Day 4 "The Final Countdown" - Bobdog club (double click for pics)

(We have posted 2 times today, so be sure to check out Day 3 to catch up on Saturday and this one for Sunday.)

Sunday, August 13th “As another day goes by”

Privet from Almaty, KA3ACTAHCKNN.

This was officially groundhog’s day in Almaty, Kazakhstan! We had no idea that Kazakhstan celebrated this day as we do in the US, but they do. As for the prediction - we are gonna have “hot” weather in 3 days! Yes, we will be in Atlanta where the heat is awaiting us.

I could tell you the details of the day around: meals, calls made and received, places we went, things we did, but I will not bore you with those same details that I have talked about the same things for the last 45 days. Instead, I will talk about some new things that happened today..

First, the best surprise of all….Jenia came by this morning around 10am with a copy of Landen’s passport. The importance of this - we can go to the Embassy and complete the medical exam. If you did not realize why we could not go last Friday to the Embassy, this was the reason. Now that we have the passport copy, we only need the medical exam on Monday, the exit interview on Tuesday and receive the original passport in order to leave. If we had not gotten the copy today, we would probably have to re-book our flights. If that had happened, I would have needed to find a temp job to pay our way. Couldn’t you see me trying to cook a horse burger? I would have been disowned by my daughter.

After the morning surprise with the passport, Mom got an earlier Mother’s Day present…Landen said Ma Ma, twice. Kim was in tears as she jumped up to find me and Rylee, asking if we heard it. (Don’t tell Kim, but I agreed when I really had not heard it just to keep the smile on her face) This evening allowed Kim more motherly satisfaction as he said it again…this time we (Rylee and I) heard it. What a joy for a Mother to hear her child say that for the first time!

Later on in the day, one of the best things that have happened so far on the journey…. ESPN is on our TV. Well, it is good for me, not for Kim and is not even in her top 10 best things that have happened so far…its 11th. Believe it or not, I may get to watch a baseball game tonight…in English. I’m not sure if I can handle that much excitement in one day.

We did make it back to the mall (an every day outing), but tried something new. We decided to venture away from the normal pizza and burger places and go to the café on the second floor. Rylee had the pancakes, which were the exact, same as the ones we had in Pavlodar, and Kim and I tried chicken dishes. Kim ordered a chicken and mushroom in a cream sauce. It was better as it cooled and the sauce thickened, so Kim was agreeable with the meal. I had sweet n sour chicken that was nothing like what we get back home. The chicken was broiled I think and the sauce was more sour than sweet. I was hungry, so I can’t say it was that bad, just different. Landen had a little bread (Annie Ann idea), cereal and some water for his dinner. Most of it, if not all of it stayed down.

After eating, our little Ice Princess went at it again. She has watched Ice Princess so many times that she thinks tomorrow will be the regional finals. I have been selected to coach and judge, so guess who will win! More details on the competition tomorrow.

We found a keeper today. Kim was looking for some pants that we could pack on the plane (just in case) when I heard from the other side of the store - “Bobby, you have got to see this”. Kim sometimes gets excited while shopping, but nothing like this. It was either a snake in the store or something she liked. Luckily it was something she liked and I think all of the men in the family will to. If you know our family at all, you will undoubtedly know what the first name of all the men are. Correct, Robert…Woodard’s and Bickerstaff’s. Again correct, Landen’s first name is Robert as well. Now, the keeper is a child baseball cap with “BOBDOG Club” stitched into the front. I guess he is an official member now. By the way, he loves the hat. Hope you enjoy that picture!

We also found the worst liquid imaginable! There were a couple of salesmen with a drink stand set up outside of a grocery store and as we passed by they offered Kim and Rylee a drink. Kim said “English, no Russian” thinking that would get us out of sampling the drinks, but it did not work. One of the men spoke English and insisted on them trying the drink as “it is good for the body“. I was attempting to “run” again, but after two calls from Kim, I reluctantly went back and tried a sip. The looks on Kim and Rylee’s faces were enough to alarm me from drinking it, but I fell into Kim’s joke. That so called drink was absolutely the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth. It tasted like a combination of buttermilk, salt and seltzer water. Kim was laughing so hard and our polite little girl was trying to keep a smile on her face while she nodded with a reluctant approval. I, on the other had immediately turned away and headed for the door in an attempt to not swallow before I could remove it from my mouth. All I could hear in the background was the man saying “You like, You like?” All I could think of was how they should be arrested for giving something like that away. Wow, that was nasty!

To top off the day of new things, we went a different direction walking home from the mall today. This is kinda scary for us, but turned out to be great. Kim thinks the dogs over here have a higher IQ than the dogs in the US. She is basing this on one dog that did not pay any attention to us, until the owner said something in Russian to the dog. At that moment, the dog came to us and rolled over on its back to allow Kim and Rylee to pet him. I guess that’s why Kim thinks the dogs are smarter; I think it was because they know Russian. We found a park around the corner that is open to the public (we think). Our plans for tomorrow were made as we found this park…. We plan to visit there tomorrow and have some play time with the kids. As for the rest of tomorrow….we have Jenia coming by at 9:50am, the medical exam at 10am, visit the park after that and finish up the day on a treasure hunt…we need some formula. Landen has only been able to consistently hold down this one type of formula and one could guess that we are running out. That would be an awful thing to the people around us on the plane and worse than that to our clothes.

We have gotten emails and comments from many of you out there which are greatly appreciated. For those that may be wondering about international adoption….what a gift from God our journey has been and the perfect child for us is now a part of our family. We can not wait to share him with all of you!

Poka, Poka….