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?