It's the weekend!

It's Saturday and we found out, to our delight, that we would be able to go to the baby house (that is what they call an orphanage over here). I was wondering if traffic would be less on a Saturday morning and it turned out that it was a little lighter, but not by much. And just by looking around, Saturday turns out to be just as busy a workday as any weekday. I think, for the most part, they work 6 days a week here and only take Sundays off.

It was very nice out in the morning so we thought we would go down a little earlier, but just as we stepped outside, our driver showed up. We were the first to arrive at the baby house. (Michael started and now apparently it is my turn!) We had to wait quite awhile since they were still feeding the babies. There is now a new couple from Washington joining our group. We all visited in the little waiting room where our children's lockers are, while we waited for our children to finish eating. The doctor arrived about this time and although Kaz had no fever today (Yea!!!) she indicated that we could still only visit for 1/2hr. We were disappointed but decided to look at it as they are only looking out for our child's best interests. He was much better though, laughing more and more active.

After watching some DVD and having a nap, we set out for a walk to go shopping and exploring. We walked around for about three hours. One store in particular, the "baby mall" we tried to find, but either they moved it or they refaced it in the last three days (don't laugh too hard, some buildings apparently have been so changed in the last month that even our translator can't tell us where certain places are)!

Horse statue on the beautiful walkway along the river usually that makes a great meeting point - kind of halfway between us and the other couples.

We went to a mall and found a souvineer place where we bought stacking dolls and a little felt Kazak boy doll. We also bought a DVD player for about $55 which will also work at home. We have been watching movies on our laptop and would be quite content to do so except we have a HUGE widescreen tv staring at us from across the room, just begging us to watch a movie on it!

To continue, it is now Sunday. We actually went to bed at a decent time last night and slept through until around 6:30/7:00! Today we went to the Ram store to buy some food and a broom! Especially since I seem to be hard on plates (have already dropped and broken 2 - we will never have tile in our kitchen!). We then had naps, watched a movie and played "Family Feud" on the computer. Our email isn't working so we created a temporary one on a hotmail account. We sent it to both parents to forward, so ask them if you want it! We had a few phone calls today and have to think twice to realize that it is the phone ringing, since it doesn't happen often! These were all local calls, and one must have been a wrong number because the woman kept speaking Russian! Even my "Ya negavaru paruski" didn't help. She just kept talking and I just kept saying that I didn't understand her! Finally she gave up and hung up (I didn't want to hang up first so I wouldn't insult her)! Of course Michael was very helpful - sitting on the couch belly laughing!

This evening we went for a walk and then for supper with Annette and Marwan. We really enjoyed it and found out that we have had many similar experiences! We walked across the bridge to the park across the river from us. It is beautiful - there is a beach (mostly pebble), amusement park and paths to walk on. There are even swans!

This is the front entrance to our apartment

View from same side as entrance (facing east) from our 9th floor apartment!