Current mood:

cold

Spoke too soon
So much for Spring. It’s currently snowing and very cold. Ah the fickle hand of Kayeshagiev Babaganoush. (This of course is the Kazak god of devious changes in weather.) It’s supposed to get back down into the teens at night. Don’t worry mom, I’ll put on a jacket. Dang, I guess I should have brought one. :)

After an uneventful morning we braved another Soviet style cafeteria for lunch called “Rush Hour.” I was hoping for a Jackie Chan tie-in, but alas, there was none.



Sarah had a rather tasty rice noodle salad, while I tried the marinated cabbage and beets, and then we shared some fried bread stuffed with potatoes, one stuffed with cabbage (tasted like an egg roll) and then one stuffed with nothing at all. And we also had dessert, and tea, and a pepsi. I know I keep going on about how cheap food is here, but this is just absurd. It was $2. And $0.60 of that was just for the pepsi. Sheesh.

Since none of us expired from the food (Eugene refused to eat there), we headed across the street to the book store to kill some time prior to our visit. We found 4 children’s books (counting, colors, animals, and weather) for about $2.50 each. They each have Kazak, English, and Russian. Pretty cool, eh?

Asella was a major brat today and is definitely pushing the limits of what she can get away with. She did not want to crawl around and gave us the most preposterous fake cry when we would put her down. (No tears, and big smiles when we picked her back up.) It was a lazy, sleepy day, so mostly we held her and strolled around the room. Every third day or so she seems to prefer to just hang out and be held rather than explore and scoot around. Grant was in a similar mood, so maybe they were just up late watching Leno or something.





After the visit we parked near the INS office so Eugene could do some paperwork, and I was chastised for mistreating his automobile. Big brother is watching… I cracked the door on the street side to get a little air, and from somewhere inside he noticed this, and called DJ to tell me to shut it. And also close the door. Next we headed to the coffee shop to have a drink and dessert (again) before heading back to the orphanage for another open house. My “hot chocolate” turned out to be a “hot pudding” and was quite tasty.

We got to see kids partaking of the sauna today. It was very orderly. All the kids lined up on a bench, with shower caps, enjoying the steam and doing respiratory exercises. After their sauna they come outside and have a glass of herbal tea. Next we saw the swimming pool, which had about a foot of water in it, and 10 frolicking 2-3 year olds, having an absolute blast. One girl kept throwing inflatable water toys at us. It’s great to see how happy these kids are and how much fun they were having. These activities are for kids 18 months and older, and they do them both twice a week for 30 minutes at a time.

We decided to stay in tonight and polish off some leftovers. It’s cold and snowy out anyway, so all the better reason. We’ll find out about our court date tomorrow.

Hope you are all well. Keep the comments coming. We love hearing from everyone.

Your pals in K-Stan,
D&S