Day 4-Baby Come Back--(double click here for pics)

Saturday, July 1st--Day 4 visitation

To clear up any confusion. From yesterday's post on out--to see photos you can double click on the title of the post and it will take you to the pictures of the day. We appologize for the unorganization of the blog, but Bobby is trying to create all of this using Russian directions...so,I am sure you can imagine the difficulty.

Well today was another exciting day. We are finally starting to get adjusted to the time over here. We all slept until 7:30am Kazak time. We have been waking up around 4:30am, so this was a great accomplishment for us. We have heard it takes 1 day for every hour difference in time to adjust to the time change. I am beginning to believe it. We began our day eating the doughnuts we purchased from the bakery. They were surprisingly good! We will definately make another visit to the bakery before we leave. After breakfast, we exercised(we have a stationary bike in the apartment), played the card game "Old Maid", and worked on our puzzle a bit--we are coming along on the puzzle!!! It was then time to get ready to go see Landen. Bobby video'd our ride to the baby house. Should be interesting to show all of you when we get back.

Once we got to the baby house we were asked if we would like to play in the little playroom again or go outside. We decided we would like to start out in the room and then go outside. It was too hot and humid to stay out there the whole time.....
After a few minutes one of his caretakers brought him in...and yes, once again he had pink on. I am telling you, they love to put him in pink. The had him in a little blue and white short sleeved jumper and a light coat with pink, blue and green on it. They had put the coat on to go outside, even though it was over 90 degrees out there. As we have told you before, they believe in dressing the children very warmly to go outside--even when it is hot. We quickly removed his little coat. Once again, he was in a very good mood. He just loves Rylee and gravitates right to her. They played for a while on the couch and then on the floor. I just love watching them interact. They are definately building a bond very quickly. He has not been spitting up as much, so Rylee is back wanting to hold him again! (after the day of the bad spit up, she was very hesitant. lol).

We purchased him a new toy yesterday at the mall. (a lot of the toys we brought with us are soft, and they will not allow us to bring those to him--they asked that we bring hard plastic, only). He really liked the toy, but seems to love his teething ring and an elmo toy we brought with us that sings. He then started playing with Daddy. Daddy played Patty Cake with him and he loved it! He just listened and smiled at first and you could tell he was really into it..then, after a couple times he started his little belly laugh! I love it when he laughs. After about an hour and a half his caretaker came down to get him. We were very surprised, because we are supposed to have 2 1/2 hours with him. Our translator had left to go back to her office for a while, and we had no way of asking why she was getting him....I tried to let her know we were not ready, but these ladies are in charge and we have to abide by their rules. It is not a good feeling to have them come wisk your son away. I can tell this is going to get harder and harder for me everyday! I just want to take him home with us! Patience...you would think that I would be very good at practing my patience by now.

Anyway, we then sat in the babyhouse waiting room for over an hour waiting for our translator and driver to come back to get us. Our translator was not happy that they had come and gotten Landen so soon and went and talked with his caretaker and she came back down and advised that they would not cut our visits short again. Apparently, the caretaker thought it was supposed to be just 1 1/2 hour visit.

After we left the baby house we stopped at a small vender on the side of the road and purchased a watermelon. It was so interesting, because after we picked out the melon we wanted she cut out a plug to show us that the melon was bright red and ripe. She then placed the plug back in the melon and gave it to us--this was pretty neat! We were very surprised that the melon only cost us about $2 in US dollars.

After we got back to the apartment we cut up our watermelon(it was delicious, by the way), we then rested for about 1 1/2 hours. Our interpreter then came to pick us up and take us to dinner. She brought her 10 year old daughter, Lezza. Lezza can understand English, but not speak it very well. She is a very beautiful young lady, and Rylee enjoyed having another little girl around. Lezza's hair was braided all over...and Rylee loved it!! Lezza and Lena just returned from Turkey last weekend and we were told that hair braiding is a tradition there. We took a taxi to an Italian restaurant across town. We had pizza! It was delicious. We found out that they deliver! Can you believe it? We can have pizza delivered to us in Kazakhstan!

We have a mall,pizza delivery, and tomorrow (weather permitting)...the beach! Don't you wish you were here?

Day 3 - RyRy's meeting with the city (double click for pics)

Friday, June 30th
We will have a somewhat brief post tonight....
We are running late from the mall (yes, my wife is the only woman I know that can find a mall to fit her needs half way around the world. (One of the many reasons I love her...)

Couple of highlights:

We received several calls from some of you today. Wow, that's the best thing to have someone that speaks english on the other end of a conversation. Kim is really feeling at home as she has the phone with her in the mornings and evenings....again, another thing I love. Thanks to Bob "the operator" for working his techno skills to 3 way several people through skype. We love skype.

I made a delicious pan of hashbrowns with cheese this morning. (well they were eatable) It didn't make us miss the Waffle house. As I was cooking, I realized we had no bread, so Rylee and I ran down stairs to the grocery store. If not for the 5 flights of stairs and everyone looking confused when I speak, I like the handy market.

We had a 12:00 visit with Landen....words can say it as well as a picture...
We played outside the entire visitation time, only to stop for the 2pm meeting with the city department of education. Let me be clear, Landen loves his sister. Every move she made he kept his dark brown eyes clued to her. She was the only one that could make him laugh (until mom started kissing on his ears). We had a wonderful time with him and got to see more of the personality coming out. I also have 2 videos of about 1 minute in length that I will attempt to post soon.

After his play time was over with us, he had a party to attend. His play group was in full mode when we took him back to his room. The picture says it all.

The meeting with the city head for the dept. of ed. went... well I should let Rylee tell everyone since she conducted the meeting. We started with the same questions as prior meetings (why Kazakhstan, income, why adopt, etc..), but the lady then turned to Rylee for the rest of the time (some 20 minutes). The lady was a grandmother herself - she proudly showed a picture of her 3 yr old grand-daughter after Rylee showed her some 20-25 pictures of our house, Landen's room, Her room, Her friends (yes, Jack, Lane, Kera, Ella, the cousins photos, Katie, Trent (she told all about you) and the group from school. Rylee took time on every photo to explain when, why, where, etc.... Just to draw you the picture...This lady had been out for a few days so she was backed up badly, we had been waiting to meet with her and today we again had a long wait, so she did not have the time to listen to a 6yr old give her life story, but she did. Lena, once said "this lady is very busy, we must show the pictures later", but the Lady wanted to continue.... When Rylee finished, we exited with smiles and handshakes, I guess that was very good, the hall was packed with people waiting on their turn (again a 90 degree day and no a/c in the building). Needless to say, we love our daughter very much and are very proud of her for doing a great job.

After that, we saw the beach (not bad at all), went to the mall and a bakery. We will have more to come soon...

WE HAVE PICTURES!!!!

Thursday, June 29th--Day 2 Visitation

First of all, drumroll..........WE HAVE PICTURES TO SHARE!!!!!!!
(To access daily pictures...go to the Adoption Pics link...this will take you to our photo blog and you can view our day by day photo album---ENJOY!!)

We had another great day today....We woke up pretty early--we are still adjusting from jetlag! Rylee and I watched a short Barbie movie that we purchased here....we can show it in Russian or English, which I thought was pretty neat! We then ate a quick breakfast of grits(ahhh...a taste of home--yes, we brought them with us!) We then got ready--we were told to be read by 9am in case we got an appointment for our interview with the City Department of Education. Well, we waited and we waited and finally got a call about 10am--we still have not gotten an appointment time, but Lena advised that her and Sergi(our driver) would pick us up at 11:30am. We would go by a baby store to purchase diapers (we have to provide diapers for all of our visits from here on out). We could then go to the baby house to visit with Landen.

To pass time before our visit, we worked on our puzzle! Yes, we brought a couple puzzles to work on while we are here. OK...no comments from the peanut gallery!!!
Finally, 11:25am came and we headed down the 5 flights of stairs! We immediately went to the baby store!! It was definately the most modern store we have been to.
Rylee love it. It has all sorts of baby supplies, toys, and clothing. We purchased Pampers--(yes, they have them here), a teething ring(the baby house director advised us we would need to bring one), and Rylee bought a new stuffed animal dog she has named, Kazi. Kazi whimpers, barks, growls when you try to take her bone!!!

Then...we were off to the baby house. When we arrived, Lena escorted us to a very small room with a cute mural on the wall and lots of toys and stuffed animals. There is a couch and a chair and a small kids table with 2 small chairs. We then waited for them to bring in Landen. It seemed like 10-15 minutes before they finally brought him to us....and yes, he was dressed in pink again...I forgot to post about his outfit yesterday! Yesterday, he had on a hot pink long-sleeved terrycloth pajama top with a short sleeved jumper over it that had a neon design in yellow, pink, green and orange. It was quite interesting!!! They love to put him in pink! Rylee was about to have a fit to hold him, so she held him first. He seemed to be a bit confused as to what was going on. The room we visited him in is a room he has never seen before. He just seemed to look around and try to take it all in.....it didn't help that Bobby and I both had cameras snapping pictures, and flashes were going off in his eyes. Everytime we took a picture his little eyebrows would scrunch up! He definately has some expressions!!! We gave him is new teething toy--he loved it! It was hard to take pictures because he kept putting it in his mouth!

Then it was Mama's time to hold him....It felt so good to finally have him in my arms again! He started to warm up to us...but it did take him about 10 minutes. He then spit up on me...they had warned us that he had just eaten a snack. I don't know what kind of snack they fed him, but it is nothing I have ever seen or smelled before. We have heard that they feed them some sort of soup/broth as a snack---it definately has a distinct odor that can easily cause one's gagging reflexes to kick in....Rylee kept her distance from this point on....She just kept saying she was going to be the first one in the shower to get this smell off of her!! Needless to say...the odor is pretty bad. And to make matters worse...he spit up quite a bit the entire visit. We used about 1/2 package wipes and went through 2 outfits. For those that have asked....I put him in a sleeper from the GAP that was 6-12 months and it fit him perfectly! We measured him and he is about 27 1/2 inches long.
His feet are about 5 inches long.

We then put him on the floor to see what he could do. He can sit up by himself and get up on all fours. His crawl resembles an inch worm! It is so cute. He appears to have good upper body strength, but we need to work on his leg strength! He can definately move around, though! I couldn't stand putting him on the floor for long. I had to hold him! I started kissing his neck and he just started that belly laugh again(you can see him laughing in one of the pics!) He loves to put his face right up to ours. He just laughs and smiles when you do this. He is probably the most ticklish baby I have ever been around. If you even touch his ribs he starts laughing. We had such a good time with him and the visit went by too fast. We were there 2 1/2 hours, but it seemed like just minutes. At the end of the visit I could tell he was getting tired. He had a big day and is not used to this much physical contact....I picked him up again and just cradled him. He starred into my eyes for a good 5 minutes and listened while I talked to him. He was so relaxed and it felt so perfect. He then closed his eyes and fell fast asleep. This is a moment that will be burned in my heart forever! What a great ending to a perfect visit!

We then went a exchanged money and went and purchased a flashcard. This is so that we could upload photos to share with all of you. After that we went home and took naps. Rylee slept for 4 hours and we had to wake her from a deep sleep to come to the cafe to post our blog. We are getting ready to go home and make another homemade pizza. We made one last night and it was so good, and we have left over dough, that we are having it again this evening. Miss all of you...thanks again for all of your comments. We love reading them! Until tomorrow......

Link to Adoption Pics

The Day We Have Waited For!!!

Wednesday,June 28---Day 1-Visitation

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who is reading our blog and posting comments. It is one of the highlights of our day to come to the cafe to read to messages. It means a lot to have so much support!

Well, we had a roller coaster of a day! We were told we would have our meeting with the City Department of Education between 9am and 10am. We did not get a call until 11:15am from Lena. She stated that they were still trying to get an appointment time and she would let us know. Finally at around 1:45pm she called and said that the lady that we need to meet with there will not be back until tomorrow or Friday and that she(Lena) would be coming by the apartment in 1 hour to bring a letter by that we need to sign. She stated that they were going to try to get this letter that we need without the meeting and we could possibly complete the meeting later this week. We all got on our knees and prayed together that if it was God's will this would work! God definately answers prayers...

At approximately 3:30pm we got the call.........WE GOT THE LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our driver and Lena picked us up at 4:40pm and off we went to the baby house! We had a meeting with the Baby House director scheduled at 5pm. It is hard to describe the feelings we had driving to the baby house. We were all smiling, shaking, excited, and in disbelief. After all the waiting, it was hard to believe we were actually about to meet Baby Landen!!! How do you prepare yourself for such a milestone in your life?

We pulled through a gated entrance and came to a stop. We were here...at the baby house. It is a very large building--and looked as if it was 2-3 floors. You could see a playground through some bushes and trees. We waited in the lobby for about 20 minutes. This was the longest 20 minutes of our lives. Finally, the director came through the front door. She is a very pretty Kazak lady about our age. She was very friendly. She asked us to step into her office. We were directed to sit on a leather couch in front of her desk. She introduced herself and immediately began asking us a ton of questions. She started with "What type of child would you like to adopt? Age? Gender? Special needs? 1 or 2?," "Why adopt from Kazakhstan?," Why did we choose to adopt rather than have another child of our own?," What is our income?"....The next thing we knew a caretaker brought in a little boy named David, who is about to turn 1 on July 3rd. He had several medical issues, but was adorable! He sat right in our laps and looked around and started bouncing. We played with him for about 10 minutes (by the way they brought him with no diaper on!) Then.......a caretaker brought in a little boy named, Ruslan. We immediately knew this was our son! Everyone in the room--the director, our translator, and 3 caretakers all started commenting about how much he looks like Bobby. He was placed in Bobby's lap (I was still holding David.) The first 5 seconds he looked as if he was going to cry...he definately did not know what was going. Then he was all smiles, and much to our surprise...out of nowhere he said "Papa"....then the next word out of his mouth was "Dada" which he several times during our visit. We know they have probably been working with him on this, but it definately brought us to tears and sealed that bond! Bobby could tell I was about to have a fit to hold him, so he finally took David, so that I could hold Ruslan(Landen). I was overwhelmed with emotions. This is our son! He looked at me with his big brown eyes and started smiling. I held him up and he just started to giggle. He literally laughed and smiled the entire visit, which was about 30 minutes. He started playing with Rylee and he already has a new game of pulling her hair! They both were belly laughing. I could not believe that at the first meeting he was already so comfortable with us. Around 6:00pm, they came to take him for his snack. It was so hard handing him over, but we know that he is well taken care of and you could tell he loves his caretakers.

We were not allowed to take pictures of him today, but we will be able to tomorrow. We were told that we will get to talk to his doctor tomorrow and find out a lot more details about him. They asked us if we wished to adopt him or if we would like to think about it....we immediately said, yes...and they stated then he will be our son and our 14 day visitation period begins today.

We are only allowed 1 visit through Saturday for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. We are not allowed to visit on Sunday, but can start 2 visits a day on Monday. We are looking forward to getting to know our son/brother.

Meeting with the Chief

Tuesday, June 27th- This day had some ups and downs...
We had a scheduled meeting with the Chief of the Department of Eductation. The normal process is to meet with one of his assistants, but we were requested to meet with him after the delays with the letter of invitation. Our driver, attorney and translator picked us up at 8:45am where we drove around the block to the Dept. of Education. The Department building is normal for the region and as with 95% of the buildings (the one I'm in now included) does not have A/C. Before meeting the chief, we meet with his assistant on the 5th floor. No elevator and 80degrees outside (hotter inside even at 9am) makes for some good exercise. Our attorney, translator, Kim, Rylee and I sat around a small desk to answer some questions. Most were directed to the attorney and we did not have a glue what was being said, but they had smiles. The lady then turned her attention to Rylee. She was asked if she was excited, if she wanted a boy or girl and age of the child. Like a true spokeswoman, Rylee was quick on her feet with great answers. She got out the photo album and took the group through a guided tour of family, friends, our house and her action shots. The translotor at the end stated to the group that there was no need for all of the paperwork, just let Rylee talk...

After this 15 minute meeting up stairs, we were escorted to the 2nd floor where we went into a conference room with a large table in the center. There was the 1st lady we meet with, another lady taking notes and the Chief. He fit the description perfectly. A very strong faced military type middle aged man that was very cordial to us. He gave us the look over and commented on why he wanted to meet with us and appreciated us coming to his country. Suprisingly, he had only 3 questions for Kim and me. They were: Size of our town, finacially able to support another child and if we were religious. All were answered in brief sentences then he asked Rylee if she was excited about the adoption. She said "Everyone's excited", which put a smile on everyones face. The Chief stood up and shook my hand, that was it...

Our next appointment, with the department of education for the city, was set for 12pm so we were dropped back off at the apartment for a break. Our crew arrived at 11:45am and we were off. This building is near the beach (yes a beach)which is 10 minutes from our apartment. We were waiting on the 3rd floor at 12pm when our attorney came back to advise the lady we needed to meet with was out, but we can come back around 3pm to meet with her assistant. With 3 hours to waste, we went with our translator to a Russian restaurant(photos attached). The food was good: I had salmon with potatos and sour cream, Kim and Rylee had chicken. Our translator order us a traditional cranberry juice drink and a congealed beef-pork mixture. These were not as good as the main dish, but we were good sports about it. After the meal we went shopping. Kim found some video's and cd's with an English/Kazakhstan mix that will be a great way to step into the new life for the baby. Kim also found a hairdryer (sorry Kari, yours died) for 1,700 tenge. How much is that in US dollars?(about $14-$15, which she gladly paid due to the fact she dried her hair with the fan in our bedroom this morning! lol) After the shopping our translator called our attorney to see if the meeting was on. It had been moved back and we were to get notice around 4pm if we could meet today. Again we were dropped off at the apartment where we got the call around 3:45pm that we would be going in the morning around 10am.

As we complete the meeting with the city Department of Education, we should have all the paperwork to go see the babies at the baby house. We will keep you posted.


FYI, our guest book is having a little trouble, so you can email us at Kimwoodard2003@yahoo.com. We are also having trouble downloading pictures, because in order to do so, you much read Russian. We will try to bring our translator here to the cafe with us tomorrow to assist.

What Day Is It?

Monday, June 26th (We think!)

First we would like to appologize to our family and friends for not posting earlier. We have had a little more problems than we thought getting on line. We are in an internet cafe right now. (Not exactly what you call a cafe, though) The cafe is a long narrow room, no air conditioning, and about 16 computer stations. Of course, Bobby has still been trying to get a cup of coffee or something, but all we have gotten is funny looks(they do not serve anything at all except internet service. Our apartment is suppose to have high speed internet connection, but we have yet to get it connected--I can assure you we are trying.

Enough of the bad...All in all we have had a very good trip so far. Rylee cried a lot of the way to the airport, but as soon as we got there she looked at us and said, "I'm excited, now!" Since then she has been an angel, and there has been very, very little complaining. We left Atlanta at around 4:30pm. Rylee kept asking, "When are we going to take off?" Right when we started to take off, I looked over and she was asleep. I guess the emotions of the day took their toll.

We slept a little on the plane. Got served lots of food and drinks, and hot herbed towels! Lufthansa is a great airline! We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at 7:15am. We were the last off of the plane due to our magnitude of carry-on luggage. When we exited the plane we found out we had to climb 3 flights of stairs will all of this carry-on luggage. Needless to say, we have learned our lesson about carry-on luggage. We took a lot, because we heard that many times your luggage is 2-3 days behind you, and we did not want to be without! (Luckily, all of our luggage did make it!)

Once in the airport, we had to exit this one area and had to wait in a lounge for our next flight--which was not until 1:20pm. We quickly found chairs where we could lay down and we all fell asleep. Bobby attempted to get on-line there, but no luck. About 2 hours before our flight we went to our boarding gate and waited and waited. All of a sudden we look around and there is no one around us and it is 20 minutes until lift-off---We started panicking and finally found someone that spoke English that advised us that our flight gate had changed. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the next gate, but this put us boarding last and trying to find spots for all of our tons of carry-on---not fun!!! We were a little late on take-off, and everyone was wondering why....THEN...the Captain came on the intercom and advised everyone that due to a 1 minute carry-on luggage delay while boarding we missed our take-off "spot", and it would be anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get another "spot". OOOPPPS! Yes, we caused this delay...leave it to the Woodard's. Other than that it was a very smooth and enjoyable flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Have I mentioned how good Rylee has been?)

We arrived in Almaty around 12:15am, Sunday(Due to the Woodard carry-on luggage delay!!) :-) Customs was surprisingly easy, and as soon as we walked out of customs we saw Aeda (our translator/coordinator in Almaty) holding a sign that read "WOODARD." She had this very surprised look on her face when she saw Rylee and all of our luggage. She had booked flights for Bobby and I, but no one had advised her that Rylee was coming with us. She tried to get a ticket while we were there, but the flight was booked. We started to get a little worried, but she advised her that her father was the Vice-President of the airport, and he should be able to work it out! She quickly realized that we were not going to get all of our luggage in 1 vehicle, so she hired a cab and off we went.....and I mean quickly!!! Rylee did not say a word the entire ride to the hotel!! When asked why she did not talk, she responded "Aeda was driving too fast, and I was scared we were going to wreck!" That is just the way everyone drives around here.

We got to our hotel, in Almaty, and it was clean, nice, and had a friendly English speaking staff. The rooms were a little on the small side, but it definately exceeded our expectations. It was located right across the street from the US Embassy and down the street from the RAM store (a big mall with an ice skating rink.) The hotel did not have internet connection, or we would have posted then. I got the bright idea of being the first one in the shower. At first, I thought we did not have hot water, but after running the water for about 30 minutes it turned kind of warm. I was not going to complain!!! After all getting cleaned up and raiding our snacks, we watched a movie, because we were so wired and mixed up on our times. After our movie, we quickly fell asleep, and slept until 11am Almaty time. Aeda picked us up for lunch and we went to the RAM store, where we had pizza. We were a little worried about Rylee, because it was different from our pizza, but she did not say a word. She picked off the things on it she did not like and gobbled it down. She followed it with an ice cream, yes, a Baskin Robbins ice cream. With Baskin Robbins, pizza, and ice skating she quickly decided she liked Almaty.

After that, it was time to go to the airport. Yes, in two different vehicles--due to the luggage. We get to the airport and after being shuffled here and there and sitting and then being shuffled here and there...somehow Aeda and her father got Rylee a plane ticket. At one point they had found someone who would sell their ticket for full price + $85. A child's ticket is normally 50% of regular fare, so this would have been about triple the cost we should be paying. So, we said we would wait it out and see if a seat opened up....and it did!!! We got to our plane and it was a rather small plane that held 50 people. Rylee was a little worried when we took off, but it was a very smooth flight. It took about 2 1/2 hours, and then we arrived in Pavlodar. This is a very small, simple airport with the very basics. We exited the plane and we were greeted by Lena, our translator, and 2 drivers (because, yes, she had heard we had a lot of luggage) I thought I did well--we only had 4 pieces of check-in--I think we pushed the limit on the carry-on.

We had about a 20 minute ride to the city of Pavlodar and were taken right to our apartment. It is on the 5th floor, and yes we had to carry all of the luggage up five flights of stairs...Whew!!! We were greeted by the apartment building owner, and were very surprized at how modernized the apartment is. It is very nice and we will be very comfortable here for the next couple of weeks. It has a very large living room area, a small kitchen, a nice bathroom with a garden tub, and 1 bedroom with a king-size bed. If we can just get the internet going we will have absolutely no complaints. We tried to call our family, but did not know what to dial to call the US, because we thought we would be using the internet to communicate.

When we got settled in we decided we were hungry and were all fighting over 1 last bottle of water, because it was too late to go to the store when we arrived. We rationed, found another bottle of water in the refridgerator that they had left for us and we decided to make instant chicken noodle soup that we had brought. It is amazing what taste good when you are hungry and desperate. We finally got to bed and were supposed to be ready at 9am to meet with our attorney, then try to get our 2 meetings with the Department of Education. We waited and waited, and finally got a call that Lena and our driver would be there in 5-8 minutes. We went to meet with Svetlana, our attorney, and all went well. We found out that we would not be having our meeting with the Department today, but we will have both meetings tomorrow, starting at 9am, and then, hopefully, be able to visit the babyhouse tomorrow.

After our meeting with Svetlana, Lena showed us around. We are about 3 blocks from a beach. We have numerous shops around us. We went on our first grocery shopping excursion. We had some luck and have found several things we think Rylee will eat!! We will fill you in more later...

Well, we will post again as soon as we can, and we will figure out a way to post pictures. Hopefully, tomorrow! Miss and love you all! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as tomorrow is going to be a very important day for us!!