Current mood:

complacent

Oh happy day!
NOTE FROM THE MANAGEMENT: Prior to reading Darren's rant today, please make a note of this important anouncement... Us silly web designers neglected to put a name field on the comment leaving thingy (see, we're not very technical) so if you do leave Sarah & Darren a comment (and please do, they told us they will read them every day and look forward to doing so) please include your name in the message so they can know who it's from. This is of course not necessary for comments left by a certain Guy Incognito, aka Anon E. Mous, as we know who you are... and we're watching you. Now, on to the show, or blog, or whatever this is. Thank you. Sincerely, the management.
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Today was a good day. Happy baby and happy parents with luggage! It started with a tour of the orphanage at 10 am, given hastily by its director, Irena. The Dolphin House is really quite an amazing place. It used to be a children’s spa, and many of the healthy things are still there (pool, sauna, salt room, physical therapy room, racquetball courts, etc.) Everything listed there is true, except the part about racquetball. We saw the kitchens, infirmary, intake center, music room, athletic room, and the various bedrooms and playrooms for children in different age groups (ages 0 to 3 live in this orphanage.) It was all immaculately clean and organized, overflowing with toys, and decorated with pleasing colors and motifs. There’s even a piano in every play room. All in all, this ain’t little orphan Annie. The best part though was when our tour went to the room where our little girl is. She was goofing around in a playpen with a few of her peers, and it seemed to us and the others that she spotted us before we even saw her, and got all smiley and giggly. We’re still awesome parents!


Sarah with DJ & Kim outside the Dolphin House orphanage

After our tour we had lunch and walked a little around the main center of town. Everyone here is very nice and friendly, other than some local teenage hooligans that shouted tourist and something that rhymes with “duck shoe” at us. This only served to reaffirm our choice to adopt a child of the female persuasion.

It was back to the orphanage for visit #2 in the afternoon, and though our baby has a cold, she was far more active and happy today than yesterday. We had lots of smiles and some more babbling, and the camera strap again received a complimentary baby spit soaking. (She’s just beginning to cut her bottom teeth, so everything is going straight in her mouth. Asel especially seems to enjoy the more dangerous activities that can occur in a nursery, specifically flying on the daddy tilt-o-whirl. Big smiles.








Russian is a very hard language. Especially for babies.

The day got even better after that as we retrieved our luggage from the fine folks at the Kostanai International airport, which is, by the way, the size of your local Starbucks. Finally getting into clean clothes is a memory we shall cherish for many hours to come.

The food situation has generally been fine, but Sarah was forced to have a meal of white rice and ice cream. (No, not together). For some reason, she did not want the tongue salad. Go figure.

It’s late. We’re tired. Nighty-night.