October 6th is a special day

Happy 93rd birthday oma!!!


Today, that's the entire Tuesday, was a whirlwind. In fact, I just said to Wendy from Vermont that I thought I wrote you days ago, but it was just this afternoon. Wow! So I'll tell you about today, then I'll backtrack about yesterday in Almaty.

Today I was up at 4:00am after a pretty good sleep. On a plane to Karaganda at 7:00am. Picked up and taken to the orphanage, which is quite nice, by the way. I met babies. And I am pretty sure that I met my baby. I will keep you all waiting in anticipation for one more day. Sorry, but I need another day to really know. Keep the prayers coming. They really are helping a lot. We were at the orphanage for only an hour. It was nap time, not for us, so we left to go grocery shopping and to lunch.

The food market is very modern. They not only scan the food items, but they scan the money I paid and the cash register figures out the change. We have refrigerators in our rooms so we got some provisions. We also bought diapers and wipes for our babies.

I am here with two of the nicest people. Wendy and Joel from Vermont. They had been here 5 years ago and have returned to adopt a brother for their first son. They are experts and have given me such great and valuable advice. How lucky I am to have them here with me. And they are explorers to boot. We went walking to find a place to eat lunch and ended up finding this cool open air market with everything to buy from toilets to veggies to clothes, you name it, it was there. Kind of an outdoor Target. We found a place that the locals go to eat and had shish kabob things. Delicious! and beer. Also delicious! They knew what to order and she can even read Russian so life is pretty easy with them around.

At 3:00 we returned to the orphanage to hang out with the children. The weather is fantastic! Today when I landed it was 32 degrees, but this afternoon it was in the low 70's and very sunny. There's absolutely no humidity, terrible for my hair, but mom, you would love it. We took the children outside for some fresh air. I had to dress my baby in two undershirts, a sweater, a hat, not one, not two, but three pairs of socks, and a snowsuit on top of it all!! Did I mention it was 70 degrees? Well we don't have to worry about them getting cold.

At 6:00 pm they drove us home to our hotel which is wonderful, by the way. Very modern, very clean and spacious rooms. Still having problems getting connected to the internet. Right now I'm using dial up so I can't send pictures. Tomorrow there will be a guy here who will know how to connect me to the wireless system. I can't wait to show you pictures.

9:00pm It's time for bed.