Day 3

Here they are. More pictures. When you are done looking, come back and read this. The girls are wonderful. I had my third day with them today. I get to see them from 10am to 11am each day M-F with no weekend visits, but the weekends do count in my bonding days for court. Monday was bonding day 1. The first day we were outside and sat next to their regular play group. It rained the next night so we were inside Tuesday. Outside is much cooler, but inside is nice as you have more of their attention. Big sister and Little sister play very well together. When you set them down to play, they spread their legs and scoop all the toys they can reach up close to them and then defend them. Little sister got tired toward the end of the hour and began to cry. I held her and she went to sleep. She is still very much a baby. Big sister is very smart and know how to stack cups by size. I can’t even express how wonderful they are and how lucky I feel. Big sister knows me and smiles when she sees me. Little sister is still not 100% sure, but she is warming up to me. Given this is day 3, I am very happy with how things are going. I have to start learning Kazah as they speak Kazah instead of Russian.
My apartment is very nice. It is one bedroom with a sun porch which also has a day bed in it. He bathroom is very modern and very nice with a tub and shower and wash machine in it. The apartment was just redone so almost everything is new. I have cable TV with 95 channels. Only 3 of them are in English, but they have many American TV series and movies dubbed in Russian on it. I have a lot of DVDs, but so far I have been too busy or too tired to do much. AND I HAVE AIR CONDITIONING. YEAH!!! It keeps the apartment around 78, but that feels great compared to outside where it is super hot. The climate reminds me a lot of Arizona. My apartment is in the center of Shymkent. I have banks on each side of me. There are lots of ATMs here. The one bank has 3 of them out front and there are still lines for them. There is a small grocery store behind my apartment building and 2 big grocery stores about 2 blocks away. There are money exchange places all over. I’m not sure who is exchanging all of the money, but there seems to be one on every block. I am working on getting DSL internet in my apartment, but no one in the building has it yet so I have to get it ran to the building. I had hoped I would have it today, but I am back at Abby’s (another mom adopting here) and using hers. Maybe tomorrow, probably for sure by the end of the week.
I have been lucky to have Abby to help me. She got here 2 weeks before I did so she knows all the ropes. She is taking me to all of the good restaurants and knows which ones have pictures on their menus. We have gone to 2 malls, one very modern, the Mega Mall and one that was more traditional and had some souvenir type shops. Monday night was the first time I really slept, but I am hopefully over the worst. It is not that you are that tired(I actually could never go to sleep), it is just like your brain is in a fog and working very slowly. My coordinator here is named Balzhan. She is always available by cell phone which is nice. She drives me wherever I need to go, but I have yet to see her drive in a single lane. Why use 1 lane when you can drive in 2? Although I do have to say, traffic is not as bad as I was expecting and all the streets I have to cross to get anywhere have lights so I don’t have any good traffic stories-YET.
I'll post more details when I get internet, So far I have been very busy. Time is going very fast, but I think once I get into a routine, it will slow down.