We're getting more adventurous!!!

Well, we have been very busy, and are very proud of ourselves! We had a good visit with Matthew - we found out he can be fussy! Matthew is the cutest, smartest, most adorable boy, I don't know why I didn't see this from the start! It must have been the jet lag! We had a FULL room on Saturday as we were joined by a couple from California who usually visits in the afternoon, and the baby of a couple who went home to Spain to wait out their 15 days. That made five couples and their babies, their translators and the extra baby and translator! Michael and I snuck into the bedroom with Matthew while the caregivers had their arms full of other peoples children! So that way we got to put him in bed ourselves!

We had a craving for Chinese food after our visit. While we were waiting for our driver (he got stuck in traffic and was an hour late picking us up??!!!) we asked Aliya where a Chinese restaurant was. She told our driver where to take us and told us which buses would get us home! That's right, we rode the bus in Kazakhstan. You might wonder why this is such a big deal, but you have to remember that the last time I rode a city bus I was about 8 and with Aunt Sherry or Aunt Sam in Brandon! However, Michael wasn't too worried b/c he has ridden buses in Winnipeg before (except here they don't have anything saying what the bus routes actually are). Anyway, it is cheap, cheap, cheap! Only 35 tenge per person or less than $0.30!!! We stood at one stop and waited for quite awhile before we realized that our bus stop was across the street and down a bit. Once on the bus, someone comes around to collect the money! Our bus started off fairly empty but we were laughing as it became a clown car. At every stop more people got on and very few got off. Before you knew it, we were crammed like sardines and had to squeeze through a wall of people to get off! Michael wants to just pick a certain numbered bus, get on it and see where it goes, because he figures that if that bus came here, it should come back here as well.

But back to the Chinese restaurant for a minute. We were hoping like mad it would be buffet. It wasn't and no one spoke English. We were sitting like idiots, wondering if we should close our eyes and just point to a spot on the Russian menu, when one of the hostesses came over with a photo album filled with pictures of every dish, and a computer print off of the corresponding dishes in English! Bless her! We had two VERY tasty dishes and a kind of fried bread which was also fabulous. The decor was beautiful and we felt underdressed. Maybe that's why they seated us behind a folding divider! They were very courteous and the service was fabulous - they stand just far enough off to be out of your way but close enough to notice your tea cup is half empty so they can refill it! The food was still sizzling when it arrived, but the best part was the air conditioning!!!!

We came back to our apartment at around 8:15pm and I, Michael saw a couple young guys playing basketball on the single basketball hoop on the court beside our apartment. I told Jennifer I should see if I could shoot around with them and to my suprise they knew english and before long, a few more arrived and we were playing a 3 on 3 game. When the one guy on our time realized I was from Canada, he would call me Steve Nash, as he is originally from Toronto. We took these other guys to school and I was enjoying the exercise so much I may have overdid it. Jennifer became worried when it was 10pm and still no sign of me, until shortly after I came to the apartment b/c I finally came to the conclusion that these guys were half my age and I was going to kill myself. Here is a picture of myself right after I got up to the apartment. I do plan on playing again just to burn off some of the extra energy I have.

Yes, I worked up a little swet - felt good, except I felt quite sore on Sunday!

Today, after a very welcome phone call from home (thanks Mom, Dad and Jamie!)(by the way, thanks Tracy for your call too!)and after the success of yesterday, we decided to take the bus to the Presidential Palace and a tower that is featured on all the money (but we can't remember the name!) We went up to the top of the tower and got some great shots of the city! I think it is 105 meters tall! They have a table that has a bronze hand print in it - you are supposed to put your hand in it and make a wish!

This is the tower. I think it is called the Byterik.

A view from the top of the Presidential palace!

Then for supper we tried the restaurant that is right next door to us. It was boiling hot with no breeze so the very obliging waiter moved us from the patio to an air conditioned room. The decor was amazing! We were seated at a table in the middle of the room. Along one side there were raised booths that were curtain off and along the other, private rooms. I had meat in a Kazak fashion which was like a horse meat stew! Yes, I ate horse! It was delicious, and actually tastes like beef. I wouldn't have known the difference if I had't read it on the menu! The waiter asked me several times did I realize it was horse! I wasn't the only one to order this dish though, Marwan and Tony did also! It was Peter's birthday today, so I thought we should have had a candle to stick in the mouth of the sea bass he ordered!
There was a wedding in the room across from us. We all really wanted to go crash it! We did get to see the bride when they came out for pictures on the "board walk"- she had a beautiful dress!

Here we all are at supper. Thanks Tony and Maegan for the photo!


Tony and Maegan & Annette and Marwan all go to court monday! I hope everything goes well. I'm sure it will. Aliya told us saturday that Astana court is one of the best/easiest in Kazkahstan. That makes us feel a bit better.

Here are a few more interesting things about life in Astana:

- Milk is usually not refrigerated in the grocery stores. It comes in a tetra pack and just sits on a shelf. The expirey date is for 2008!
- Not all containers that look like they contain cow's milk actually do - sometimes it is yogurt or milk from other animals!
- Never assume something will not be available or will be more expensive here. I just found my favorite line of moisturizer here at the Ramstore. At home I am excited when I find it for $10, and I even brought two just to make sure I don't run out. Not only is it here, but apparently it costs less than $6 USD. Dang it.
- Lines mean nothing - if people here see a gap they assume that it means they are suppose to fill it. Apparently the way they think it that "I might as well before someone else does!" While waiting to get on the elevator to go up the tower, a whole family of about 8 suddenly appeared out of nowhere just as the doors opened! We got on after them! Also, at the Ram store, it can get quite busy, but if someone tries to cut in line with handfulls of stuff like us, Michael gives them a friendly Canadian look and they think again. (heh, heh!)
- Children are the same everywhere! They drive their bikes through puddles the same here as at home! They are attracted to puddles, they love to take risks like riding skateboards down slides, and they grin back at you when you smile at them!

The view back towards our apartment from the "board walk". The yellow building is the Ramstore, our building is behind the big white building.

I HATE COMPUTERS aka Pink Sweater Days

If this computer wasn't such a life line to home, it would be sailing out our ninth floor window right now!!!! Apparently the blog I just finished, didn't save properly and then didn't post properly. Now I have to start all over again. AAAAAAHHHHHHH.

Anyway, as I seem to have recently written, we have been busy these last few days, but not at anything specific. It has been a very comfortable temperature as well.

Life in the baby house is good. Matthew is doing well. He is rolling like mad (this is the fastest mode of transportation right now!) He is also scooting on his belly but he does not like to sit! He will sit for about 20 seconds before laughing and pitching himself backwards. Daddy even bought him a "sitting hippo" to encourage him, but he wants no part of it! He will probably be walking before he sits as he loves to stand and bounce, as well.

Yesterday, we got in trouble for not having enough clothes on Matthew. The doctor caught us with him only in a onesie, no socks! ooops. She spoke crossly to the translator in Russian, but we caught the gist of it ... she indicated a fever, said Milat, said Kate and pointed to her all nicely dressed in jeans and long sleeve shirt and then to Matthew in his onesie! We quickly put his socks back on (I had taken them off since it is actually quite warm in the play room and Matthew like to dig his toes in to scoot easier) and pulled them up to his knees as knee-highs (like his big cousin Shawn!)

I got to put him in his bed after the visit! He had just dozed off in my arms as we made our way back to his room and when I laid him in his crib, he started to cry and reached for me! Of course I had to pick him back up! We cuddled for a minute and then he was fine. He is starting to bond!!

We went to the "Baby Mall" last evening to get him some pants that fit - several of them have feet and are actually a little big even though we thought they would be small! We also got some socks that are more his size. We still need to get him a sweater since we keep having to borrow one from the baby house and they always give us pink ones! Michael is not to impressed, but I keep telling him Matthew is being Belgian because I am sure someone told me that in Belgium, it is perfectly appropriate to dress baby boys in pink. (Is that right, Evelyn?) He looks cute none the less!

Today we enjoyed a walk outside. Matthew was busy looking around, taking everything in from trees to vehicles. When we had to take him back for his nap, the really nice caregiver (who lets us wash him up after breakfast as opposed to the other one who never lets us wash him and reluctantly lets us change his diaper and dress him) tried to take him but he just smiled at her, turned his back and cuddled into to Michael's arms!!! She laughed, tickled him (Matthew, not Michael) and tried again. But he still wouldn't go to her!!! Michael's heart melted into a puddle at this!

Also, we (all the parents) are pretty much banned from the main room while the children are being fed. We distract them from the job at hand (eating) with our smiling and waving! Of course we all have to go in for a minute, just to let them know we are there and to see how close we are to getting our children (meaning who is eating, who is done eating and who is still waiting to eat!) Matthew recognises us and gives us big smiles when he sees us come in!

Here are some things that we have found interesting about like in Kazakhstan:

1. You are allowed to drink beer while walking down the street! Of course Michael had to try this out!
2. Goods have no tax! This is very easy to get used to!
3. Women are expected to drink their beer and other fizzy drinks through straws! It is very funny to see bendy straws sticking out of big beer mugs!
4. Movies come out on DVD much earlier and cheaper here. We found Spider Man III here, in English as well for only 950 tenge or $7.79USD! Movies are dubbed into not only Russian but Hungarian as well and have between 7 & 20 different subtitle languages!
5. Restaurant checks include the gratuities.
6. Apparently when you ask for the check, never, never, never say "check, check" because you will get a dessert - which apparently is not to North American tastes! (This tip from Meaghan -sorry about the name spelling again & Tony, and Annette & Marwan!!!)
7. Our driver speaks mainly to Michael (pretty much the only time he has spoken to me was to comment on the fact that I wore glasses instead of contacts!) and he keeps catching Michael yawning! Then he laughs as he mimics him!

We went out for supper with our new friends again and as usual, had lots of fun! We were supposed to have pasta but couldn't find the right place at the mall. It turns out I actually knew where it was but only clued in when we walked past it on our way out. Ooops. Oh well, next time. At least our pizza supper was cheap. It was about 1700 tenge per couple which was about $14 USD including beer!

That's all for now folks! I am tired after all my blog problems! It is 10:47pm here and and we are going to watch a movie! No pictures today because they take forever to upload and our time card is almost empty!

No dial tone!

Sorry, when Jennifer went to write in the blog, there was no dial tone - or that is her story anyway. No, you all no Jennifer doesn't lie, but now we must head off to see our little Matthew so we will post later when we get back for the two days. I inquired more about high speed internet, more for the fact that supposedly you can phone back home through the high speed for like 3 cents/minute, so that would be nice. Especially when I go home and I want to talk to Jennifer. I have my doubts that we will get it b/c Jila had also tried, but I want to talk to the landlord directly. The frustrating part is that we never met our landlord until this man came for the rent for the month. It was a little awkward, especially when he doesn't speak any english, and with our lack of Russian. Anyway, there are a few things that need fixing in the apartment and we don't know where we are supposed to put our garbage, as there is no dumpster to be found anywhere. Better get going, or I'm going to be in trouble!

Name time!

I (Michael) decided to get up and do some work on the computer - it was 5:45 am when I did, but the internet gave me nothing but grief. This dial up connection is real frustrating, not because it is slower, we are used to that at home, but because all the other couples get high speed hooked up with their cable. They get high speed for a reasonable price, plus they can phone home using their high speed and it only costs them 3 cents per minute. And here we are, having to spend about $10 for each I-card and get about 7 hrs. per card unless we go online between 2 and 8 am, then the time quadruples. Anyway, I am going to look into that some more today.

Anyhow, it is now an hour later and I am just working on the blog, b/c it wouldn't let me earlier.
When we got to the baby house, we got to sneak a peak of our little guy eating, and boy they really stuff the food in. But he is a very good eater and doesn't mind one bit as he actually kept one hand on the caregivers to make sure she didn't go anywhere. He looks much better today as his rash seems to be mostly gone, but can still see a little bit. If he was allergic to the fruit tea, so much the better b/c all that is is pure sugar and water. Jennifer got him some pear juice yesterday that you mix with water, and that is supposed to be very mild.

Since we are not supposed to post any pictures of Kaz, I finally convinced Jennifer that we should then give out his given name and our chosen name, and some other details. His given name is MILAT, which he never really responds to anyway, so we decided to go with MATTHEW(which means "gift of God" and seems very appropriate) (we aren't sure one T or two Ts yet!- negotiations are on going!) for his first name. We have been calling him M&M for short! [My (JJ's) turn for a minute - We wanted to use Geoffrey, after my (Jennifer's) Uncle Geoff. The story I have been told is he and his wife tried to adopt a little boy in the 50's I believe. They even had a little red headed boy they were set to adopt when the birth family took him back because Uncle Geoff and Aunt Betty were the wrong religion. Uncle Geoff would have made the most awesome dad and the story is especially poignant for us. Unfortunately, he really doesn't look like a Geoffrey, at all.]


We are also ready to give a little more info: Matthew was born early at 32 wks on December 11, 2006, weighed about 3 lbs and is now 14lbs and 25" long! He has the most beautiful, deep, deep brown eyes and long lashes! He also has my chin and cheeks and Michael's shape of eyebrow. His eye shape is similar to Michael as well (our coordinator commented on this right away!) He is quite the roller and likes to scoot, on his tummy or his back! He would rather lounge than sit! He will sit for a little bit before throwing himself over and grinning at us.

Back to M. We had a very nice visit with Matthew as he was back to his good ol' self. He is a very happy baby and he only fussed a little bit when he started to get tired. He was also doing lots of talking and he gets this cute laugh that sounds like a giggle. Also, more to the end of our visit, he was very cuddly and was concentrating more on our faces. I think he is finally starting to bond with us. When it was finally time to go, I got to put him into his crib myself, which may seem like a small thing but to me it wasn't.

We did our usual stuff in the afternoon, except I wasn't feeling that great so Jennifer decided to go to the Ram store by herself. She wasn't gone that terribly long, but she smelt strongly of beer when she got back. Apparently, she was grabbing a couple of bottles of MGD of the circular shelf, and with her purse over her shoulder the purse caught another bottle and it went falling to the floor with a loud smash. I guess there was dead silence, and the beer went everywhere and Jennifer says that lots of it somehow ended up on her. (JJ- Yeah, from head to toe including all over my glasses. When I do a job, I do it right! That is one more reason why my parents didn't name me Grace!) And this wasn't a regular sized bottle that we usually got (like the ones in Canada), but was about 50 % larger. Oh yeah, they also made very sure that she paid for this broken bottle when she got to the counter. (JJ again- After lots of gesturing and people staring, they escorted me to the check-out and loudly told the cashier to charge me for an extra "Meeller"!) I'm kind of glad I wasn't there to share her embarassment.

Anyway, tonite was movie night, and now that we knew the city (or at least the part we walk and where we drive to the baby house), getting to Marwan and Annettes was going to be a lot easier. We ended up meeting up with Tony and Meghan on our way there. And yes Marwan and Annette have a very nice apartment! We ended up watching the movie RV, which has Robin Williams in it and it is great for a ball of laughs. We loved it and would watch it again. We ended up going to the supermarket, that was close by, after the movie. There we found a noisy toy for Matthew and some other keepsakes.

Since we can't post any pictures of Mathew (which most of the pictures are of) these will have to do for now.

Some interesting architecture.

A stray dog and its pups - just click to enlarge picture.

What Next?!

We were full of anticipation this morning since it had been two days since we had seen Kaz and were wondering how he was feeling. We drove over to our translators apartment but it turns out that there was flooding at her parents village and she wasn't able to get out! She is supposed to be back in Astana for Tuesday. When we arrived at the baby house we found Kaz had no fever, but a bumpy rash all over his face, neck and hands. The doctor told us she thinks it is an allergic reaction to the "fruit tea" that we had to provide. In spite of all its benefits, fruit tea is full of sugar, so we wouldn't be sorry if we can't give it to him anymore! He is on meds for the rash, so hopefully it clears up soon. It makes his face look a little puffy. I just hope he isn't allergic to us!!!

It was a little cooler (ie: lovely and a relief) with a nice breeze. We had to have Kaz totally covered (his jeans are so big they had to be rolled!) and we borrowed a pink sweater (much to Michael's shagrin)! We had to be careful he didn't get a chill. He was fairly active though, rolling everywhere and scooting, that he stayed very warm and became a little sweaty! By 11:30 he was pretty sleepy and it wasn't hard to rock him to sleep. He slept until it was time to go back to his room. Hopefully tomorrow he will be better.

We went for a business lunch (buffet) at the Taj Mahal again. On our walk back, we stopped at the video store on the off chance that they carried videos that came in English too. (Apparently I brought too many chick flicks, although M did have a chance to add some but didn't want to at the time!) They actually do, so Michael bought a couple. We are surprised that fairly new films (like that one with Nicolas Cage where he rides a fiery motorcycle) are only 950 tenge which is $7.78 USD! The one we watched yesterday had Engligh, Russian and Hungarian for languages as well as about 10 different languages for subtitles!

We went for supper with the other families from Kaz's room. We are now four couples that visit at the same time, with the children now being 2 girls and 2 boys! We really enjoy these outings - we have lots of laughs and find out we are all having or have had the same doubts, fears and joys! It makes you feel that what you are feeling is completely normal! Tomorrow night we are going for movie night and are excited about the a/c! (Just kidding Annette and Marwan, that is not why we are excited! At least not the main reason!)

We hurried back after supper since we were enjoying ourselves so much we almost forgot that our coordinator Bayan was coming by between 8 an 9. She had some info for us and took our child acceptance form to email to CAFAC for us. We will petition the court for a date for our hearing on Aug. 3. Our court date should be about 10 days after that. That is good news, but also sad for me (and M) since that means he will be leaving shortly after the court date. But the good news is, Sarah will be coming shortly after that! Hey Sarah- I already have some clothing store staked out with our names on them!!!)

Well, I am jealous that M is sleeping like a baby the whole time I have been working like a dog over this blog!!! I am going to save what I have and try to get a couple more hours of sleep. We'll post after M adds his two cents and spell checks mine!! What a team!

A fountain we found on our walk last weekend.

This is a view from the Ministry of Education parking lot or the mall right beside it. I love the three buildings that look like sail boats to me. If you look between them and the long building, you will see the apartment (the one with the dome) that is right in front of ours!