In Almaty

We are in Almaty! We feel like we are so much closer to home even though we are only two hours away from Ust. The flight was short and Askar and Haley were good on the flight. Haley got a little sick from the turbulence though. Again, Askar is surprising us with how well he is coping with all these new situations. He only cried a little and slept and ate most of the time. Almaty is nicer and more modern than Ust. There are mountain ranges all around the city and the view is beautiful. There is still snow on the mountain tops. I will take a picture next time we are out. The buildings are similar to the ones in Ust but in better shape than Ust. We are in a nice apartment about 20 minutes from the airport. We plan to do something around here tomorrow. The internet connection seems much better so far also. The grocery store is more modern like the ones at home. We were able to buy peanut butter and bread like ours there too!

The picture of the apartment building is the one we stayed in in Ust. In front of the apartment, there is a table on the ground in front of the cars where they sell fruits, vegetables and milk. Every morning a milk man goes to the table with big metal containers full of milk and people line up with their bottles and have them filled and give him money. The other pictures are from an amusement park that we went to the other day. It wasn't modern but it was fun. Haley loved it. The last picture was taken on the way to the airport.

We're Going to Almaty!

We're going to Almaty tomorrow morning. It will be a 2 hour plane ride and then we will stay in an apartment there. Early next week we will go to the medical clinic, to the U.S. Embassy interview THEN WE GO HOME ON WEDNESDAY!! WHEHOO!

In the pictures, you will see us at the zoo and in the apartment. The girl in the camel picture is Sveta, our interpreter.

Everything is Fine Here in KZ

Everything is fine here in KZ. We have our good and bad moments with Askar but overall he is doing very well. He is very happy and so cute for 90% of the day but then he his moments. He has a sense of humor and makes us laugh. Good moments with him are eating, playing and exploring things in the apartment. Tougher moments are changing clothes, washing up, going to sleep, going outside and going in the car. When he has his bad moments, his tantrums are extreme especially when he has to go to bed or when he doesn't want to stop eating. When we are outside, he likes going into the stroller (which he didn’t at first.) He also likes watching Haley, the cars, people and dogs when we are outside. Two days ago, we bribed him to go in the car for his by telling him we were going to get ice-cream. This was his second time in the car and he cried for about a minute when we got in. Once he stopped, he just looked around breathing hard and was wide-eyed. I could feel his heart beat. He did better in the car than we thought he would. After the grocery store, we went to the zoo but it was closed. We went yesterday and it was fun. I will write more in another post before I lose this one. We've been having technical difficulties with the computer and internet.