Day 5 - Beach Bums...(double click for additional pics)

Sunday, July 2nd

Well, today has been a pretty laid back day. Unfortunately, due to it being Sunday, we are not allowed to visit Landen. We miss him terribly...I (Kim) just keep looking at his pictures! We have asked about visiting a church here. We were told there is a Muslim Mosque, a Christian Orthodox, and a Baptist Church that was built by the Germans. Lena said she will have to ask about if and when we could at least go visit them. She stated she thinks there are certain days that they are open to the public. One would think that they would welcome guest all the time---oh well!!!

We tried to sleep in today. We made it until around 7:30am. We then got up and ate a little breakfast. I then cleaned up a little bit while Rylee played Polly Pockets and Bobby worked on the puzzle. The puzzle is coming along...we will post a picture when it is done! We then got ready to go to the beach. The beach is not on an ocean, but a large river. We had a great, relaxing time, and mostly people watched! Bobby and Rylee got in the water, but said it was very cold. Rylee could not get over all of the speedo bathing suits that the men had on and the fact that most young girls her age only wore bathing suit bottoms not the tops. She did not think this was very appropriate!! lol. All in all it was a great day at the beach. After a couple hours we decided to head back to the apartment...on our way we grabbed an ice cream---it was very yummy I might add, then we stopped at one of our favorite stores for a few items that we needed.

We then went home and rested for a while and then met up with an American family that
we have met at the internet cafe. The are from California and have their two girls with them. Emily is 7 yrs old and Lydia is 5 years old. They are here adopting a 4 year old little boy from the same baby house that Landen is in. We met at a nearby park and the girls had a ball. They ran around and climbed on things and hunted for bugs. After about an hour we all decided to go eat. We went back to the authenic Russian restaurant that we have eaten at before. We had a salad---it was very, very good and we had chicken noodle soup! It was very tasty, too! We then let the girls play for a little while longer. It was so good for Rylee to have some playmates that speak English! We will definately be getting together with them again soon! We are thinking about going ice skating on the 4th of July.

Since we do not a report on Landen today I thought I would tell you a little about what we have found out about him. His birthday is 8/19/05, he was a full-term baby with all healthy reports at birth. He was 53 cms long and weighed 3 kilos and 800 grams (I'll let you do the math!) His birthmother relinquished her rights at the maternity hospital due to financial reasons. She is not Kazak, but Tartar, which is native to Kazakhstan. We had the opportunity to see his baby photo thatwas taken at the maternity hospital. We took a photo of the photo and will try to post it. We have been told Landen is a very good eater and is not picky at all. Let's hope he likes American food! We also found out that the only time he wears a diaper is when we come to visit. When children in the baby house begin to sit up they start potty training them immediately. They place them on a pot very frequently and we are told they learn very quickly what this is for. By the time they are 18 mos old they are usually all fully potty trained.

Tomorrow, we will have a lady from the City Department of Education go with us to visit Landen. We do not know our schedule, but it will be a full day. We are supposed to be allowed 2 visits per day starting tomorrow....We shall see what the day brings us...

Until then.....

fyi...we have posted pics of the apartment and other misc. photos if you are interested