3 Years Ago!

Three years ago this week, we travelled to Petropavlovsk, time really flies!!

Darya is doing wonderful and she just loves her new little Kaz brother Max!

Darya will start Jr. Kindergarden in the fall. Here are some recent pics of our little princess.

Darya now has a brother....

Just cross-posting to our original blog we kept for Darya to let you know that we have completed court on the second adoption and we are now a family of four, read all about it here:
http://backtokazland.blogspot.com/

Darya got her diploma and update

I thought I would post some recent news on how Darya is doing. She just amazes me every day!

Last October we thought we would sign her up for preschool 3 mornings a week She was 2.5 and I thought she could use a bit more stimulation then she received at home. Not to say we did not do anything with her at home ( we do lot's!!), but the social skills and structure she would get in a school environment would be more beneficial. It was the best decision as she has really developed and come a long long way. She also loved school and her friends  so much. They learn all about the the weather, time, calendar, society ( police, firemen, doctors), different cultures holidays, sharing, respect, singing songs, games etc....Everyday she would come home talking about something she learned in school. Her vocabulary also developed at lightning speed! Darya was a bit delayed with her speech, nothing major, but it took her awhile to use more then 2-3 words together. Now she talks full sentences and uses more complex works like.."properly, actually". She doesn't always pronounce everything perfectly, but she has certainly advanced.

Anyways, yesterday was so cute, it was her preschool graduation and they all got little diploma's. I'll post the pics later once I get them off my camera.

Darya is completley potty trained now too, which is nice.  Every morning I get up and find a little surprise in the potty that she left overnight. She gets herself up in the night now to go by herself. She says "Mommy, I left you a rocket ship in the potty", ha haha! Darya is a true girl and insists on picking out her own clothes. She just hates being dirty and if anything gets on her clothes, she's off to her closet to pick something new! Darya goes through little waves of enjoying cartoons and then not paying attention to them at all. For the last couple months she was not interested in Dora and her shows and was always playing with puzzles, but now she seems to have taken a keen interest in SpongeBob and Shrek :-) Darya is weighing in at 24 lbs which is still very small for her age. She is not registering on the growth chart yet, so she is in the 3% percentile for her age. We have had everything checked at the International Adoption clinic, even for rare blood parasites and she is 100% healthy. Even her iron and vitamin levels were A-OK.  The doctors are not too worried, they say she is just small due to prematurity, lack of proper nutrition, genetics etc.. and since her development is 100% on track, then they are not worried. If her development was was delayed too then they would be worried, but she is a very clever little gal. Well that's it for now, hope everyone has a nice summer!

We are going back!

Just an update to say we are leaving in approx. 3 weeks back to Kaz ( Uralsk) for a son. We have another blog for this journey! We are super excited!

Some Photo's of my big girl!

Darya is just the sweetest little thing, I am reminded everyday how lucky and blessed we are to have such a wonderful daughter. I was going out last night and she ran up to me and said "Come home soon Mommy, I miss you" and I had not even left yet! Gosh, it just melts your heart!

Some new and recent Darya pics!

This article makes me happy!

I have been worried about what will happen to my sponsor child in Kaz who is 16 yrs old and moving on to junior college soon. I hope the money they discuss in the article below will in some way make her life and the other kids better and provide more educational opportunity for them:

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48722389_world_kazakhstan_frozen_funds_help_kazakh_youth_under_new_international_agreement

Heartbreaking article on unwanted babies...

This is sad...there needs to be some reforms!

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/06/08/003.html

It's been awhile.....

Hi Everyone!!!! it's been far too long, we have been busy with Dasha! Time flies! Darya will be 2 years old on May 3rd and April 13th will mark one year ago that we met our little daughter in a baby house in Northern Kazakhstan.
Darya is really coming along superbly. She has the sweetest temperment and says about 20 words now and is trying to repeat everything we say. Soon she'll be making sentences! She loves making faces and loves to laugh, her favorite game is hide and seek. She also loves her dollies and has started to play pretend and try to feed them and chanhe diapers. We also just recently starting potty training and hoefully will graduate soon! Darya has a few buddies now, but her best friend is Jodie who she sees at least one a week for playdates. Darya loves to pull Jodie in the wagon. Darya is still super tiny ( about 20 lbs at 23 months) but she is active and for the most part eats well. Sometimes it's a struggle to get her to eat enough, but she is more of a grazer throughout the day.
Anways, we are soon hoping to start adoption # 2 at some point, as it would be nice for Darya to have a sibling, so perhaps soon we will be adding some new adventures to this Blog ! Stay Tuned!!
I think about all the kiddies I met in Darya's group all the time, Dasha # 2, Pasha,Sasha, Serik/Trey, Evalina, Nurman, Isaloo. I am happy to stay in touch with the families we met and some of them who adopted some of the kiddies I mention above. Sasha ( who is the little boy who is pictured here http://kazahkstanorbust.blogspot.com/2006/04/day-6-happy-easter-everyone.html
in a previous post on our blog)was moved into the room with the kids who are a bit older then baby room #2 so I never found out what happened to him, he would be between 2.5 and 3 yrs old by now. If anyone knows what became of him, please let me know, I wonder about him all the time.
Bye for now :-)

Acting for the Camera

These are some nice shots taken over the weekend...they were all taken within seconds of each other...she really loves posing for the cameras :-)

Camping in the Living Room

Hi everyone! Here a is a pic of Darya camping out in the living room in her new tent....she just loves it and has figured out the zipper all on her own :-) We are having a blast and she is growing up quickly. She loves milk, apples, grapes and chicken nuggets and is getting into the stage where she wants to do a lot of things herself - like feeding herself, putting on her own jacket and hat and going up and down the stairs. She is still pretty small but is coming along fine and really starting to understand things we say to her...and she is starting to form words as well. She is really good with 'Dog', 'Shoes' and of course 'Mama' and 'Dada' :-)

It is coming up on 7 months since she came home. It feels like ages ago and frankly we don't even think about her as being from somewhere else - and we could not imagine what it was like before she became part of the family. She is our little angel and we are looking forward to our first Christmas together...keep posted for some more news over the holidays.

Darya's First Thanksgiving with Nana!

Darya with Shane , Cousin Talia and Nana!

Big hugs with Nana!

Last Sunday was Darya's first turkey dinner and Thanksgiving! For all you americans, we canucks celebrate a month earlier. I wasn't really sure why, but Shane said that maybe Canada had it's harvest earlier in the old days? Sounds good to me! I always wondered if Americans were bummed that they had to eat 2 turkey dinners so close together in November and then again in December for Christmas...well I supposed they could have ham or something? Okay, enough obsessing about the turkey......Darya loved spending Thanksgiving with her family. Nana, Grandpere (french for Grandpa), Auntie Cara and cousin Talia came over for a visit. There is a photo below of Nana and Darya. Darya loved Talia who is 6 years old and chases her around laughing and following her. There is a 4.5 age year difference, but it didn't seem to matter, they bothed loved playing together. Darya loves her new cousin and I think the feeling is mutual. Darya also loved the mashed potatoes, stuffing and turkey!!! I also discovered that Miss D has a fondness for Tarte a Citrouille ( aka Pumpkin Pie) I am not sure if Pumpkie Pie is just a Canadian thing...or maybe I am thinking of Sugar Pie with Maple...sucre a la creme? Oh well.
Darya has been keeping busy trying to bust into all the cupboards and just walking all over checking things out. She LOVES the book Goodnight Moon. It's funny, she doesn't really get into the toys that are all flashy and make noise, she really is a gadget girl and loves the phone, TV remotes, calculators, computer keyboard etc.....
Here are a few photo's from Thanksgiving with Dadddy, Nana and Talia ( I was taking the picture)
Tootle-Loo for now xoxoxox
Kim

Time Flies!!!

Sorry it's been awhile since we have posted, Darya has been keeping Mommy and Daddy very busy!
We are happy to report that Darya started walking on August 28th, she is just so cute !
Everything has been going so well with her, we are just so lucky. She has the sweetest little temperment. Always smiling ! We has to Darya proof everything now that she is walking and can get into all the drawers that are higher up and she tries to open the fridge.
She has started saying a few words such as Momma, DaDa , cat and dog. She also loves books so much when we read them to her. ( especially Goodnight Moon) She likes to point at all the objects in the pictures. We've made lot's of friends in the community and go to playgroups and get together with all our other friends kids ect...Darya just loves playing with them all !
She hasn't gained much weight since she's been back ( she's almost 19 lbs for almost 17 months old, but the doctors assure us she seems healthy and may just be a thin girl as she was premature) Her favorite foods are omelets, cheese, yogurt, chicken, turkey and pasta.
She did have a little bit of a rough time getting used to be strapped into things such as high chairs, strollers and car seats since they didn't use these in Kaz, but she is making strides and cries a little less day by day. She is also much better with receiving affection and now loves to cuddle and kiss us. She buries her head into our shoulders and wraps her arms around us and squeezes us ! It's so cute.
Well off to put the munchin to bed, hope all is well with everyone else!!
Kim, Shane and Darya xoxoxox

Summertime Fun!

...we are back online! It has been over a month since we have posted anything on the blog and there is lots to talk about. We are having a blast with Darya here at home. She is adjusting to Canadian life just fine (although we haven't had her on ice skates yet :)....and I think we are adjusting fine as well.
Although she always had a smile on her face, back in Kazakhstan Darya wasn't a very vocal girl. Could of been the environment, could of been the stage she was at in her development, and so on. But now you can't stop her from the baby talk. All day long she "bbbuuubh's" her way through the day pointing at stuff and giving her baby talk colour commentary on what it is. She is also becoming very away of what we are saying and seems to understand quite a bit of what we say to her.
Darya also loves to eat which is great for her growth. Some of her favourite things to eat are bananas, pasta and home made spagetti sauce, english muffins, sweet potato, ham, broccoli (you gotta get them started early on it) cottage cheese, and yogurt. She is also getting into the mode where she wants to feed herself...it can get messy, but she loves it. So does Cleo - as she hovers around the high chair waiting for something to hit the floor....at least she is helping keep the floors clean.
We have been spending a lot of time with Darya trying to walk with her. Right now she will grab our fingers and walk all by herself up and down the hall way...she also has a little buggy that she can prop herself with and push it around like a cart...she really like that.
We have also been on the road with Darya. A couple of weeks ago Adoption Horizons hosted the annual family picnic in Toronto. It was neat to see families who we met at last year's picnic when we still thought we were going to Russia. We also met with some other families who also recently went to Kazakhstan with Adoption Horizons. It was a beautiful day. We also got a chance to show Darya around Toronto.

Adoption Horizons Picnic (Kaz flag on the left)

Darya takes on Toronto

Happy Father's Day!

Today was Shane's first Papa's Day , so we had a BBQ and took it easy, it was sooo hot out today. Here are some sweet photo's Sue took of Darya 2 days ago... thanks Sue! While in Kaz we took somewhere north of 2000 pictures...and since coming home have taken a lot more. We are in the process of sifting through them all and will put up a post shortly to tell everyone about how Darya is fitting right in here at home! Happy Father's Day everyone!!!

Man I love these Russian soska's!!

I love auntie Sue's bracelets !!!

We are HOME!

Hi Everyone,
Sorry we haven't written in awhile, we got home 5 days ago and were exhausted and trying to catch up to the time change with Darya. She is doing really well and settling in to her new life in Canada....hope to keep you posted with more news soon, but thought we would let you know we made it back!

Final Stretch

Boy....haven't posted anything in over a week to the blog. Kim and Darya flew to Almaty on Tuesday last week where they are waiting out the immigration paperwork process. Kim is ready to come home now...she has been there 8 weeks now. The latest news is that the immigration paperwork should be done by the end of this week, the problem is getting flights home. We flew through Germany when we came to Kazakhstan, now with the World Cup of Soccer starting in June, the whole world is gravitating to that country making it very difficult to get flights through there. Kim & Darya have secured a spot on a flight on June 5th which isn't too bad....I can't wait to see both of them. Kim has told me that Darya is making all kinds of great progress. She is making lots of baby talk, her motor skills have developed where she can now assemble her toy cups together which is really cool....and she is clapping her hands all by herself when their is music. It also sounds like she is bonding well with Kim as she is very klingy with her and cries when Kim gives her to someone else to hold....this is a great sign. Darya is such a great kid and I can't wait to have both of them home to begin the rest of our lives together as a family.

It has been just over two weeks....

Since I have returned from Petro....but it feels like an eternity. Kim is saying that right now it is looking like she and Darya will be coming back on June 3rd which is a bit later than expected. I think that they are just putting some extra time in there just in case. Everyone is going good...apparently there are like seven families in Petro right now...perhaps I have the number wrong but there are a lot according to Kim (I guess everyone waits until winter is over?)
Put the finishing touches on the baby room this weekend and finally got the crib together....just can't wait to watch Darya fall asleep in it when she comes home....soon enough.

Kim here...all is well in Kaz Land !

Hi everybody,
I don't have a computer anymore, but thankfully the Thompsons have been so kind to lend me their computer to touch base !! This is their third time here to adopt so it's nice to have some "veterans" to talk to. Actually, there are 5 or 6 american families here with me so I have alot of company.
Darya is doing really well, she is growing so fast and loves to eat. She understands some english words now such as "cookie" and " gucci", ha haha. She loves playing with my jewellery and looking at my nails and stuff so I know she going to be such a a little princess!!
I am leaving Petro on May 23rd and then flying to Almaty for about a week to await Darya's immigration paperwork, so about 2 more weeks and I will be home. I have really enjoyed my time here and although we want to get home to Shane, family and friends, part of me will really miss my life here . I am glad to have had the chance to really spend some time in Darya's birthplace so I can tell her all about it in great detail. We will bring her back here of course, but it's nice to have a good feeling about where she was born.
Hope all is well back home...I am off for my cabbage roll dinner which has now been renamed by the hotel staff as " The dish of Kim"...but pronounced " the deesh of Keem".
See you all soon, hugs and kisses from Kazakhstan!!

Canadian 2006 Census Conundrum

We received our 2006 Canadian census form in the mail and I started filling out. It starts out with a really tough question: "How many people live at your address as of May 16th, 2006?" The real answer is 2, but I really want to say 3 because Darya will be home at the end of the month. How can I answer this rest of the census form and not include Darya as part of our family. I don't want to lie, but I don't want to not include Darya in our response. My apprehension is more symbolic for our familiy than wanting to ensure I co-operate with the Feds and their bean counting exercise. What to do...what to do?!

All is cool in Kaz land....

Sorry for not posting more regularly, now that Shane is back Kim is without a computer and has to go the internet cafe. Everyone back home is asking when Kim and Darya get back....the sooner the better. I miss them both and can't wait for them to come home.

Kim has the camera, but no way to upload new pictures while she is there....so just a few words to let everyone know that Kim and Darya are going great. Kim told me today that Darya starting clapping her hands together byherself which is very cool (We were playing patty-cake with her a couple of weeks ago trying to get her to do that). She is also apparently doing a lot more yaking and went for her first car ride with mom to go get her passport photo taken. According to mom she was very good in the car.

1 down....2 to go...

Shane made it back home from Kazakhstan in record time. Here are the stats:
- 5 flight legs to get home (Petropavlovsk, KZ to Astana, KZ - Astana, KZ to Almaty, KZ - Almaty to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Montreal and Montreal to Ottawa) 30 hours in total
- 4 airline meals
- 3 hours sleep
- No bags lost in transit
- 1 temporarily broken heart until the girls get home :-(

It was a bittersweet day to leaving Petro. Going home meant one step closer to having everyone back home - but now we wait for a few more weeks until Kim and Darya make it back. Tonight it was strange calling Kim back in Petro...she was getting ready to leave for the baby house to see Darya. I miss both of you incredibly and can't wait to see you both. For now it is just me and Big Momma Whoof holding down the fort back in Ottawa. We will both be waiting and in the meantime cheering on the Sens in the second round....

Love Pops!

...meet Darya Nicole Moorhead - our first daughter!

The first 'official' family photo

Like a 1970s TV cliff hanger, the medical paperwork was approved late last night - Court is On Baby!

Today was the big day and we were both a bag of nerves before court which was at 10am. We rehersed and re-reheresed and then we re-re-rehereshed our responses to all the questions that we could be asked by the judge. We were so worried about every little word and how it sounded, yet we forgot to keep in mind that all our responses would be going through a translator. That is just what nerves can do to some anxious parents to-be. When we got to court building we were escorted upstairs with Valentina our interpretor, the social worker from the Ministry of Education and the pediatrition from the baby house. Court was supposed to start at 10amm but there was delay until 10:25am or so...apparently the 'prosecuter' had not arrived yet and we were waiting for him before we could begin. The Prosecuter is the government representative (like a crown attorny in Canada) who is there to act on the behalf of the Kazakhstan government. So while we waiting we nervously figitted with paper clips and made idle chatter like, "Gee...I think this is the first time I have ever been in a court room of any kind for any reason" (That would be a good thing when you are adopting a child in a country like Kaz I suppose?) When the prosecutor arrived the judged walked into the room and we began. The judge started by introducing herself and everyone else in the court room did the same. Then some opening statements from the judge, as Valentina had coached us, talking about our case and why we are all there today. Court then went on with a series of questions about our intentions about adopting from Kazakhstan and our financial and family situations. Things got a little tense (for me at least) when the judge started asking about Kim's Crohn's disease and whether it would prevent her from being a good mother. We all knew that it wouldn't (It hasn't stopped her from being the busy body she is so far); this was the one thing we worried about the most that may cause a snag in the process....but it didn't as the judge allowed us to adopt Darya Sharkevich and begin to call here Darya Nicole Moorhead. Darya is the name she was born with and it meant a lot to us to keep it as it is part of who she is and where she is from. Nicole is for her biological father Nikolai. Darya's nickname is Dasha as a lot of Russian kids go by pet names while in their younger years. Darya Nicole felt like such a natural name for her....we never thought about it twice.

Outside court after the hearing the good news

After the decision to make us Darya's parents was read, all the nerves and anxiety lifted to let us feel all the joy and happiness that was temporarily covered up inside our hearts. We are so happy. Darya is a special girl and we are blessed. After court we went back to the baby house to celebrate both Darya's adoption and her birthday (that was yesterday). We also celebrated with Lee and Laura who had court later in the afternoon and Svetlana, Valentina, Dr. Rima (the baby house director), and the baby house pediatrition. Had ordered a birthday cake for Darya and had bought a bottle of champaign to help toast the occassion. Dr. Rima raised the first glass and toasted the futures of both new families and wished us health and happiness together back at our homes. She is such a wonderful lady. She only speaks Russian but you don't need to understand the langauge to understand how dedicated she is the well being of the children in the baby house. She speaks with such enthusiam and passion for her work - and you can begin to understand why she has been at the baby house for 35 years. After spending 3 weeks there we saw first hand how much every person who works there really treats these children as their own. Generally we saw this attitude towards your work regardless of what you do here and it could be a lesson for many of us back home. People here have much 'less' than us, but they aren't less happy...they seem more happy and it was something I thought about a lot during my time here.

The cake says "Dasha's 1st Birthday"

Getting through court was a very happy moment, but it also meant for me (Shane) that it was the last day to visit with Darya until she comes back to Canada with Kim in the next 3 to 4 weeks. We spent our last hour together in Petropavlovsk in the music room at the baby house where it all began. Darya got a new walker dubbed the 'Green Machine' for her birthday (which we will just leave at the baby house). She just loves booted around in those things...which is great because it will build up her strength to get her walkiing soon enough. She is crawling everywhere and can pull herself up to stand which seems pretty normal for a girl her age. The doctors at the baby house say she is about 2 months behind in her development because of her history. Her motor skills seem terrific but we suppose it is in her communication skills that need the work. Nonetheless our last moments together as a family in Petropavlovsk were sad....but that will only be temporary until Darya and Kim come home to Canada in late May.

Pops saying goodbye to Dasha in Petropavlovsk

I am flying back to Almaty tonight and get there at 11:30pm....then catch the 3:10am Lufthansa flight back to Frankfurt arriving at 6am'ish. From there, there are lots of flights back to Canada and I should be home sometime Friday early evening. As excited as I am to return home to see friends and family, leaving Kim and Darya here while they wait for immigration paperwork to be completed is very difficult. They are in very good hands with Valentina here which makes the separation bearable until they come home.

Down to the nitty gritty

No more blogging about lion taming, horse eating Kareoke singers....we are down to the short strokes before court. We are currently scheduled for court at 10am on Thursday May 4th...BUT. We are waiting for the approval of Darya's medical at the office in London, Enland (Frankly I was never clear on why it is in London England - I believe it was the closest Canadian immigration office or something like that)? Anyhow....without that approval we have to wait for court. We aren't too concerned yet.....we still have a day. After all the fire drills getting ready to travel here getting renewing passports, getting Visas, etc. we have really learnt to go with the flow...but missing court would be a very very very very very big dissapointment. This paperwork really should of been done when we first got here but we apparently had hiccups with getting a doctor to examine Darya.....it will all turn out.

So if all the balls in the air land smoothly and court happens when it should, Kazakhstan will have officially appointed us as the parents of Darya. This will be the happiest day of our lives. In our hearts we are already her parents and these past three weeks have change both our lives in a ways we couldn't of imagined. Tomorrow is also Darya's first birthday and it is very special that we will be able to celebrate it as a family here in the place she is from. We have ordered a cake from the bakery we look forward to celebrating it with all her care takers and other staff from the baby house. We are acutally going to consolidate two parties on Thursday where we will celebrate her birthday and hopefully a postivie court outcome that afternoon. Wish us luck and we will try to post pictures of the big day as soon as possible.

Another Weekend in Petro is Over

So last night we all had a night out on the town and saw the Anatoli concert at the Russian theatre here in Petropavlovsk. As it turned out, Anatoli was a big singer in the 70s and 80s with a ton of hit songs in the former Soviet Union countries. The theatre was very nice inside and there was quite a big crowd for the show. We were very lucky to have met him in the hotel and to of received the tickets for free. The tickets were 3500 Tenge a piece which is about $28 USD...which is a lot of money for anyone here. The show started at roughly 7pm and went for 3 hours or so. It turned into a big sign along as he began to perform a lot of his hits and everyone in the audience was getting into it clapping along.....we didn't understand a word since it was all in Russian but it was fun all the same just to be able to experience some local culture. One thing that was odd from a concert back home was that people would write down questions and pass them up the aisles during the show, eventually the questions would make their way on stage and Antoli would answer them inbetween songs. As Valentina our interpretor explained to us, many of the questions we very direct like "Are you lip syncing to the music?", "Why did you move to America?" and "Did you get a face lift?" (We were told he is about 60 but he looks much younger with his perfect teeth and wrinkle free skin). I have never been to a Tom Jones concert, but my mother has and I am going to compare notes with her when we get back to Canada - I deffinatley didn't see any underwear being thrown on stage that was for sure!



After the concert we came back to the hotel and ended up in the hotel restaurant for a drink and a late night snack. We asked 'Dan' our good friend and waiter for some peanuts or chips. He didn't have anything like that, but did have a 'meat plate' which cheese and butter....we were starving so we went for it. Out came a plate of what looked like sauage and roast beef'ish looking meat. As it turned out it was Horse intestine sausage and sliced beef tongue. I have seen beef tongue in the grocery stores back home....but don't think I have ever had it. We know we deffintatley never had any kind of horse before. At first we all joked around egging each other to be the first to try anything....then Kim and Laura just picked up a piece of each and took a bite. We all sat there quietly waiting for the verdict...."It tastes like beef" was the verdict on the horse from Kim. The sliced tongue tasted like roast beef accroding to Laura.....which is good since it was cow tongue. After watching the women go for it I decided I couldn't leave Kazakhstan without having tried some horse.....so I plucked a piece of it into my mouth. It was good...but nothing I would crave. Guess it is an acquired taste. After watching that show 'Fear Factor' back home......we had nothing on the guys on that show and some of the things they eat - but that was as exotic as we have gotten with the food since we have been here. All in all the food is really good here.



Darya is cuter than every and teething a lot. When we got here she had like 4 teeth and now she is pushing 6 teeth showing. Naturally she is grabbing anything and everything and putting it in her mouth. She groans a little bit but doesn't scream or cry at all.....she is a very mellow, easy going baby. With every visit we are getting closer and closer with her. She now sits in our arms and listens to us as we say things in English or sing songs to her. She is recognizing words like Mama and Papa now which is really really cool! At the end of our visits now she just lies in our arms and stares at us while we just stare back in utter joy and content. We couldn't of asked for a more lovely baby girl to be our daughter.




Tomorrow is a big holiday here and they have decorated up the town square. We plan to go down there to check out the festivities.....more culture to soak up, can't wait!

I Want My MTV....Russian MTV that is

It has become routine for all the english couples here to come down for dinner around 7pm and sit together to talk about our days and enjoy each other's company. Two nights ago we were just finishing up dinner and a mild mannered Russian man walked over to our table. He excused himself for the interrupting but he heard us speaking english and asked us all where we were from and why we were all in Petropavlovsk - he had never seen Americans/Canadians here before. We told him that we were all adopting children from the orphanages here and he congratulated us (There are mixed feelings locally regarding the foreigners coming to adopt the children). He then went onto introduce himself as Anatoli from Hollywood California and he was in a couple shows here in Petropavlovsk over the next couple of nights. Anatoli then invited us to the show on Saturday night at the Russian Theatre and said he would leave tickets for all of us at the hotel desk.
We had no idea what we were just invited to....was he a Russian folk singer, a DJ, a lion tamer? As we were walking out of the restaurant and out of the hotel that evening to go for our nightly walk with the table scraps for the homeless dogs, we saw a poster in the hotel lobby with Anatoli's picture on it advertising the shows.....too bad we didn't read Russian or we would have know what we going to see. We were just excited to experience some local culture while we were here. The next day we mentioned our encounter with our interpretor Valentina. She told us that Anatoli was a famous Russian singer from the 70s and 80s and he had a bunch of hits back then. Apparently he is a big hit still in America with all the Russian immigrants there. We were then told the poster we saw in the hotel lobby billed Anatoli as the biggest Russian/American singer ever (or something like that). Cool...so we are going to a reunion show of sorts. That show is tonight in a couple hours. Valentina agreed to come with us to help us navigate through the experience...should be fun! If the are selling shirts....I am buying one! Read more tomorrow for the review.
Before going to the baby house today, we took at drive with Oleg and Valentina out to a village outside of Petropavlovsk. We wanted to visit the actual village that Darya was from but it was 3 hours away and apparently the road are really bad....so we settled to go visit a village that was a similar size a littel closer to town. The village wasn't that far at all, just past the airport which is about 20 km outside of town. It was neat to visit a smaller town....even if it wasn't Darya's home village. We just wanted to get out of the city to see what it was like out there so we could show Darya pictures and videos when she is older.
Our visit with Darya today was great...she really seems to get excited when we walk into the baby room to pick her up. Today we think she just got out of the bath because she was buck naked in the arms of the care taker laughing and gigling. Kim then changed her into some clothes she had brought for her and we sat down to feed her lunch of borsht soup and meat & mashed potatoes. We are now just taking the juice they give her in a tea cup and transfer it immediately into the sippy cup. She reaches out for it immediately and drinks all of it in one shot now. Valentina thinks that Darya appears to be getting bigger cheeks which she thinks is a sign that she is putting on some much needed weight. We are not too worried about her weight right now...she eats everything put in front of her and is very active. When we get her home she will eat well and we will keep an eye on her progress in that area. Kim also brought a little jar of baby food (apple) with her which she gave a couple spoons of to Daray....she couldn't get enough of it either. It was a big change from her normal diet of cabbage and potatoes based meals and she probably just enjoyed the variety. We are starting the get the hang of feeding her so that most of the chow ends up in her mouth and not all over the table, the chair, our laps, her face, etc. There is no fooling around when feeding Darya. When it is lunch time it is all business. The care takers she is used to being fed by feed all the babies in the room in arond 20 minutes. At first it we were taking 30 minutes just to feed Darya...we now have it down to 10 minutes. If you take too long she starts to figit and get distracted ...she is used to being fed fast.

Tomorrow we are bringing the baby carrier to try that out with Darya. Kim will use it to help carry Darya when she travels home. I wish I didn't have to leave but I must get back to work. After being here for a few weeks....everything is safe here so that won't be a problem. I just think it won't be easy traveling on all those planes for the first time with a baby. So tomorrow we are doing a bit of 'dry run' training on how to use the baby carrier so she can start getting used to it.

Court is planned for May 4th

We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - where the 'light' is our court date to officially adopt Darya as our daughter. After meeting with Svetlana again last night it appears that our court date is now scheduled for Thursday May 4th next week. As long as we get the medical examination papers approved in London England before the 4th we should be in good shape to actually be in court that day. We are very excited and actually looks like this is pretty good timing under the cirucumstances. Being Canadians we had to have an accredited medical doctor of the British Consulate review Darya's medical records and examine her in person (Americans have a similar process as we understand it, but they have their medical examination after court at their embassey in Almaty). Apparently there are only two of these accredited doctors in Kaz. One in Karaganda who wouldn't travel to Petropavlovsk and told us to bring her there (That wouldn't be an easy or quick process). The other doctor in Almaty agreed to come to Petropavlovsk (at our expense). This happened on Tuesday and now that paperwork is en route to London. We believe it should get there tomorrow and they apparently review and process it quickly. They should have at least 3 business days to do so before court on the 4th. The speed bump to getting a closer court date is that it is a federal holiday here in Kazakhstan on Monday May 1st. This is not a problem for us because our 14 day bonding period required by the Kaz Ministry of Education is done already and our court paperwork is already being processed.

May 4th is also a day after Darya's first birthday on May 3rd. It is fantastic that we will be able celebrate Darya's first birthday as a family. Valentina is going to help us organize getting a birthday cake made for her so we can hold a little party for her at the baby house. We want plan to invite the other American couples here at the hotel to come as well - it is going to be a blast. Then if everything falls into place we have court on the 4th (and have another celebration that day). Then there is a flight from Petropavlovsk back to Almaty on Friday afternoon.....and a Lufthansa flight leaving Almaty for Frankfurt at 1:45am Saturday morning, then there are a handful of flights to get from Frankfurt to Canada on Saturday morning/afternoon that could get home sometime early Saturday evening - that would be best case scenario at this point and is what we are aiming for. There is still a fifteen day waiting period after court before we can bring Darya home. Right now the plan is for Kim to stay in Petropavlovsk to wait that out while Shane goes back to Canada to get back to work - that could change though.

Showing all 4 and 1/2 of her pearly whites

Meanwhille, as mentioned we are done our official 14 day bonding period with Darya but naturally we are still going to the baby house everyday while we are here. With every visit now we can feel a stronger attachment with her. Since the day we met her she was very comfortable with us, but she gets along with everyone from what we could see. What is different now is that she seems to be a lot more interactive with us and what we are saying to her. She seems to feel a lot more comfortable with both of us and reaches out to be held now. Earlier in our visits Darya was a bit more 'figity' when she was held, but now she latches on. The sippy bottle we starting using with her just three days ago is something she now grabs immediately every lunch time and drains it empty in no time flat (That isn't a bonding thing, but she obviously likes drinking out of it instead of the tea cups). She also didn't have any problems making eye contact with us, but now she seems to be listening a lot more intently to what we are saying to her and recognizes some of the English phrases. It is also getting harder and harder to end our visits each day. By the end of our visits she is pretty tired as we spend a lot of time playing and being interactive with her. She now likes to cuddle in our arms at the end of the visit and when we bring her back to the baby room for her nap it is really hard to let her go.....we both just want to lay her down in her crib and watch her fall asleep but we are never given that opportunity. We can just hand her over to the care takers and give her a kiss good bye....that is getting tougher and tougher each day. The care takers do their jobs well and we cannot express how grateful we are for the wonderful care Darya and the other children receive there - but as parents it is becomes difficult to leave our daughter there only because we want to be with her. In the meantime, we know she is in incredibly good care and we all be home as a family soon enough.

Day 14 - Waiting for court now

If you were looking forward to more pictures today of our precious Darya, birch forests or Petropavlovsk at dusk - we are sorry to say that we have no new photos. On Day 14 at the baby house we shot video all day and didn't take one picture...and our video camera is still in Oleg's car somewhere in the streets of Petropavlovsk. It is long story but we expect it back later today....plus we wouldn't have a hope of posting any video over the tiny weeny internet connection here. But rest assured there will have a video edited and ready soon enough...
Today was the 14th and final day of our official bonding period with Darya...we now wait for court. We have been told that will be going May 5th which is a week and half from today - way too long but we are waiting for a medical examine to be approved by a doctor in London England (Apparently there is a Canadian doctor that has to rubber stamp Darya's medical before we can proceed with court - it a Canadian government thing). We should know more details later when we meet with the in-country coordinator tonight.
Gotta keep this short for now....glad to see the Senators pummelled Tampa Bay last night....we are looking forward to cheering on the team deep into the playoffs when we get home.

Day 12 of 14 - Son of a Birch that is Cool!

Today is was a beautiful day when we woke up. We quickly tuned into the second game of the Ottawa/Tampa Bay game on the internet to find out Ottawa had lost and the seires is tied 1-1. No biggie....didn't expect to sweep Tampa anyhow. We just hope the Senators are still playing hockey when we get back to Canada.
Because it was such a nice day outside, Valentina thought it would be a good idea to go to the 'Birch Forest' outside the city. We didn't know what to expect other than a bunch of birch trees huddled together. When we got out there it was very cool....I don't think we have every seen that many birch trees before....all you could see in all directions were tall white stick reaching for the sky. It looked like it would of been a good place to shoot a scene for one of those Lord of the Rings movies I thought. You could see little bond fire pits and empty beer bottles all over the place where it would appear people had parties at night. Some of the best vodka is apparently made in the Petropavlovsk region from the birch trees they have here. We have already bought a bottle of the good stuff for our Russian friends back home, Galina and Igor.

The Mystical Birch Forest

Speaking of trees, they have some strange arbouring practices in the city with the trees that line the streets. All the trunks of the trees are painted with white paint and they have been chopping off all the branches leaving these stubs all over the place. There must be a good reason for both practices and we will have to ask Valentina about that tomorrow.

Prune Those Trees Boys!

After the visit to the forest it was off to the baby house. It was such a nice day we asked Valentia to see if we could talk Darya outside for a walk around the baby house. The care takers said yes so we fed her lunch and bundled her up in a big snow suit and borrowed a stroller and went outside. We were pretty sure this was the first time Darya had been outside the baby house since she arived there in late October. It is just way too cold here and too much work to dress all the kinds up to go outside when it is -30 below. You would of thought it was still -30 below today the way the care taker put the layers on here before we could take her outside today. It was betwee 15-20 degress centigrade, but she had a big old snow suit on and a hat and little booties. Better safe than sorry - but if you have to break a sweat dressing your kids to go outside, maybe you are putting to many clothes on? We did a few laps around the baby house and then went back inside to go upstairs and play

Taking Darya for a spin outside

Another first today! When we arrived at the baby house and went upstairs to see Darya we picked her up and cuddled with her in our arms. We then put her down in the play pen and she started to cry - this was the first time she every cried to be picked up and it broke our heart - but took it as a sign that she may be starting to bond with us which is awesome. Naturally we picked her right up to give her some more love....it felt so good!

Playing in the play room was a blast today. She had the walker again today and really loves to zip around in it. We also introduced her to a sippy cup today. At lunch they would always give her juice to drink in a tea cup. She can't handle the tea cup on her own so you would have to tip it over in her mought and let the juice kind of fall into her mouth. Most of the juice ended up all over the table, her bibe and/or our hands (Note that this could be due to our inexperience in feeding a toddler as well :-) So we put some of the juice in a sippy cup to give it a whirl. At first she really didn't know what to do with it, but with a little coaching from Mom and Dad, she started to figure it out and wouldn't let go of the thing. In general, Darya seems to pick things up very quickly. She likes to be stimulated with toys and games and is very interactive when we play with her.

"Mom, sippy cups are for big kids like me?"

We would like formally announce our daughter's full name, Darya Nicole Moorhead. Her given first name is just too beautiful to change. Nicole is after her bio father's name Nikolai (SP?). Together we thought it was a very sweet name and it just suited her. Kids with the name Darya, also go by Dasha which we use with her here. We expect to keep both Darya and her nickname Dasha while she is young and she can decide what she wants to go by as she gets older.

Svetlana didn't come today but is coming tomorrow. We were told that she is bringing the doctor with her which is great! We were also told the the court date will be on Friday May 5th which will be a week and half after our 14 day bonding period which isn't that cool. I need to get back to Canada for work. We will talk with Svetlana about that detail tomorrow.

Day 11 of 14 - Happy Paska!

Hello again from Petropavlovsk. I had posted last weekend asking about why Easter didn't seem to be a big deal here.....well that is because Easter (Paska) is celebrated a week later by the Russian Orthodox. Lots of stories to tell from the last couple of days. Firstly, Darya is awesome and each visit seems to go by faster and faster. We can't believe that we have spent our 11th day with her today. Wednesday this week will be our 14th day and the 'offical' 14 day bonding period will be over. We are still waiting to hear when the doctor will be coming to examine Darya before we can get our court date scheduled. The whole doctor thing is a bit of a long story. Let's see if I get this right. Unlike our American friends who are here adopting from the same baby house, we must have Darya examined by a Canadian doctor. Since Canada does not have an embassy here in Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan-Canada business is handled through the Russian Embassey), we use the services of the British consulate here in Kazakhstan. They apparently have two doctors in country, one in Almaty and one in Astana. That means we need to fly one of them up here and have Darya examined before we can have the court date assigned. It is still all theory at this point because we don't know when the doctor is coming. Hopefully it will be early this week so that we don't have to wait longer for a court date.....those balls are all still up in the air but we aren't too concerned about it yet. Sveltlana the Kaz coordinator is coming to meet with us tomorrow and hopefully we will have some more details then....
In other news, Kim indulged at the 'spa' here in the hotel and got a pedicure the other day. It was real cheap comparied to what you would pay back home for someone to wash and paint your toe nails for you. They go the extra mile here and actually embossed a decorative onto each of her big toes made with tin foil. We are not sure what the decorative is supposed to look like, Kim says it looks like a bird - BKKAAWW!
Last night we were downstairs with Lee and Laura having dinner. Everything was the same as usual....that was until we found out that the TV sitting on the bar doubled as a Kareoke machine. The waitress working that night, Valentina, fired it up and just started singing some Russian songs. She had a great voice and we were all looking at each other saying too bad they probably don't have any english songs.....but we were wrong. Valentina brought over the book listing all the songs and there were quite a few English tunes. Now we had to sing...Laura jumped right up and started singing Donna Summer's 'Hot Stuff'". Unfortunatley for Laura, that seemed to be the super-long extended version of the song......she was up there for like eight minutes. Kim then went onto sing some Brittany Spears and Shane sang Jimi Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady'. By this piont we were drawing a crowd from around the hotel...the cooks came out of the kitchen and the hotel administrator came into the restaurant to check things out. They were all laughing at us. Hey! How many people can say they sang Jimi Hendrix at a Kareoke bar in Petropavlovsk?

Sonny and Cher? Not!!!

Today's visit with Darya was a blast. We have had her in the baby walker the last couple of days and she really likes to boogie around in it. The music room where we play with her is great for that - she can roll around all over. She really likes to move around - a lot. She eats really good and then burns it all off at play time. In the same room, there is also a play traditional Kazakh house (Like a native teepee) where she likes to go and hang out with Mom. Unfortunatley there is only so much we can do in the music room with Darya.....although it was beautiful outside this afternoon, they will not allow us to bring Darya outside for a stroll. We cannot wait to be back home in Canada and hang out in the park with her.




All the homeless whoofers here is hard to see everyday for dog people like ourselves. Kim broke down and brought some food outside for some dogs after dinner outside the hotel. I am sure the hotel people don't want stray dogs hanging out at the front door.....but it is hard not to give a dog a bone once in a while!

More whoofers hanging outside the baby house

Day 9 of 14 - We are over the hump....

Well it looks like we aren't going to break any blogging records for continuous days posts after not posting yesterday - It was a beautiful day and we had a great visit with Darya. We actually spent a lot of time away from the hotel yesterday having lunch with Lee and Laura and walking around after our visit with at the baby house. As we have been saying, there are lots of whoofers around - both those that are pets and unfortunately a lot that are homeless. This morning we saw a Rottie outside our hotel room window going for his walk - we miss Cleo. It sounds like Kim's mom Barb is doing a great job of taking her for her walks and given her lots of love while we are gone.

A Rottie we saw going for a walk

Today was Day 9 of our bonding time with Darya and it is starting to go by faster and faster. Darya is becoming a real chatterbox now. In the music room where we visit there are a bunch of framed photos of kids who have stayed at the baby house. We take Darya and walk along the wall so she can see the pictures and count all the pictures (There are 20 or so). We are told that the word 'baby' is known as 'Lala' in Russian, so when we count we say " She really likes that and gets very vocal when we walk along the wall looking at all the pictures. She tries to reach out to the pictures to touch them. She is the same way in the play pen with the other kids, she likes to crawl over to them and check them out - I guess she is a people person?

Mom and Darya with the "Lalas" on the wall in the background

She also loves moving around....she doesn't sit still. I guess being confined in a play pen for most of the day could account for that. Althought yesterday when we walked into the play room she was in a baby walker and zooming around the room like a bumber car. Unfortunatley I was too caught up in the moment I didn't think about pulling the camera out for a picture. Kim and I we thinking of asking if we could bring the walker into the music room tomorrow and really let her go nuts with it there. That will be a lot of fun. Today we walked here around the room and played with the toys. She can't get enough of the camera. Everytime it is pulled out she drops everything and is laser focused on getting her hands on it. We also started playing Peek-A-Boo with her today which she really seems to enjoy. She starts to wave her arms and make baby talk a lot when we hide behind a play cushion.

The debut of the Cherry Pants (Sorry Linda, didn't get her whole legs in the photo)

Peek-a-boo with Pops

Other than the baby house, we have also been doing lots of walking around. There is a big long square in the middle of the city that isn't very far from our hotel room. After the visit with the kids is over, we go down there and just walk around and take in the sights. There are always lots of people walking down the square. There are ladies who sit on the side of the square and sell sunflower seeds you can buy to eat or feed all the pigeons that are all over the place here. The trees are starting to bud, but I don't know if we will be around long enough to see anything bloom...I hope so. We have seen some pictures at the baby house of Petro in the summer and it looks really nice.

"The Square" is actually a very long rectangular path through the center of Petro

Spring has Sprung in Petropavlovsk

What a beautiful day it has been here in Petropavlovsk. There wasn't a cloud in the sky when we woke up this morning and it stayed that way all day. I started the day by listening to the Senators game against the Rangers over the internet. The local radio station streams their broadcast, but I thought with a dial-up connection that we have have fat chance of actually hearing the game coherently - but I was wrong. The game actually came in well without pauses. We listened until midway through the second period when Mike Fisher, from what could hear, scored a very pretty goal. As Gord Wilson of the Team 1200 put it on the broadcast, "Folks if you are listening to the game in the cars, get home immediately to catch the hightlights of the game because this one was a beauty" Thanks Gord! How about it you are on the otherside of the planet in Kazakhstan listening the game....what should we do then? By that point it was like 4-1 for Ottawa so we turned off the game and disconnected from the internet. That was the final game of the season for Ottawa and they start the first round of the playoffs against Tampa Bay I believe. It is good to know that we will be able to catch the playoff games here in Petro over the internet at least. There isn't a sports bar with the satellite dish and chicken wings here in Petro that we know of....until we find one then the internet will have to do :-)
We traveled to the baby house today with the other couple from Florida, Lee and Laura. They are really nice people and it is fun to go through this whole experience with another couple here. When we got to the baby house there was another music lesson happening in the music room, so we all played in the baby room for the first hour of the visit. Darya was extremly playful today and definately had gotten the rest she needed. It is really fun playing with her in the baby room with the other kids and watching them all interact...trying to take toys from each other...rolling onto each other...coo'ing at each other and just hanging out. Lee and Laura are adopting Serik, a very cute and bubbly 9 month old boy. He is a doll and he and Darya we actually in the same play pen when we all arrived this morning. It was a great day. Darya was full of energy as I mentioned and actually was a lot more vocal than she has been in previous visits. While we played with her today she was babbling quite a bit and had lots of smiles for everyone. It seems like on the sunny days here in Petro Darya is a lot more interactive with us - which makes sense to me.
Linda, the little toy cubes with the apple and the baby face in them are a hit with Darya. She has been playing with them everyday. We have been trying to show here how to find the baby doll face inside the cube and pull it out....today she actually pulled it out on her own for the first time. I am starting to understand the signifigance of these events in a child's life. Before we became parents I didn't have the context - I was very happy for my friends when they told me about when little Johnny first sat up on his own - but I didn't understand the signifigance fully. We are looking forward to all the 'firsts' in Darya's life. We have had many firsts this past week. The biggest was the first time we met this precious angel who is going to be our daughter - it chokes me up just thinking about. From that moment, we began to understand what being a parent felt like and it keeps getting better and better. All my friends and family told us that having a child was going to change our lives....but I just had no idea how much and how good this really feels.....Sniff!
OK - back to blog business. We know that those of you who are still following the blog everyday want to see the goods. The good are pictures. Today we took another 60 or so - thanks to digital cameras it is just way to easy to go overboard. At this pace, we should have about 1800 pictures to share with you all. Unfortunatley we cannot post them all over the 28.8 dial-up connection here in Kazakhstan so we had to prune it down a bit for now. But there will be a screening of all 1800 photos at our house for everyone when we get back.....bring your sleeping bags and tooth brushes just in case.

The shirt says it all

"Can I take this duckie in the bath Mom?"

Goofy Face Competition: "Pops! You Win!"

The local pizza joint - Shane was showing withdrawl symptoms before we had lunch here today

The local grocery store where we bought all our crab flavoured chips....

Is that is soap on the top shelf? Lost in Translation perhaps?

One week in Kazakhstan...

Big hug for Mom

Darya with Pops!

"Mom, tell me about that time when you....Zzzzz....Zzzzz"

We have now been in Kazakhstan for one whole week....it really seems like we have been here for a lot longer than that - in a good way. What a week it has been. We have experienced a new culture, met lots of new friends and last but not least have met our beautiful daughter Darya. Our lives have changed so much in the last week. Darya is precious and words cannot express how much we love her. We are truly blessed to have met her! It gets harder and harder to leave her everyday at the babyhouse. We are so anxious to get her home and go to the park, visit the grandparents, show her her bedroom and just watch her grow up.

Another couple from Florida just arrived at our hotel today and they are working with the same agency here in Petropavlovsk. As a matter of fact they are adopting from the same baby house - so it appears that we will be hanging out together quite a bit over the next few weeks. Another couple we met a couple days ago from California are also staying here at the hotel - so it may be getting to the point where we will have to make a reservation for dinner now down at the hotel restaurant just so we can all sit togehter :-) It is really nice to have some other families here to talk with and share stories with.

Today's visit with Darya was awesome. Kim left the the little denim dress behind yesterday for the caregivers to dress her in today....she was so cute. Apparently she had slept until 9am today which was good because she was really tired today. We spent most of our time in the baby room this visit because the music room was being used to host a music class for some of the older children. There was a lady playing the acordian in there and you could hear it as you walked up the stairs. I swore I heard her playing the 'Chicken Dance' song. After 11am the music class was over and we were able to bring Darya in there to spend the rest of our time along with her. A game we have been playing with her is a variation on the airplane game but this time Kim would sit on one side of the room and I would ask Darya in Russian 'Where's Mama?" And then fly her up in the air over to Kim. Darya really seems to enjoy it. Right now she is still pretty quiet ....not babbling as much as a girl her age might - but we aren't too concerned about it. The doctor at the baby house believes that Darya is a couple months delayed in some of her motor and communication skills - but you would expect that under the circumstances. It will be great once we get to spend some more time with her at home!

Short Visit Today

(We are going to be here for a while....and thought we should stop counting the days - so aren't posting them in the blog post title anymore)

We are now starting to get into the routine now. Wake up with the sun around 6:30am, get up and have a coffee, watch some news on TV, check some email - it is started to be just like home.

As we drive to the baby house each day we always see packs of homeless dogs trotting around or just lying around like these guys in a park nearby:

The indigenous Canine Cutie-mus of the streets of Petropavlovsk

Kim and I have started giving all these whoofers names of our own as we tend to see a lot of the same dogs all the time. The big white Lab in the middle is Rusty and the guy to his left is Benji - because he looks like Benji from those old movies. There is even a sheep dog off to the right....who is namelss for now. It is strange, because a lot of people keep dogs as pets here and you see them walking them all thetime....it must be hard for the homeless pups to see their canine brothers and sisters with an owner...sniff!

On our second day with Darya they had just put her on a new schedule at the baby house where she no longer has a morning nap. That means she is up around 7am and doesn't go down for her first nap until 1pm'ish. Today she looked tired. The caretaker said that she slept well through the night, but woke up early most likely because she was hot (They have central heating provide by the city here and the baby house can't control it to turn it down or off) So Darya wasn't very active today...she was still engaged with us and the toys but at the same energy level. That's cool - Monday's are hard for everyone sometimes even a baby:-) We thought it would be best to cut the visit a little shorter today and let her get some rest....plus I was catching a bit of a runny nose and could of used some rest myself.

Day 6 - Happy Easter Everyone!

It is Easter Sunday today. We thought that Easter was going to be a big deal over here....but it doesn't seem to be. Business as usual on the streets and in the stores.
Off to the Baby House to visit Darya. As we mentioned earlier, a lot of the young kids have a proper name (Darya) and a nickname (Dasha). Everyone at the Baby House calls our little one Dasha...and so are we just to not get confused. In fact, in the same play room there are two Dasha's, one Masha, one Pasha and little Sasha. Just to fit in Kim and I gave ourselves Russian nicknames. Kim is now going by 'Kimovich' and I have adopted the moniker 'Shane-gor'...I like it! The little guy Sasha is a hoot. His proper name is Alexandra and he is a real sharp dude. He is approximately 18 months but he looks like he is more like 2 years old. He runs around the play room showing off how agile he is....playing with all the toys...and then he will run over to you and stare at you with his big grin.

Here is Sasha - "I can finger paint like nobody's business"

Today the caretakers waited until we arrived to change Darya into her day clothes. It was nice to have a chance to spend some time with her on the changing table. She doesn't fuss at all and actually seems to enjoy getting dressed....she may turn out to be a clothes horse like Kimovich

Darya with one of the caretakers at the baby house and Kimovich

Here are a bunch more pictures from today:

"I guess he is going to take more pictures today huh?"

"Did you moisturize today Mom?"

"Just sit here and look at the camera? No Problem!"

"These new toys are swell"

"Say Ummm!" (To open your mouth in Russian)

"Keep that borscht soup coming Pops!"
"

"Mmmm...mmm....that was some good buckwheat!"

After our visit today, Valentina asked us if we wanted to go have lunch and she recommended the 'Slovenec Inn' (Which was the same place we eat lunch at two days ago. It is a really nice place and the food is really good. Kimovich had the Pork Kabob and Shane-gor had the beef steak (Hamburger patties). They play really nice music in there and have good beer. Apparently this place is pretty pricey at $31 for three people including our drinks and a salad. Valentina mentioned that there is a pizza place as well - me being the connoisseur of all things pizza I told her that we need to check that out tomorrow.

The Slovenec Inn, home of the best Pork Steak in town

The Slovenec Inn outside

Day 5 - Saturday in Petropavlovsk

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Petropvalovsk when we woke up this morning. Today we both were able to sleep through the night without waking up at 3am which is very nice. Like in Canada, on days like today after a long winter people are all outside taking advantage of the nice weather. We saw people hanging their laundry outside to dry, kids outside playing in the parks and the wayward whoofers ('Homeless Dogs' in Kim & Shane speak) taking in some rays outside the baby house when we arrived this morning:

Whoofers soaking up the rays outside the baby house

Today we went straight upstairs for baby room #2. When we walked in there was Darya hanging over the edge of her play pen waiting to see who was coming to visit (She seems to really pay attention to people coming in and out of the door at the baby room)

Darya hanging out in her play pen waiting for us to come in!

Then we went off the music room to spend some time with Darya. She was a ball again today. She really seems to like gadgets as she couldn't stop playing with my camera and watch - we joked around saying perhaps I should bring in my laptop and allow her to work on our taxes which we didn't finish before we left. Like yesterday, she really likes to move around. Crawling, rolling, climbing and trying to prop herself up on anything solid....she really loves going for little walks around the room while we hold her hands. She also loves climbing on us like below....she really likes the old 'airplane' game where you lie on your back and hold her up in the air - here is a pic right after she came in for a landing:

Coming in for a landing after playing 'Airplane'

We also heard Darya's first fart this morning. Finally Shane has someone to point the finger at when Kim smells something funny in the room besides Cleo (a.k.a. Big Mama Whoof). The stink didn't stick around so we didn't get to change our first diaper yet...but I am sure we will get our fill of that soon enough.
Darya got pretty tired today playing around with us and we brought her back to the baby room early so she could have lunch and go for her nap. Before we left she gave us a big smile and then started playing with all the other little guys in her play pen

Big goodbye smile...see you guys tomorrow, it's naptime!

After our visit to the baby house we hit the grocery store to buy some essentials for the hotel room (Milk for coffee, cheese and bread for lunch, and all kinds of sweets). The selection isn't bad in the store and thank goodness for the packaging....like at home...there are good pictures to help describe what the stuff is - like the crab flavoured chips and ham flavoured tooth paste (Maybe that was chesse spread...but it was in a tube? I would brush my teeth with it). After that we went to a department store and bought some more toys for Darya that were a big more advanced than rattles and cushy toys. Can't wait for the visit tomorrow to our little poopie and help her play with the new toys. Das vi danya for now!

Day 4 - Play time with Darya

Yesterday after meeting Darya for the first time - we couldn't wait to get back to the baby hourse to spend more time with her. After getting back to our hotel yesterday around 1pm we tried to not fall asleep during the afternoon (so we wouldn't be up all night) but I think we made it till around 4pm and then crashed...got up around 9pm and went to bed around 11pm...and managed to sleep until 5am which means we are almost getting used to the time. I am sure our bio clocks will have adjusted completely as soon as it is time to leave Petropavlovsk...We got up early this morning and made it down for breakfast today. 'Dan' the waiter who had been serving us in the hotel restaurant wasn't there today and there was a nice lady who served us instead...and her english wasn't too bad (Better than out Russian at least). Kim and I both ordered an 'Omlette with Sausage' - which turned out to be a some steamed egg whites with two slices of meat on top....it would be a hit on the Atkins diet.Valentina our interpretor picked us up around 10am and we headed to the baby house. On our first trip to the baby house yesterday we never made it past the director's office on the first floor, so we didn't get to see too much of the place. Today we went straight upstairs and immediately we noticed a lot of the murals on the walls that we had seen from other families trips to Petropavlovsk, like this one:

One of the beautiful murals at the baby house

Murals are all over the walls and Valentina told us that they are they to help some of the older children find their way around the orphanage - good idea! Valentina proceeded to escort us to 'Baby Room #2" where the 2 and under children hang out. As we opened the door...there was Darya standing up in the corner of the far play pen staring right at the door with a big smile on her face. We immediately went over to her and picked her up and Valentina then brought us to the music room where we could spend some time alone with her. There were lots of play mats and blankets available to put on the floor so we could play with her there. Darya is a real ball of energy - Kim pulled out some different toys we had brought with us and Darya started checking them out. Like a lot of kids her age, she was more interested in the things that aren't toys like Kim's necklace, my watch...and I am sure my car keys would of been a hit if I had them on me :-) She also likes to move around alot. She is 11 months and crawls around like crazy....grabs onto vertical objects and props herself up. She is getting up and standing on her own when she hasn't something to grab on to - I guess I am going to have some baby-proofing to do at the house when I get back (a little sooner than I thought)! She also loves the camera....we tooks lots of pictures of her today and have posted a few here for you all to see. It isn't very hard to get a smile out of Darya and she really likes to sit on one side and pose for the camera like in the picture with Shane below. The room we were in was a little dark so we used the flash at first and she blinked when it went off...but I think she liked it because she let followed that up with a big grin...she is a real cutie-pie.

Striking her favourite pose with Dad!

All smiles with Mom!

At 12 noon it was lunch time so we cleaned up in the music room and made our way back to the main baby room where the other children were. We got to meet and play with some of the other kids while the caretakers prepared lunch. They were all so cute, some of them had already been adopted and their parents will be coming back in a couple weeks to get them. A few others were not available for adoption. After spending time in that room with all those kids....I can see why caretakers love their jobs! After spending about 20 minutes in the play room with all the children, Darya's lunch was ready. We were able to feed her ourselves which was a real treat...and she likes to eat. Right now she is a little underweight for her age...but tall. Based on how she puts the chow back...she is going to catch up in the weight department in no time. She was starting a new diet today where she had some vegtable rice soup to start, followed-up with some mashed potatoes, ground beef, carrots and peas. She wolfed it all back and washed it all down with some juice.

Peas & Carrot Surprise for Lunch

After lunch it was nap time. As it turned out all the other kids had finished their lunch and had already hit the sack for naptime while we were only half way through Darya's lunch...we will have to work on that. When she finished her lunch we brought her into the room beside the playroom where all the kids sleep. There were a bunch of cribs in there and most of the kids were sawing logs already so we had to be very quiet. At the end of lunch Darya looked like she was ready for a nap. We were told that she usually doesn't get to spend two hours straight playing with adults...so she was tired. We placed her in the crib and she still had a big smile on her face....sadly we left right after that - but we will be back tomorrow, can't wait!!!

"I really like naptime!"

In other news....Valentina took us to a restaurant for lunch (Can't remember the name) where we had a nice pork chop and french fries for lunch...it was pretty good! When we got back to the hotel we were told that a smaller room was now available so we made the switch. The other room was more like an apartment and a bit more expensive. Over the time that we are here it will save some money. Plus the new room was just renovated and is a lot brighter. It was nice to live like a Russian Pop Star for a little while (Apparently some big star stayed in the same room the night before we got here), but back to realty.

a couple more...

Day 3 - Say Hello to Darya!

Our first picture together with Darya!

Thursday 10 am - Petro time!!!! Today we met our new little daughter Darya ( the nick name for Darya in Russian is Dasha and all the baby house staff calls her Dasha). First we had to go to the government office to pick up the social worker who will be checking in on our vists and then say her piece on our court date on how the visitations went. We then drove to the baby house which currently houses 79 children between the ages of 0-4 years old. We were then taken into an office and asked several questions from the baby house doctor and then she perused through a big pile of profiles and told us that Darya was a match for us! She then made a quick phone call upstairs to ask one of the care takers to bring her down. Our hearts were pounding, we were about to meet our little Dasha for the first time. The care taker knocked on the door and in her arms was the sweetest little baby we have ever seen. At first she looked at us with really wide eyes and a look like "who are these funny people" but after 30 seconds, she was full of smiles for us and didn't fuss one bit once we held her. We were able to hold and play with her for about 20 minutes. Dasha kept grabbing my Tiffany ( knock -off of course) necklace and tugging on it and trying to put it in her mouth. So looks like we have a Tiffany fan on our hands!!! Actually, she is really teething ( she has 4 teeth now) and needed something to soothe herself. I took out the little teething toy you gave me Sue and she loved it !! I can't wait for her and Jodie to meet each other!
Today we only got about 20 minutes with her and the doctor told us that we are now scheduled to come see her eveyday from 10-12 am. Darya is still a little small, about 15 lbs so they said they are going to increase her food intake more over the next few weeks to beef her up a bit. No doubt that she will put on some weight once she is at home with mommy and daddy. She also had a little bit of cough and they said that a cold had spread around the baby house alot of the kiddies had colds and were taking cough medicine for it.
So here are a few pics from today and after tomorrow, there will be tons more to come!!! So far all is good here. The town we are in is quite poor and there is alot of unemployment. The main industry here was manufacturing supplies for the Soviet army and once Kazakhstan became an independent country in 1991 when the USSR split up, most of the manufacturers had no more buisness and people lost their jobs. Now the industry here is manufacting agriculture supplies and bicycles. This town has a much more Russian influence then Almaty has. Almaty was much more advanced and more of a thriving metropolis then Petropavlovsk.
On another note, Kim went down to the hotel restaurant this morning and a young man visiting here from Russia was pounding back whiskey shots at 7 am. He was quite drunk and came and sat down next to her. He was ( from what little I understood) trying to either tell me he was an actor in a Jean Renaud film playing a sniper or that he was infact a sniper.!!! Right now we are back at the hotel and going to go have lunch, we are 10 hours ahead then Ottawa time. I have to say, this hotel makes the best darn cabbage rolls I have ever tried, the food is good here!!! Well buy for today...hope everyone is doing well at home. It's hard for us to call anyone as it is 10 hours ahead here, so we will mostly be in touch via e-mail now that we have an internet connection in our hotel! Paka Paka!!!! (Bye-bye in Russian)

Day 2 - Travel to Petropavlovsk

Today we got up early and headed back to the airport to catch the flight to Petropavlovsk. We got to the airport and checked-in for our flight...as it turned out we were allowed 20kg each for baggage and we had about 69kg total...so we had to pay for the excess weight (about $50). We were warned about that - but it was hard for Kim and I not to bring our anvil collection with us on the trip :-) The flight was on a local Kazakhstan airline which I cannot spell let alone pronounce. The plane we road on appeared to be an old Russian jet where you boarded through the back. I didn't get a picture of the outside of the plane...but I did managed to take a couple of the inside (while we made a stop in Kokshetau everyone got off to stretch their legs). This plane was worn out and you would never see a commercial plane like this in North America - but on positive side it also means that the plane has a lot of miles under it's belt. The flight itself was smooth....it took about 4 hours in total to go from Almaty to Petropavlovsk with the stopover.

Waiting at the Airport in Almaty

Map of KZ and where traveled today

When we got to the airport in Petro we were greated by Valentina our interpretor. She is a real doll and her english is very good. They drove us to the hotel where we dropped off our bags and had some lunch while we went over some prelminary planning. Today we had to go the Ministry of Education to offically recieve our invitation for adoption. We met with a very nice man at the government office who asked us a few questions about ourselves and then he wished us good luck. We were then waiting to hear from the social worker at the baby house to see if we could visit today but it was getting to be too late in the day - it was amost 7pm. Valentina got us back to the hotel where Kim and I had some dinner (She had cabbage rolls and I had chicken with braised cabbage). We are resting in our room tonight because tomorrow is the big day when we will meet our daughter...expect lots of pictures!

Made it to Almaty Kazakhstan !!

Got to make this short as we have been trying to post something here for the last hour and the internet sucks here...dial up and the sites are not coming up. We made it safe and sound and meet the baby tomorrow. We are so excited to finally meet her. We are in Almaty at a mall in an internet cafe called Troy. We fly to Petropavlosvsk tomorrow...flights to Almaty were great, no problems. Passing customs was easy,they just looked at our passports and let us through with no questions at all. Easy!!
Food is VERY weird here.....I had horse dogs ( eeekk..yucky) , kinda like hot dogs for breakfast, runny eggs and bread. We are pretty skeptical with the meat here. They also have no toast, just bread, but not toasted. For dinner we went to King Burger which is a knockoff of Burger King, they even use the same logo, but once again I am pretty sure they were horse burgers. Thank God for that special sauce they load on to it to mask the flavor!!!
People are nice here and very fashionable....all the women wear fancy tight jeans, lot's of makeup andvery high heel black boots. We went to the supermarket and they have most of the same brands and chocolate bars we have back at home, hey...they have Dove soap too!!

Will post more in the next few days. All is well...talk to you soon! We will be parents tomorrow, hard to believe this day has finally come...maybe we'll get into the cheap vodka tonight to celebrate...Oh Galina...I miss your delicious coffee...all they drink here is instant coffee!!!!!

Bye for now everybody...Mom...I hope big mama whoof is doing ok and you are giving her lot's of love while we are away!!
Kim and Shane

Almost Ready to Go!

The tickets and the passports (with the Kaz visa) made via Fedex today...whew! We leave from Montreal tomorrow at 5:15pm to Frankfurt. We then catch an early afternoon Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Almaty that gets us in sometime around 1am local time. From there we are not sure how we get from Almaty to Petropavlovsk - it all depends on what is available on Tuesday April 11th. Apparently there is a Air Astana flight that leaves at 6:55 am on Tuesday...but that may be cutting it close. Otherwise we may just rest in Almaty on Tuesday and continue travelling to Petro. on Wednesday...the sooner the better - we can rest when we get there...at least in theory ;-)

Earlier today I was telling some friends bout this blog and sent out the link http://kazakhstanorbust.blogspot.com - then I realized that when we set up this blog we acutally spelt Kazakhstan - "Kazahkstan" Oops....I won't say whose fault that was. Some Folks who actually know how to spell Kazakhstan have the same name for their site (or we tried to copy theirs). Eric and Heather appear to be over in Uralsk adtoping Natalie - check out their blog. We don't know them - but I will put an email out to them to inform them of our fouled attempt at borrowing their blog title...Oh the shame!

All the packing is almost done. Kim was done the day we heard we were leaving 10 days ago. I on the otherhand being the season road warrior decided that I could leave it to the last minute...and I am sure I will pay when I realize I forgot to pack underwear. The age old dilemma when packing is deciding what to take, and what not to take - and the anticipating the local weather always factors into the decision. According to Yahoo Weather, it seems that they are starting to show some signs of spring - but it is still a bit chilly. So the long underwear is making the trip and sadly the shorts will not!
Time to go finish getting everything else together. Our flight doesn't leave Montreal until 5'ish tomorrow afternoon - but we have to drive to Montreal. Denis is going to drive us there....thanks a bunch for the lift!

Testing Offline Blog Editor...Geek Stuff

Since internet access is going to be dial-up over there, I thought I would find an offline blog editor to use so we can blog anytime and then post in one shot up to the site. I found w.blogger which I am using now. Freeware...should do the trick.

It is coming together

It has been a busy week...too busy that we haven't had a chance to update the ol' blog with what's been happening. We still don't have our passports and visa back, but we expect them to be done tomorrow and couriered to us for Satuday morning....that means we have booked travel to Almaty for Sunday. We initially thought about flying on Saturday afternoon....but that was cutting just a little too close. Booking travel without our passports or visas is crazy enough for this dad-to-be :-)
Other than that....I think we are all set. We have pretty much packed already. I called Bell Canada to find out about overseas phone rates. They guy on the phone said that the rate from over there was something like $6.74 for the first minute then $3.24 thereafter.....WHOA! I tried to clarify that we were going to be in Kazakstan...not one of the outer moons of Jupiter!! That is nutz! Apparently the internet connections in Kaz are dial-up at best - so communciation will be a challenge, but we will do our best to keep the site updated with all the happening while we are overseas meeting our daughter! We are so excited...I haven't been able to sit still for the last week....I have been a bag of nerves. Kim on the other hand is pretty calm. She is excited about that the trip is finally happening...but isn't as 'worried' as me about something wrong happening. That is me...and that is her...what can you say? :-) We have had a lot of support from fellow Petropavlovsk parents who have journeyed before us....and they have been a ton of help just filling us in on the little details you need to know while you are over there.
Time for bed....probably will post on Saturday before we leave...till then!

What a crazy week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are leaving Saturday morning ( potentially Friday depending where we fly out of) to Toronto-->Frankfurt-->Almaty-->Petrovaslovsk
All in all 1.5 days of flying. We have been crazy busy trying to get all our paperwork ready for Friday. If one step is delayed, it will throw eveything off and our trip will be postponed. We still have so much to do. Packing too on top of it all !!!!! To make matters worse, I think I caught step throat and I have no voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just what I needed!! Oh well, hopefully I can beat this thing before I leave! So much to do!!!

Planning has begun....err...ummm...travel planning that is?

(Shane here) After receiveing the call from our agency on Tuesday, Kim and I drove down to Toronoto Wednesday to meet with the adoption agency to go over all the logistics about what needed to get done before we travel to Kaz.
We were told by the agency that we needed to travel ASAP - and the agency suggested that we depart on Saturday April 8th so that we can get to Petropavlovsk by Wednesday the 12th. It appears that the only flight to the region leave Almaty on Tuesdays - it is going to be a bit rushed with all the visa and other paperwork that needs to be organized but that is what we are aiming for (Our medicals had expired the three month period and Kim's passport is due to expire in Nov/06 so we wanted to get that reissued - they apparently don't like to see passports over there that are close to expiry)
Right now we are so excited...finally all this planning, thinking, dreaming is taking us to the next step in the journey.

Got the call !!

Today we got the phone call that we will be travelling in 2 weeks to Petrovaslovsk, Kazhkstan to meet our new daughter!! We are meeting the agency for a meeting tomorrow to get more information on the child and travel, at this point I have no details yet, will fill you in on Thursday with the details on our gal!!!

More Paperwork!

Most of our police checks and medicals have expired again, so we went to get them all re-done at the RCMP and police station yesterday. Our agency didn't ask for them to be re-done, but I thought we better get pro-active as I am sure they will !!!

File got to the MOF/MOE !!

Just got the call that our file arrived and has already been to the MOF ( Ministry of Foreigh Affairs) and MOE ( Minstry of Science and Education ) for approvals! All is good, not we just wait for the 'BIG' call to travel there!!!!!!

Our File Left for the MOE/MOF in Kaz!

Our file left for the MOE ( Ministry of Education) in Kaz on Friday March 3rd !! It got hung up at the Toronto consulate due to holidays ect..so it took a bit longer then expected. WooHoo...now er just wait for our LOI....we are once step closer....hoping to travel at the end of May!!!! YEEHAW!!!! Will keep you all posted.

Dossier still at the consulate of Kaz in Toronto

Just got an update yesterday that our dossier is still going through the legalization process at the consulate of Kazakhstan in TO...should be ready and off to Kaz by Monday!! WooHoo.
We are hoping to be Kab bound by end of March early April !!! I'll keep you posted!

Ok now things are kinda moving..

Boy...I haven't written an update in about a month or so, so here's what's happening..

* We got Shane's medical sent off on January 4th. Done!

* My doctor letter from the specialist was a photocopy and not suffient for the Kaz folks so I had to request an original and the doctor's office is closed until Jan 7th, had to wait a few days but I finally got it and sent it off.

* In the meantime, my original medical form expired while waiting for Shane's so I had to go get a new one and I sent it off last week.

* Apparently our file is now ready to head to the Kaz consulate on Monday for their approval, I am so excited...I pray that all our paperwork is ok, I am so tired of paperwork now!!

So that;s where we are right now...once it get's approved at the consulate, I should have an update.
Oh, our agency just got their accreditation for Russia, I am so happy for them and all the families who have been waiting since last June. Overall, I am thrilled that I changed to Kaz, cause I just feel it was meant to be for us somehow and have no regrets that we switched from Russia to Kaz.

Oh...we started Russian lessons at the local college 3 weeks ago, my gosh it is a hard language to learn, but we are having a ball !! I learned the 2 most important phrases...being the shopaholic I am:
1. How much?
2. Do you take Visa?

Bye for now :-) Das-Vid-anya

ON to the next step....

We finished collecting all the neccessary documents for the agency, so now it's been sent off to be translated. Happy Holidays everyone!!

More paperwork..........

We were sent another form yesterday to sign that we promise to register the child with the Kaz consulate in Astana before we leve the county with the child...................

Immigration Approved!!

WooHoo....our immigration sponsorship papers were approved for Babs!!! We are slowly getting there!!! Yippe!!!


ps..I am having second thoughts about the apple green and lilac room for Babs....I want to keep the lilac after sewing the quilt ect...but the apple green may be too bright??

New regulations...more paperwork!

Just got an e-mail from the agency asking us to sign forms that we commit to providing a yearly post evaluation report until the child is 18 yrs old to the Kaz Consulate....no problemo!!

In good news, looks like we can use our airmiles to get our flights to Kaz for free ( well at least to Almaty). We just need about a months notice before we travel.....don't know if that's feasible, but hope so, as it would save us some big bucks!

Shake it like a Polaroid picture.....

Today we took various photo's of our home and ourselves together to send to the agency to include in our dossier going to the consulate of Kaz. I am so glad we get to send other pictures cause we kinda look like terrorists in our passport photo's and if that is all they had to go on, we'd be in trouble, ha ha ha. They always tell you not to smile in the passport photo's, so needless to say, we don't look too thrilled in those pics. Also went to the bank and got a big fat money order made up for the Consulate of Kaz...
It scares me to think where all the money goes in EE adoption....I really hope the ophanage get's some of the money we are paying....although I have the feeling they get the short end of the stick. We are going to bring a bunch of stuff with us to the orphanage such as children's tylenol, vitamins, warm clothes ect...I'll probably take up a collection of used kids clothes from friends and work before we go. Today we also started shopping for Babs room. This may sound hideous but it's actually cute, we are doing it in apple green and lilac. We painted the walls apple green and have a lilac bedspread and curtains with the cutest little sparkly DKNY throw pillows and a black rod iron crystal chandelier and cute flower pics on the wall in black frames. I love it...I am going to post pics soon! My husband was complaining a little that it looked too mature for a little girls room.....I just don't like themed rooms such as Barbie, Little Princess ect.. I wanted to do it more shabby chic...so it's certainly girly, but not really babyish.

Ok this is pretty embarrassing...but I think I am spelling Kazahkstan wrong.......is it Kazakhstan or Kazahkstan? I have seen it spelled both ways...someone please tell me!

$$$$ Show Me The Money $$$$

So I checked the mailbox today and received my immigration paperwork back. They stuck a big sticker on it that said "Insufficient Fees". They want $75 more. I paid for it on the interenet at the immigration website and it charged me $75 automatically. Oh well, such is life. I'll send then the additional $75 and hopefylly we can get this show on the road!!
Oh and the adoption agency sent us an e-mail yesterday asking for 10 photo's of me and hubby and our house. Looks like I'll be forced to do some housework this weekend, ha ha ha!!
Hey...Did anyone catch the show called the Long Way Around with the actor Ewan McGregor and his buddy going around the world on their motorcycles this week? They went through Kazahkstan, was pretty neat....some of the locals had them over for dinner and served them goat head and horse penis !! Ekkkkkkkk...I pray they have Ramen noodles over there!!!!!!

Uggghhhh....

I just checked the on-line status of our Immigration forms ( sponsorship for an adopted child) and it said that they are mailing them back to us because we filled something out wrong..POOP!

Tick Tock Tick Tock.....

Hi everybody...all our updated paperwork is almost done, just waiting for hubby's medical report to be completed...his doctor will have it ready next Friday the 18th and we are all set to go, updates will be completed and we can move to the next phase of having our dossier translated and sent to Kaz!! WooHoo

The waiting is by far the hardest part......... tick tock ....

I really want to go shopping pretty badly to buy some warm clothes for "babs" ( interim baby name as we really don't know what to call her until we meet her...we'll just keep her birth name) when we travel to Kaz, would I be jinxing ourselves if I did????? I don't even know her age/size.....maybe if I bought for 1 yr in age I would be safe. Old Navy, here I come!!!

For all you prospective parents adopting from Kazahkstan, do you ever get the following?

1. Where the heck is Kazahkstan?

2. So...you are adopting from Pakistan are you?

3. Wasn't there a nuclear explosion there once?

4. Isn't that where the bird flu comes from?

Word around the office is that I am adopting from Pakistan....is there even an adoption program there???? I guess if you say Kazahkstan fast enough, it does kinda sound like Pakistan.........

But...there still are some real sweet people out there...

In continuing with our saga to get all our paperwork updated, we had to have a financial statement completed that lists all our assets and have it signed off by an accountant. So I booked an appointment with an accountant who I had never met before and went to see him yesterday with all my financial documents. He sat with me for a little while, went over everything, created a draft of the document I needed and when it came time to pay I said...." so should I pay on my way out today or when I come back to pick up the original document?"....He said to me....."I couldn't imagine charging you, it's a wonderful thing you and your husband are doing, maybe just return the favor if you ever need your taxes done, come see me". WOW!! What a sweet man he was, I will have him do my taxes this year for sure!!! It's so nice to see that there are some sweet folks out there after dealing with the doctor thing!!!

Grrrr...why are some people so mean???????

Ok, I totally need to vent here. I am so upset, angry, frustrated!!! Here is what has happened..
As I explained in my previous posts, we have switched countries over to KZ. We had to have new medical forms completed for this country which consists of one form with 13 questions with a YES/No checklist if we have certain diseases such as Leprosy/ Malignant Tumours/ect.....

So................my husband calls his family doctor who he has been seeing for about 15 years or so to make an appointment to have the form completed. He just had a full physical done at the end of April by her and she completed his medical form for our Russian adoption. Anyways, her office couldn't give him an appointment until mid December as they are busy. We explained to them that we needed this form completed ASAP as its for an adoption and we need to travel soon and begged for an earlier appointment and they said NO. We then offered to pay for an appointment and once again they said "NO too bad". So my husband calls back again a few days later and begs for an appointment and explains the form is only 13 YES/NO questions and asks if there is any way at all they can help him expidite the process as this is super important to have completed ASAP so we can get our referal and travel and then they gave him and appointment for end of November, which is better but really doesn't help. So a few days go by and I call and I thought I would smother them with kindness and explain the situation is really important and for an adoption and see if they could ask the doctor for an after hours appointment again and we will pay whatever for the appointment with her ( the form takes 10 mins!!). Once again, they said NO and that they put us in the Nov 23rd appointment when they really shouldn't have..then I asked them to go ask the doctor if from the kindness of her heart, she would see us somehow to complete the form, I got put on hold, the secretary came back and said NO. I was so upset....I just find it really insensitive to our situation. My hubby has seen this doctor for many years and he is such a sweet guy. I realize that the Ontario health care system is over worked, but I still think this is quite insensitive considering it's an adoption and she couldn't find 15 minutes at the end of her work day ( which we even offered to pay for) ect...Grrrrrr.......I called another doctor's office yesterday, got my husband an appointment for next week, he went to his old doctor's office to sign a notice to transfer his file to this new doctor. The secretary at the office said..."just so you know, once you transfer out of here, you can never come back".....my husband's answer..."Not a problem!!!"
Obviously I will never name the doctor as that would be defimation of character, but all I have to say is " FOOEY ON HER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our Timeframes...

Here is our timeframes so far:

Jan-March/2005- researched countries and selected Russia

April 13/2005 - started homestudy
Just a note here on the homestudy for those of you who have not started theirs yet. DO NOT be nervous!! It's really not that bad. Don't worry if you have a speck of dust in your home, it's really not all about that. We were nervous at first and after out first homestudy appointment, we were totally at ease. Our social worker was fabulous. She told us that she is here to help us and educate us on the adoption process. Sure we talked about our marriage/family background, reasons for adopting ect..but it's very non-judgemental. It's not an interrogation. She was really friendly and talked to us about how to explain to a child they are adopted, the issues adopted children face and even put us in touch with other families who have adopted from Eastern Europe. It was actually a pleasant process...my house was tidy enough, but not spotless and it was fine!!! ha ha ha
If anyone in the Ottawa area ever needs a wonderful social worker for their homestudy, e-mail me and I will give you the information.
During this timeframe we also needed to get the following documents completed:

- RCMP fingerprinting and background check on Canada wide database
-Local Police Check
- Vulnerable sector screening ( checking for any weird crimes like sex crimes ect..)
-Medical forms
-Financial forms
-Copies of passports
-Copies of Marriage License
-Copies of Birth Certificates
- Letter of employment with salary
- 6 references ( family, friends and co-worker)
- your left arm ( ha ha...just kidding)

May 20th/2005- completed last homestudy appointment, woo hoo!!

June 27/2005- signed with adoption agency and homestudy sent to agency and then sent to The Ontario Ministry of Child and Youth Services for approval to adopt from Russia.
Approval received 3 weeks later!!

July-Aug-Sept/2005- wait, wait, wait..............slowdowns in Russia with Duma re-accrediting adoption agency, ours is still waiting........

Sept 25/2005- decide to switch countries to Kazahkstan

October 2/2005- homestudy updated to change country to KZ ( I am going to start to abreviate here, LOL !!)

October 7/2005- updated homestudy sent to the Ministry again for approval to adopt from KZ.

October 24/2005- approval received, woo hoo!!!

Now we are just hurrying away here to update our medical forms, finanical statement, police checks ect..for KZ and our dossier should be ready in November sometime!!

To Russia With Love....

So here we are...what can I tell you about us...Kim(33 yrs..)and Hubby ( 35 yrs..)......live in Ontario, Canada....met on a blind date though a mutual friend, married 2 years later and just celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary!!! We have decided it's time to start our family!! Since Kim has been on some potent medications for her Crohn's disease that could potentially harm a fetus, we thought it would be better to seek out alternative ways to start our family. Perhaps we will have one of our own a bit later on, for now, we are thrilled to be adopting! We also have a few adoptions in our family, so we are familiar with the experiences. Kim's parents adopted her brother at 6 months old from Montreal and Shane's Mom was adopted at 5 yrs old and has recently discovered who her birth mom was ( she was already deceased) but did re-unite with her siblings. It was quite the experience for her!!

When we started this whole adoption process, we originally decided upon adopting from Russia. Why Russia? ( we are often asked this question)After researching all the countries, Russia seemed like a very fascinating country with a very interesting and rich history......I remember following that story about that woman trying to pass herself off as Anastasia, the daughter of the Tsar's family who was executed, turns out after a DNA test, she was lying!! Also, I remember watching the documentaries in the 1990's on the orphanages in Romania and always thought, if I were to adopt, it would be from Romania. Romania closed it doors on international adoptions several years ago, so we opted for other Eastern European countries. My husband, didn't really have a preference, he was just happy to adopt overall. Anyways, we were all registered and set for Russia, documents and homestudy done, but then the problems with re-accreditation occured and we were all ready and had no place to go as our agency was still waiting for their reaccreditation. We waited for a few months and then decided to switch to Kazahkstan as our agency just received a license to facilitate adoptions from there. Where the heck is Kazahkstan you ask??( we are also often asked this question, ha ha)....It was formally part of the Soviet Union before 1991 and is situated below Russia, above Uzbekistan and to the right of it, is China.
The agency will receive accreditation soon for Russia, I am sure, so I am praying for all the families that are in the process of a Russian adoption.

For those of you interesting in reading about the whole Anastasia thing, it's very interesting..
http://www.goodbyemag.com/jan97/anastasia.html