Day 4??? Is that all...We all know it is really day 36.

Saturday, June 10th

Okay this is a test. Can you identify this child? Email us back and we will tell you later what the consensus is.

We were up late watching Robin Hood and I was working on the blog so we all slept in a bit. The kids are totally into bread over here especially Stella. She would eat 5 or 6 pieces with each meal if we let her and for snacks too. Usually they like their condensed milk with bread. I know, I know what are you feeding your kids…but if you saw how different the grocery stores are here you would understand. I just hope they do not figure out we do have it at home too! Sasha shocked us all by eating 5 yogurts for breakfast. Garrett was surprised to find they have Honey Nut Cheerios and when I bought a box for him at the grocery store Sasha was funny he said “For Papa?” I guess adults do not always eat cereal here. I do not think Sasha and Stella have eaten much cereal.

Speaking of food they love fresh fruit. At the orphanage they would get bananas which neither seems to like, and apples regularly so they are not always what they want but they have given us those tiny green apples and they eat 4 or 5 at the time. The funniest part is you give them an apple and they hand you back the stem. They eat the core seeds and all! Those thoughts of what I heard as a kid about having an apple tree growing inside come to mind.

We are enjoying our meals here but starting to have a taste for home. Our meals mostly consist of salads which are usually different combinations of carrots, cabbage, beets, radish, cucumber, tomato, potato, egg and sometimes peas and corn. They are served cold with either a vinegar based dressing or mayo-type sauce. Many times beets and tomatoes and eggs are served cut in half with mayo dabbed on top. It is always a treat when we are served chicken about every couple of days. It is usually stewed on the bone with either a fruit based or stock based broth. It is cut up into tiny pieces and is usually not breast meat. The rest of the time we have concluded is pork or sausage. It is usually in our soups which we have at each meal and the main course. We think we have not had beef served at any meal. In the beginning we thought we were getting it at each meal when we were not obviously having chicken, but we have since discovered that pig or “swina” in Russian is the main meat here. Fish was also served some in the beginning until Garrett had the dreaded fish reaction and they decided to stop the fish. They also have hot dogs which is the universal favorite of all children. The kids light up and say “This is yes, this is yes!”

As far as dessert goes they usually have cookies and candy at the table but by now the kids have kinda lost interest in them. There is however something I have taken a real likening to, it is a dessert made out of Sunflowers. I may have mentioned it before but it is so good it deserves mentioning again. I have to find out how to import after we are gone! The big relief however and I know many of you have been concerned for us about this is, they do have good dark chocolate here. It is imported from Germany and quite tasty! It is pretty steep too at 200 tenge! That is like $1.80 in cold hard cash baby and worth every penny as far as this little girl is concerned! Sasha and Stella prefer white chocolate which we know is not really chocolate at all but like hard condensed milk!!! Who do they think they are kidding…I am on to them. But if she had to choose between one or the other I think Stella would choose a big old hunk of white bread over any sweet!

Okay, are you hungry yet? I think the thing Garrett misses the most is Chick fil-A! I am sure my cousin Ashley will giggle over that! He already says he and Sasha will be hanging out there a whole lot! Guy bonding at its best! Some guys watch sports, some play games, my guys bond through food!

After the kids finished their homework Stella went upstairs to Marina’s apartment because she was invited by Nastia (a different Nastia) to help cook lunch. She was so excited! Sasha and I decided to go the grocery for a few things and Garrett stayed home for a little daddy down time. We tried to take our time for a few extra minutes for him. We had a good time strolling the aisles looking for something new and exciting. It is hard when you do not read Russian and he is telling you how good something is and you have no idea what it is. The deli section is a totally different experience. Lots of dried fish staring back at you and all kinds of sausage type meats. Most of what we buy is drinks. Lots of apple juice.

We enjoyed our little excursion and made our way back. The rain has stopped and it was the first really sunny day in about 4 or 5 days. It was very hot and the paths are starting to dry out from the big mud holes. We tried a new way back and I thought I found a dry path but then stepped in a big mud spot and “squish” went the mud into my new sandals! Yuck! Sasha found this quite hilarious! No sympathy from him whatsoever. He does not like to be out in the hot sun very much and complains it gives him a headache. I think we will be investing in some baseball hats soon.

At lunch time the doorbell rang and it was Stella wanting to know where we were. She wanted us to see what she had prepared. When we sat down at the table it all looked so nice. The cucumbers and tomato slices were arranged very pretty on the plate and we already had water in our glasses. When Nastia brought us a bowl of mashed potatoes she told us Stella had made them. Stella beamed. She was so proud of herself. They were really good too!

After lunch we went over to play computer games at a nearby computer store. It is a new one we found the other day and is very close to the apartment. Sasha discovered Spiderman 2 and spent most of the time figuring out how to beat the bad guys. It seems much better to beat up a rhino machine than pull defenseless people out of cars and beat them up and drive off in their cars! as in Grand Theft Auto which they have both played a lot before we got them and we have to keep reminding them that we do not approve. Stella is not quite as into the games and I can tell this may be something she will not want to do much anymore. We stopped and got an ice cream on the way home and got back just in time to work on some homework before Aloyna got here for English lessons. It is nice because the kids really like her very much and that makes a big difference in wanting to do it. She is only 21 and very cute! She just graduated from college yesterday. She plans to go on to graduate school soon. It is a nice thing to have her come because it takes two hours of the day.

At dinner Marina came in and talked with us for a while. She is full of all kinds of information and it is quite interesting to listen to her talk about her business and stories of happy families and reunions. She seems to have a special gift for finding siblings and reuniting them and placing them in homes in America. Many times a mother will have a child and give it up for adoption and then have another child and give them up also not giving information that there was a first child already in the system. It is not unusual to find out siblings are in the orphanage and the child not even knowing it. She recognized a sibling once just by the look in the eyes. It turned out one sibling had been adopted recently by an American family and just two months later she came across this sister and called the family and it was arranged to adopt her as well. They were full sisters. You can see the hand of God in much of what she does. Most of her time in one way or another is spent thinking of children. She is a lovely woman.

She gave the kids permission to scout around the apartments for movies and we came back with two bags full of movies all in Russian of course. We have Stuart Little, Home Alone 1,2 and 3, and a bunch of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movies. Marina was sure to tell Sasha not to get any ideas of things to do to his parents from the Home Alone movie! We of course appreciate that! We can hear a lot of the English talking under the Russian so a good time was had by all last night.

We continue to receive and give lots of love here in the apartment and we can see them blossoming with each new day. Even when there is conflict and meltdowns there is much quicker resolutions. It is true that love covers a multitude of sins. The kids now just want to be in the same room as us doing what ever they are doing and that is very special to us! We continue to see your prayers at work in our life and good things happening. They are so cute and I know you all are just going to love them. We are starting to see more and more individual personality coming through in both of them. We also are seeing a lot of the typical sibling stuff of what ever this one does that one wants to do. We have let Sasha do a few things and have a few more liberties because he can handle them but Stella being younger still needs assistance. Stella does not like this at all and it brings back memories of me and my sister growing up. I always wanted to do what she did but often being younger inhibited me and I did not like it at all. It is tough being a kid sometime! We often forget the difference in their ages because they look more like twins since Stella is so tall for her age. They are only half an inch different in height.

We have big plans for tomorrow. Yes you guessed it…we go Aqua Park!!! It is good for them, they sleep well and Garrett and I get some much needed exercise too!