families either beginning or ending their second trip. I believe the majority of them are adopting infants. One couple had their son, Calvin, with them. He was a little peanut, but adorable and very inquisitive. It was the first time we had seen and spoke with Americans for more than 30 seconds, which was nice. I can see where having some American companionship would greatly enhance the adoption process while in Kazakhstan. In some ways it may be easier just having the 2 of us here. I plan to really hone in on his sign language and English as well as working on proper behavior within a family environment. A quick question for any of the Kazakhstan yahoo group readers: has there been any news on the adoption of Liam and Aidan, they were on the RocktheKaz blogspot or the Hunt adoption blog? There was also a nice story about a family adopting 3 older girl siblings from Livinsky Orphanage in Karaganda? Any news would be greatly appreciated as our internet connection is so dang slow I never get a chance to surf and get updated on how families are coming along. Time to go as it’s nearly time to tuck our boys into their lavish sofa sleeper for night-night!! Paka-