Day 8 waiting - Sweet and Sour (double click for pics)

Thursday, July 27--- (Day 8 waiting period)

Privet! It’s me, Kim! I am taking a much needed break from cooking this evening, and letting my husband work on his culinary skills. He is going to try a new dish….some type of soft shelled tacos! Should be interesting, anyway!

Up until now, time has flown by, but this week has crept by….very….very…..slowly. Today we got excited that we are able to say we have less than 3 weeks here! It sounds a lot better, anyway!

This morning was as usual…but, I can say I woke up feeling a lot better than I have the last couple days. I don’t know if it was the impact of that meat market or if I caught a little bug, but I am feeling like a new person!

Our visit with Landen was another terrific one! I, as usual, went upstairs to get him. He was in one of the playpens and immediately started bouncing up and down. One of the caretakers took him in the washroom to clean him up and change his clothes. I could hear him crying, so I started to sing our little song that I made up. He immediately stopped crying, and when he came around the corner he was all smiles. When the caretaker handed him to me she motioned for me to wait a minute. She smiled and started calling him with her hands out…..he immediately turned away from her. She started saying something that made him burst out laughing, but when she put her hands up like she was going to take him; he turned away from her again. She looked at me with a huge smile and pointed to her head as if to say “He is a smart one and knows who his Mama is….” (I could have told her that!) She then tried to get him to go to her one last time and he again let her know he wanted his mama…..She just started laughing! I think she was having fun seeing that he has bonded with us and has grown to love us. She was very happy that he wanted me!

Our visit began with a huge spit up on sister! He loves getting her in this outfit. She usually wears her brown shirt with the pink heart on it, but chose to wear just a plain brown one in case he spit up, so he showed her….he got her skirt. She handled it well! This is the 3rd day of pretty bad spit-ups so we came armed with spit-up guard today.
After the bomb on Rylee, we put a bib on him and covered ourselves with a burp pad when we held him. Of course, he did not spit up when we had the armor on….Whatever it takes to keep that smell out of our clothes. We cannot wait to start him on a more American diet to get rid that smell….it is one we will never forget!

The spit-up was the only downer of the visit….the rest of the visit went great! Landen played and laughed and watched Eloise with Rylee for a few minutes. He got tickled when Bobby started blowing bubbles. This was a first….before today, he would just watch and try to figure out what they were, but today he thought they were hilarious! We even gave him a taste of Ice Breaker Sours that we brought from the US. We had the camera ready to take a picture of a funny face, but it did not even phase him…..He loved them. Bobby and I have decided this boy is going to be easy to feed. I bet he is going to eat anything and everything!

After our visit, we stopped off at the big grocery store called Gros. We picked up a few needed items and they came back to the apartment. Lena called to tell us that Leeza had gone with her Dad somewhere and would like us to wait to go to church so that she can come with us….so; we chose to take a walk instead. We walked in a direction we had not gone, yet. It was a beautiful day--about 75 degrees outside with a very nice breeze. The part of town we were walking in was very nice…the buildings seemed to be in better shape…we found an area of nice manicured grass! We even found a very nice clothing store that was just like an American clothing store! This is the first one we have seen of this caliber. We thought that the clothes were going to be outrageous, but they seemed to be very reasonably priced. We did not buy anything, but I have a feeling we may go back! In one store, Bobby and Rylee saw the nice lady that they met the first morning we were in Pavlodar. She speaks a little English. She is the one that has grandchildren that live in Atlanta! Her husband and her own a little Kodak store not far from our apartment. They were, once again, incredibly friendly, and showed us pictures of their visit to the US in November. They had a ton of photos of all of them at the Georgia Aquarium! It is such a small world. Before we left they asked us if they could give Rylee a little gift…they brought her out a little red and white umbrella. Their names are Luba and Sergey, and we will try to go back to visit them before we leave!

After our walk, we came back to the apartment for the evening! By the way, Bobby’s tacos were great! (I took a little dinner break while writing the blog!) We now have a new item to add to our limited menu!

Well, I best wrap it up for today…Rylee wants to play a few games and read some books! Signing off for now…..Poka, poka!