Day 1...A Good Day.

Wednesday, June 07

This was the kids today as we had a celebration dinner out. Notice Sasha is sporting a new hair style. He has been experimenting all week and is feeling pretty good about this one. When it was straight up earlier today with black shades he looked like a young "Terminator"

Today we took life at a much more leisurely pace. The last few days have left us a little tired and we needed to recharge our batteries. We slept in till 8:30 but the kids really did not get up until after 9. Sasha actually ate breakfast and went back to bed and played a little Gameboy. If we let Stella she would stay in her pajamas till lunch and play in bed all day but since their bedroom is our den we have to put the bed up and get dressed so we feel like we are accomplishing big tasks. We are into that completion thing. There is really not a lot to say about today so I will try to make it as exciting as possible since we have been downright exciting the last few days.

I spent the morning on Skype talking to Mom and Robin and Alex. Skype is such a wonderful thing! We finally got dressed and headed up for our lunch in Marina’s apartment. When we got there several of the ladies that work with Marina were up there and they had just had a manicure and pedicure. Marina asked me if I would like to have one as well. I heard myself say ok not knowing what I was getting into. So towards the end of lunch Marina came up to me and said the lady was waiting for me in the den. I went into the den and a lady came in shortly with a tub of soapy water and told me to put my feet in, of course I did as told. It is what you do in Kaz. Anyways this really nice lady proceeded to give me a really good pedicure. I decided not to be concerned with the fact that she did not pull her tools out of a hermetically sealed pouch or had a special case of tools with my name on it. No, no, no…I have eaten who knows what and gone with the flow so I decided to trust this to be fine as well so now I have happy feet!

Since we did not really celebrate we decided to do a few fun things today like “go magazine”. We have been calling our adoption a “big day” so Sash has been using it to the full potential. Whenever we are contemplating whether to do something like eat out for dinner he says it is “big day” and then there you go! So we went shopping and decided we were going to get the kids a little something special and we also decided to purchase a new fan for our bedroom to keep it cool and a little noise to drown out some noises. We have an older fan that Garrett has been nursing back to health but we have finally decided it is a goner and we will donate one to the apartment. So we called Nastya and she was available and willing to be seen with us so we were off for an adventure and a bus ride.

After securing our fan the kids were eyeing a few treasures that they might like to have. Sasha was negotiating for a calendar/clock thing when I believe God gave me an epiphany moment. We decided to give the kids 1000 tenge each ($9.00usd) and let them decide what they wanted to celebrate the, you guessed it, “big day”. Their faces lit up and they were so excited and Sasha said “thank you”! Well we spent the next hour or so watching a whole new thing. It was so much fun to watch them become little consumers. Suddenly the very thing we thought they were going to get was not so interesting. We went to several different stores while they discovered how much things are and suddenly that 1000 tenge was not as big. They finally went to a toy store where they found a bunch of Barbie Stuff. Well, let me tell you I do not know how much Barbie is at home but she is a pretty penny over here. They found one that looked interesting at 6000 tenge which is about $50.00. Kinda steep! Meanwhile Stella found a tiny baby with a crib and all that important baby stuff and it was only 500 tenge. Finally they decided, after asking the clerk the price of practically everything in the store, on some furniture for the barbies at home. Rada brought her collection over for Stella and Sash to have something to play with since we have a lot of downtime and she has a surfer Ken that Sash has taking care of. Ken has a lot of needs though. He needs a cool pad! He is a regular guy and has all these Barbie babes around so he has to look good, you understand. There was just one problem. Ken’s apartment was 1250 tenge. Being the excellent negotiator that he is he made a bargain with his sister. They divided everything up in their minds right there in the store and they made the purchase. We thought we were going to leave but Stella still had 250 tenge burning a hole in Garrett’s pocket. She had her eye on just the thing she needed a cell phone! It was just the right price. She was so funny too. Afterwards she walked around and talked and talked to who knows who on her phone. At one point in a crowd she had her finger in her ear so she could hear the imaginary person on the other line. Girls!

So tonight Ken is resting comfortably on his bed and baby is sleeping in her crib after her bath of course. It has been a good day and more importantly we are one day closer…