Day 15

The last official day of bonding! Balzhan will now submit my request for a court date tomorrow.

We arrived a little early today so Sasha had not finished eating yet. So for the first half hour, it was Leeza and me. She wanted some mommy time at the start and I got to hold and rock her for about 10 minutes then it was off and running.
We were in the gym again today, but today Leeza took advantage of the gym and mama's one on one attention. She would dive through the circle landing on her head and flipping over and lay there until mama came and got her up and then she would be off and running again.

She explored all the equipment and liked to climb on everything. We also played catch with the beach ball. She was very good at throwing it back to me. I bounced it off the wall and she copied me.
Sasha eventually was brought in and had NO TEARS today! She even smiled a few times. Sasha slowed Leeza down for a few minutes, but not for long.
She found mama's shoes and empty camera case which quickly became her purse. She was able to walk around quite well in my shoes! They are on the wrong foot, but that didn't slow her down. The caretakers came in and I thought they might be angry since you are not supposee to walk on the carpets in outside shoes, but they laughed when they saw her.
Sasha enjoyed playing with the puzzle and asked mama to make the animal sounds several times today. The puzzle is of farm animals so we have moo cows and oink pigs etc. She is finally starting to open up a little.
She does love to watch her big sister. She was fascinated by her walking around in my shoes. Both girls were dressed for winter today. It was 100 degrees outside!

Abby and I went to lunch one last time at Mozzarella. We had Buffalo wings and pizza and chocolate lava cake for dessert. The cake and ice cream was fantastic. The Buffalo wings were very good, but not spicy-more like sesame wings. After that we hit the Mega and the souvenir mall and then were picked up by Balzahn to go to the notaries office.

The notaries office was a small airless very hot office. Many papers were signed. In fact at one point, Abby was attempting to adopt my 2 girls! I quickly pointed that one out, but the lack of air in the office made the mistake completely understandable. The ladies there were very nice and efficient and even offered us chocolate when we were done. Afterwards, we stopped at Abby's apartment. The mark of a true friend is someone who saves her last bag of Nacho Dorritos to give as a good bye present. I will think of Abby and Jake as I enjoy the last bag of Dorritos in the city of Shymkent! Thanks Abby!

Day 14

It's Sunday so no visit again. I did get a present from Sasha though- her cold! I don't feel too bad yet so hopefully it will go away soon.
So to continue my tour of Shymkent:

The Mega mall is one of the place I have been most. It is a modern mall with a nice grocery store inside.

The Mega mall is only about 1 1/2 blocks from my apartment so it is very easy to walk to. However, it is downhill all the way there when I have no bags and uphill all the way back when I have groceries! Plus don't forget the 67 steps at the end. If I want to get a lot of things, Balzhan will drive me there and back, but for the most part I just get a few things at a time and get pop and water at the store by my apartment.
On the first level of the mall is an ice skating rink. If you don't know how to skate, they have little peguins you can push to help you stay up.
This is the mall across the road from the Mega mall. I call it the souvenir mall. It has a lot of little shops in it- toys, cell phone, souvenirs, clothes etc.

Both malls have nice fountains around them. There are many fountains around town. I've tried to get pictures of some others, but we are generally driving by them at 50 mph so it is hard to get a good picture.

No big plans for today other than I have to do my pictures for court. I need pictures of us for 14 days attached to paper and a short summary of what we did each day on it. I got about 60 pictures printed out at the mall earlier, now I just have to pick which ones I like. I'll probably continue to watch Gilligan's Island and later go to lunch with Abby.

Update: We went back to Mozzarella for lunch. It is my favorite place. We decided to order dessert today and tried the fruit pizza. It was very good. It has a pizza crust with a jam on it and then fruit baked on it. The friut included bananas, oranges, grapefruit, peaches and maybe something else with sour cream added to it at the end. We then went to the grocery store across from the mall. Since we had bought all the Dorritos at the Ramstore, I was happy to find this grocery store sells Lays potato chip. We then made our nearly daily trip to the mall. I am now working on my pictures for court. Abby went back to her apartment to start packing as she is leaving Tuesday.

Day 13

It's Saturday which means no visit to the baby house. We are planning on going to pick up the girl's dresses this afternoon and should go back to the very nice souvenier store to see if they restocked anything yet! We will probably go to the airport to get Abby's ticket back to Almaty. She is leaving Tuesday :( This is my apartment building. It is hard to see the building through all of the trees. There are also roses in the front yard. They have sprinklers that are going off every morning, but the little bit of grass is pretty scraggly. It must be hard to grow much in this climate since it has the extreme hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

This is the sidewalk outside my apartment. It didn't show up well, but there are stairs about every 20 ft. Also each place does it's own sidewalk and the sidewalks between one building and the next are rarely at the same level so it is a lot of step up and step down. You really have to watch were you walk. These are some buildings in the area. The blue building is a restaurant, I think. It is newer and right next to an older building. Most of the buildings have small businesses on the 1st floor and then apartments above it. People keep the inside of their apartments nice, but rarely fix up the outside. This is due to the soviet influence where the government was responsible for fixing up the outside of the buildings. You can see the Coca Cola signs on the little store. Coke is everywhere. The Ramstore at the mall has many american foods. However they are now out of nacho Dorritos as Abby and I bought out their whole supply.

This is Madlen restaurant where we ate a few days ago. I can't remember if I posted it or not. Most of the restaurants have outside or inside seating. We ate outside. They also have a bakery here.

I am watching a Gilligan's Island marathon today. I have all 3 seasons. It has been several years since I watched any episodes of Gilligan's Island, but I watched it every day as a kid.

Day 12

We were in a new room today. They were having a meeting in the music room so we got to go to the gym. It had some fun looking equipment in it, but the girls just played with their toys.(and the zip lock bags of course!) We decided to let Jake and the girls play together and combined their toys. The girls immediately went for Jake's toys and he went for a few of theirs. They shared fairly well with the exception of one minor skirmish that Jake won! We decided to try to take a picture of our little bonding group. Getting 2 adults and 3 kids to look at a camera is NOT easy.
Sasha and Jake seemed fasinated by each other and just looked at each other for a very long time. Jake must go for older women!

Sasha started off with a few tears, but they were quickly gone. While smiles were few, she looked much more relaxed and seemed to have fun. Leeza was not quite as hyper as yesterday, but still had a good time. At the end of the hour, the caretaker came in to get the girls. They always go happily to her and sometimes I get a wave good bye and sometimes I don't. Today, they started to walk away and Sasha decided she liked it with her mama. She started crying and pulled away from her caretakers and started crawling back to mama. I got a very sad look as she was carried from the room. While I am not happy she was upset, I am happy she is wanting to be with me. Unfortunately, it is Friday and I will not get to see them again until Monday so I know much of the progress of the last few days will be gone.

On the verbal front, Leeza said mama again and was talking/babbling for quite a while(I'm not sure if it was Kazakh or just babbling). AND Sasha was saying things today. Once again, it could have just been babbling, but this is the first sounds she has made other than crying. She is very good at crying, but I am so glad to hear her verbalize actual sounds/words.

After bonding, we went back to Address restaurant. I had the donner again and Abby tried their pizza. It was interesting- cheese, peppers, mushrooms, sliced hot dogs, corn, black olives and tomato slices. After you took off half the toppings, the pizza was good. As in most things here, it was good, but different. We then went to the mall so I could buy another toy. The girls love things that make noise and Jake had a little radio that they loved today so I had to get them one. I also got a bunch of pictures printed out. Monday will be the end of my bonding time and I need to have pictures to send to court to show that I have been here for all 15 days. Monday I will get to apply for a court date!!!!! Abby had court yesterday and was approved although it is not official for another 15 days. Congratulations Abby and Jake!

Day 11

Today started as normal, Leeza coming in the room with a smile and Sasha coming in and breaking into tears. The doctor came in with them and sat and played for a few minutes. Of course, everyone is very good with the doctor as they like her a lot. Sasha's tears dried up quickly as they normally do. Then they found the ziplock bags and stickers.

They both enjoyed putting the papers and shoes and toys in the bags and then taking them back out.

Stickers are a big hit still. Leeza is old enought to not eat them. Sasha did try to eat them a couple times, but I think I caught her soon enough.

Then Leeza decided to play run around the room and touch all the items Leeza is not suppose to touch and see if mama says anything! She had a great time. She would run to the end of the room and touch the flag and I would say Nyet, kali Leeza(which is "no" in russian and something like " come here" in Kazakh- OK, my language skills are very poor and I forgot how to say no in Kazakh) and she would come running to me and throw herself into my arms for about 5 seconds and then do it all over again. This went on for a while.

I bring my purse and a toy bag to bonding. Leeza is not allowed in my purse. She decided to test that today. This is her diving head first across my lap in an attempt to reach my purse. She ended up head first in the toy bag. After I rescued her from the toy bag and stood her up so she could go running again, she smiled at me and said mama and took off. Of course, I tried and tried to get her to say it again, but she didn't. It was very clear this time and she was looking right at me before she went running off to see if she could touch the TV without getting into trouble.

Office chairs are lots of fun too! Especially when mom is on one side and she is trying to get you and you are on the other!

Then we played spin the old office chair and pray mom doesn't break it, but could that possibly be a smile from Sasha??

Yes it is a smile. Stickers and an old rickety office chair must be what it takes to make her happy.

Names

I came over here with a couple of names picked out and I found 2 little individuals with names firmly attached to them. I've decided to keep a slightly americanized version of their current names.

So I am happy to announce that I will soon be the mom to Elizabeth(Leeza) Marie and Alexandra (Sasha) Harmon. Sasha's middle name might end as Sasha, but I am not 100% sure yet. Monday I will be able to apply to court for a court date. Court should happen the last week in August with any luck.

Day 10

Yes, Little sister slept the whole time again. She is better, but not completely over her cold. Plus I think she just likes to be held. We were inside today again because it was cold outside(upper 70s) this morning. I did find out that Little sister can snore when she sleeps deeply plus when her little nose is still congested.

I got another big smile from Big sister when she came into the room. Whether it is for me or the toys, I'm not sure yet, but I'll take it as for me. We were observed today by the lady from the Minsitry of Education. Big sister did not want anything to do with her. That is the first time that I have seen her not go to anyone who calls her name. Maybe she just wanted to stay with mama?? I think she really looks like my sister in this picture!

The BEST toy of the day was the ziplock bag of shoes I brought to try on the girls. Once again, she took the shoes out of the bag and then put them back in the bag-repeat. Maybe she can organize all my closets when she gets a little older. She certainly likes to have everything organized and put away.

Actually, getting the bag open and the shoes in the bag was good pratice for motor skills as it is hard to hold a zip lock bag open and manage to get the shoe in it at the same time. Of course, we were doing this when the lady from the Ministry came in and I had to explain it to her in my non existant russian what we were doing. She figured it out though so we are ok.

I think I heard Big sister say mama today. She was looking at the photos and said something that sounded to me like mama when she saw my picture. I tried to get her to repeat it, but couldn't. She was saying a number of things today, but very quietly so you couldn't really make out what she was saying.

I didn't post much yesterday as I was finally tired. I think I am finally relaxing(after almost 2 weeks). I actually slept most of the night last night for the first time.

Yesterday, Abby and I went back to Mozerella(my favorite restaurant) and I had a fillet and french fries and garlic bread. It was very good. Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery store by my apartment. I got a few items and grabbed some Kazakh ice cream bars. they were very good-mine was cherry ice cream around vanilla ice cream. It is a very nice store- typically of the small stores here- they may only have one or two of an item, but they have a little of everything.

Today for lunch, our coordinator took us to a Korean restaurant. Yes, my first time eating korean food was in Kazakhstan!! The food was different, but very good. Balzhan was afraid it would be too spicey, but it was not a hot spicey more just a lot of flavor spicey. There was a soup/noddle dish, stuffed rice bread, and a meat/soy tofu dish. All were good, but it was a lot of food. The bill for the three of us was about $12.

Between yesterday and today, we watched the first season of Burn Notice TV series. Abby had never seen it yet and it had been a while since I saw it. Tomorrow, I will be going to bonding by myself for the first time. Abby has court tomorrow so she will not be visiting Jake. I am wishing her well and hope the judge gives her a quick positive verdict.