Home, Miss Livea, and "Who needs a fishing boat when you have Lilliana?"

We are home! (Sort of....) I don't think I have ever been so glad to see the Atlanta Airport in my life! We were greeted with Welcome Back wishes by the Customs officials as we made our way through their maze. While Dean retrieved our luggage at the final baggage claim station, I sought out two large glasses of sweet ice tea! Mmmmmmm! Delicious!

Then we were off to the rental car station and soon were on our way to pick up Miss Lilliana from my dad's in North Florida. This was not an easy trip as we had been without sleep for almost 52 hours! North Florida seemed like a pretty good place to recover from jet lag and fortunately, our systems seem to be returning to normal very quickly.

Of course, being on the beach, Dean had to do some fishing! And, of course, our Lilliana had to be right there trying her hand at it as well! After some lessons from Dad, our sweet little girl successfully landed a flounder and a trout! Way to go Lilliana! Dean and I both tried casting several times, but neither of us could seem to catch anything. According to Lilliana, you have to throw the bait only a few yards in front of you and then draw pictures in the sand with your toe while you wait on something to bite:)

Dean and Janie - 0
Lilliana - 2

Supper was delicious!

We think of Livea every day and remember our times with her fondly. In about a month we will have her home for good :)

July 16, 17 Our Bittersweet Groundhog Day is almost over! :)

Well, that is the name that Dean gave our day today. We only have one visit left to the baby house where our new daughter currently lives. Each day we wake, eat breakfast, work out, run errands, visit our children, chat, eat, and sleep. We add in sight-seeing excursions to learn more of the culture and to help fill the time.


These pictures were taken at the Miner's Park in Karaganda. There are many fun rides for kids at the park as well as the Miner's Statue. That statue is a memorial to the Coal Miners. The city itself sits atop, or used to anyway, a large deposit of coal. (Lee, the picture of the park ride is for you!)

For people like the ones in our group, who are used to much daily activity and little down time, having 5 weeks of it has been challenging. Actually I guess you can say, "You know you've been in Karaganda to long when you feel like your stuck in time, replaying a similar day over and over again!" :)
Of course, all of this is in jest as we have loved building the relationships we have since arriving and the extra time with Livea has been beneficial. She blossoms more every day!


(In the picture below, Livea is laughing at Mommy playing doggy at her feet:)

We had a tea party today with some of Livea's care-givers. It was so nice to have this time with them. They are so warm with us and wished many blessings over us and Livea's life together. Our translator, Natalia, was with us for the tea and that was a special treat as well as we have grown very fond of her! Livea joined us for the tea party and it reminded me of the "cat the swallowed the canary" so to speak! I am sure she was thinking she was "all that" getting to sit in Momma's lap and eat a feast of treats with her new parents and her care-givers all by her self w/o the other children. She was adorable! She kicked her feet and laughed often like a happy puppy wags its tail when it is excited!

In three days we will land in Atlanta. The thought occurred to me today that, at that moment, our sweet family will be scattered much more than I would like! Us in Atlanta, Lindsay in TN, Lilliana in FL, and Livea half way around the world in Kazakhstan.

I look forward to the day that I have all of my family at the same table and enjoying each others' company!







Paka Paka!

Janie

Our Girls!

July 14, 2010 "The Fantastic Four!" Part 1

Livea
Our visits to see our littlest girl have now been moved to the afternoon for about 3 hours a day. Yesterday Miss Livea was "full of herself!" I think she giggled more than anything else. Everything was a big game to her and she loves for us to bark at her like puppies and try to "bite" at her little legs :) This always brings a big smile, laugh, and arms wrapped around our necks.
She is very smart. She seems to understand what we tell her. She will put away her toys when we ask (although, yesterday, she told Dean "no, no" with her head when he directed her to put a toy on the shelf:) I really don't think she knows what a Dada is yet. We took our littlest one for a walk yesterday and came across some birds feeding on the playground. Within just a few minutes Livea was saying "Bird!" She now has about three English words: Button, Ball, Bird.

Dining
Our group is unique I think in that everyone likes to explore the area and seek out interesting places to eat and activities to experience. Of course, ordering is always a challenge as most places do not have English menus. Someone usually ends up mooing like a cow or flapping like a chicken to order their dish:)!



The Fantastic Four Part 1
That is the name we are giving our group! We may even make our own Fantastic Four video to share soon. Our group has encountered some completely unexpected challenges since we arrived! Being with this particular hilarious, unpredictable, pure-hearted, and extremely intelligent group has been one of the biggest treats of our lives. It is interesting to share that we are all from total opposite areas of the US with different political and even religious views. States represented from our group are Alaska, California, New York, and Tennessee. Our common ground: our adoptions process and finding our children here in Karaganda, our desires to do right, our eagerness to share in each others' good qualities, and respect for each others differences.
The Fantastic Four Part 2: Identity Revelation! (of course, Strong Man has already been revealed!)

Some of the pictures posted here are from our recent visit to Astana, the capitol of Kazakhstan. While there, we got to visit the President's Palaceand an exhibit of Bears each of which represented an individual country. Astana is nothing like Karaganda. All the buildings are newer and they actually have rain, neatly kept grass, and flower gardens. We had a good visit!

Quick Update, July 13, 2010

Hello All,

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. Blogger has been down, I think. We are leaving in just a few minutes for our daily visit with Livea so this will be short, however, I will make a much nicer post later tonight.

We have begun our countdown to home. Six more days until we get to go home. My littlest angel, Lilliana, has been a trooper but she is more than ready for Mom and Dad!

In the second picture, Livea is hiding rocks in Daddy's shirt. :)

Until Later,

Janie

Thankful for Summer

(by Dean)
I can't imaging being here in the dead of winter with below zero temperatures. Currently, our days are beautiful - perfect for walking the drive that circles the baby house. There are too many families here for everyone to spend their time indoors, so we typically take Livea out for walks for a large part of our visit.

Lately, she's been walking us! She loves to walk out in front of us, prancing in whatever dress we have her in. She's also become more interactive with me. We have this game of fetch the rock going. Who needs a puppy?

We started one-a-day visits today because of the unusually large number of families that are here. They are here from the US, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, and Spain. The Americans and the Belgians got the morning shift, and they've added an hour to the visit, so overall time spent with our children is about the same. The Belgians are good people and fun to be around. And their English is better than some folks I know back home!

If you try, you really can stay busy here - at least during this time of year. Yesterday, we went to the Karaganda Zoo during our mid-day break. It's a far cry from the San Diego Zoo, but I'd say it was still worth the 2 dollars... I'm just glad that I got out before the walls that house the bears and lions finish crumbling!

Finally, as we circled the baby house this morning, I noticed something you don't see everyday. Here's the video.

Changes :( !@

Today we learned that our court day has been moved and we will have to stay in country about a week longer than we planned. I know that once I return home this "huge" inconvenience may not seem so bad, however, I sure am missing my angels at home right now. I don't think I would have left my sweet girls at home had I known we would be held up in Kaz so long.

I know that many of my friends in process are considering leaving their children at home as well, some for even longer than my husband and I have had to leave our children. Personally, when I began this journey, the time away from home was only about 2.5 weeks and has now grown in some regions to be as much as 90 days. On paper this amount of time may seem doable. In reality, unless you are used to sending your children away for the summer to camp or grandma's, you'll wish you had brought them with you!

Did I say I was missing my girls! ?

On a brighter note :), we had a nice visit with Miss Livea today. She is so intriguing! At 20 months old, she has already developed a strong will and preferences! She LOVES dresses! As a matter of fact, when I try to change her outfit, she becomes quite "upset"! She actually tries to insist that we leave her current dress on her as she loves to prance around in it. In the picture on the right, Miss Livea is excited about getting her new dress on!

I think she has gotten comfortable enough now with us because it seems that she is trying to test her boundaries with us by doing stuff like playing Mama off of Dada! Time to pull out the parenting skills learned with the first two daughters!
Here's video of us playing yesterday.

Day 14: Finally, Strong Man Video!

(Blog by Dean)

As Janie has mentioned numerous times before, we are blessed to have in our troop one Allen "Strong Man" Blond. Al owns a gym in upstate New York. Besides the modern exercise equipment, I'm not sure that Al has missed his gym. For Strong Man, the world is his gym! Here's the evidence. Try picking out Al - he's the scrawny guy in the blue shirt...










P.S. - I had typed up much more, but thanks to a variety of problems such as the laptop battery running dry and Windows Vista not being smart enough to hibernate, and this blogging tool's inability to actually save your work when you hit the SAVE button, I'm cutting it short for now.

Dean

Bonding Day 13

We have officially completed Day 13 of bonding! I wish I had a video of little Miss prancing around in the new dress we bought her. Today she ran back and forth to the mirror looking at her sweet little self. It didn't take to long for her to then decide she wanted Mama and Papa to try to catch her and tickle her when she walked past us. Boy did we get lots of giggles today near the end of our visit!

Bless her little heart! In four short hours a day we have just begun to scratch the surface of this sweet little princess's personality. She has gone from fearful and shy to happy and full of confidence! Even her caregivers have commented on how much more confidence she seems to have when she is in her group playing during the day. However, saying bye, bye to Mama and Papa never makes her smile. It always breaks my heart to see her little lips quiver and tears begin to trickle down her cheeks when it is time to hand her back over to her caregivers. :( They are so good with her, comforting her so sweetly while we turn around and walk out the door. We are very grateful for that!


We have been taking pictures of Livea's current home and many of her friends that live here with her. Most of the little feet you see in this picture belong to children who live in the orphanage but are not adoptable for various reasons. Each day the children spend a lot of time walking with their caregivers or playing on one of the playgrounds at the orphanage.The workers at the orphanage stay very busy! As you can see, there is always a child to hold and plenty of laundry to do! Children are always being taken well care of, the orphanage is always clean, and good smelling food for the children is always being prepared.






I must apologize in the delay for posting the promised "Strong-Man" Work out pics! I blame it on Dean :) as he has not yet found the time to move them from our video camera to the computer. He is a sweet husband! I have been ill twice now since arriving here in Karaganda and he has done all he knows to do to help me out! For the life of me, though, I can not figure out why in the world he thinks snickers bars and cookies will make me better! :) :) :) In all honesty, I have not really been that ill but coming to this part of the world when you are not used to it will throw anyone's system off for a few days!

We have found a fitness center near our hotel to add to our work out routine. One of the other PAP's and I have been attending the fitness classes there a few days now. One of the instructors even speaks English! I highly recommend it! Our favorite instructor - so far - is Anne! She teaches the MWF 6:30 p.m. class (in case you are coming to Karaganda soon :)

Tomorrow ends our mandatory 14 day Bonding Period with Miss Livea. Our court dates are scheduled for July 12 and then we will begin our journey home the next day. Boy will I miss Livea, but I will be so thrilled to hold my girls in the U.S. once again! And, of course, my precious nephews and other nieces as well!










J.

Bonding Day 11 and 12

Janie is not feeling well this evening, so I (Dean) am attempting to fill in for her. I think the tap water she accidentally drank yesterday is catching up with her.

The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbeyev, was in town today. It's amazing how much work the city did to prepare for his visit - including painting lines on the roads!

Overall, it's been a good trip, but I have to be honest and admit that I've already made plans to visit Cracker Barrel as soon as we get back... and Outback, and Carrabbas, and... Actually, the food we've had has been very good for the most part. We're definitely not loosing much weight. And as far as I know, we've been able to steer clear of dishes with horse meat in them. The restaurant at our hotel (Dostar Alem) has been commendable. And a Chinese restaurant named The Princess (I think) serves the best Chinese food I've ever had. There's even a McDonalds type restaurant at a local mall that must get their food straight from McDonalds. It's the same stuff, down to the apple pies. Of course, it was a little different being served Pepsi in a Coca-Cola cup...

Livea is opening up more and more each day. Yesterday was a great day. She was happy for most of both visits, allowed both of us to hold and play with her, and she "talked" a lot. Of course, her talking is mostly a variety of grunts, but it's progress! And it's great how she comes to us with arms uplifted when we show up for a visit, but it's heart-breaking how she wails when we leave.


Today, she wasn't quite as happy. She mostly wanted Janie to hold her and comfort her. And poor thing, right when she was starting to loosen up this afternoon, it was time to go. Janie was holding Livea in her lap with Livea facing her, and told her that it was time for Mama and Da-da to go paka-paka (bye-bye). Livea immediately shook her head multiple times as if to say no no no! It was so cute but heart-wrenching at the same time! She is really trying to communicating with us now. And I really think she would stay with us full time if it were permissible. It's going to be very difficult leaving her for a month.