Trip 3 to Taraz

Warning: This is very long!

Part 1

I promised a more detailed account of our third trip when we returned home, so here it is!

My mother and I flew to Almaty, Kazakhstan on July 17th after a slight delay with obtaining our Visas. Always before the visas have taken 5 days from the day I send it out to the day I received it in the overnight mail. This time it took 8. And of course we had booked our flights on the 16th and when my mother’s passport and visa didn’t arrive by the afternoon of the 15th I called our wonderful travel agent and had them reschedule our flights for the next day. Eldo at Golden Rule has been wonderful! I don’t know how he managed to save the day for us so many times, but he did. As it turned out my mother’s passport arrived later the afternoon of the 15th so we could have gone the 16th, but I had already changed our tickets.

After 3 flights we arrived in Almaty at about midnight the 19th. Kural our driver was there to pick us up and drive us to Taraz. We slept most of the way there, then checked into the Hotel Zhambyl (same room 221). We showered and went out to Medved for lunch. At about 2pm we decided to take a “nap”. Well we woke up at about 2am the next morning=) We read for a couple hours then tried to get some more sleep. At around 7:30am we headed downstairs to check email and ran into Lynda and Wayne who had just arrived. They said we were to meet Janette our coordinator at around 9am.

When we went down to meet Janette, we ran into Kim who is in Taraz adopting her daughter Alina. She is staying the entire 3 months! Janette arrived and asked us if we would like to go to Umit today to pick up our kids or to wait until we are leaving for Almaty. We all said “TODAY!” of course=) Mom and I had had a good nights sleep and were prepared to bring Alina back with us, but the Robeys had just arrived. I felt for them since they would shortly bring an active 3 year old back to the hotel with them on very little sleep.

At 3pm we headed to the baby house. We were told to wait in the gazebo while Janette and the translator went in to dress and bring the kids out. The baby house was under construction and they didn’t want us in there. Alina was brought out and they handed her over to us! She was looking very scared (I hadn’t seen her in a month) and had no idea what was happening. The car ride back to the hotel was nerve racking. We had a new driver and he was swerving all over the place. Of course Alina wasn’t in a car seat and there were no seat belts in the back seat so I was trying to keep her from being jostled too much. She sat there and clenched her hands. We were really relieved to get to the hotel.

The next 4 days we spent in Taraz getting to know each other. Mom and I took her for a walk to the grocery store for diapers and baby food. We even went to the bazaar one morning (of course we did!). Alina had her first bath and didn’t mind too much. She does NOT like to lay down in the bathtub but doesn’t mind just having the water poured over her head. Meal time was a problem. I was not allowed to bring her food while visiting so had no idea what her reaction to food would be. The first meal she sat in her stroller and clenched her little fists and ate as fast as I could get it into her. And she didn’t stop. I finally had to stop feeding her because I thought she would get sick. When she realized there wasn’t going to be anymore she went into a meltdown. She flung her head back and kicked and screamed. I picked her up and took her into the other room and she stopped immediately. This behavior was repeated each time she ate or saw food. I took the approach of always having a snack on hand that she could see. Also, giving her a cracker to hold helped. She liked to have control over that last bite. She would nibble on the cracker for a long time to draw it out. As long as she had the cracker the meltdowns didn’t happen as often. She was also really tense when she ate, so I encouraged her to touch and play with her food. It took about a week before I got her to smile and not be so focused on the food and spoon. The meltdowns are now much less frequent, and she has gotten picky=) I still make sure she has a cracker in site and that if she wants it she can have it. I think she has realized that I won’t let her get too hungry and that the food is available. In the beginning I am sure she was wondering who was going to feed her and whether or not the food would be consistant.

Alina became quite attached to me right away. She wouldn’t let anyone hold her. She finally warmed up to Mom a few days after we brought her back. During our visits to the baby house she would let anyone pick her up and carry her around. It is very different now. I realize that it is because I am the most familiar person she has right now, though I think she is becoming more attached and we are bonding (at least I know I am!).


Part 2

Friday night we headed to Almaty. I have already told about that trip so I won’t repeat here=) We very much enjoyed Almaty. It is like big cities all over the world. Many more conveniences but also more expensive. We ate at Koo-Koo-Roo Chicken a couple times and also at the hotel dining room. They have very good meals at both places. Koo-Koo-Roo also has a little convenience store. There is a small mini-mart across from the Hotel Kazzhol as well. We were told there was a supermarket down the street a ways. We went there and found an actual grocery store that you might find here! The grocery was on the 1st floor, then there was a mall area on the 2nd floor, and an internet café on the 3rd floor along with a food court and children’s play area. The internet is much cheaper there than at the hotel. I will try to draw a map and scan it in so you can find it.

Tsum is another attraction. They have an outdoor walk with fountains. Inside you will find the 3rd floor is full of souvenir shops. We bought quite a bit there=)

We were scheduled to go to the SOS clinic on Monday the 27th. Nicolai picked us up at 2pm and took us there. It was pretty easy. The doctor looked her over and plotted her growth chart. She is at the 25% in height (out of 100 kids she would be shorter than 75 of them and taller than 25 of them). She is below the 5% in weight. We’ll see how quickly she grows now! She is 16 months old and is in a size 9 months right now.

Tuesday we were supposed to have our embassy appt. but we were informed around noon that Alina’s passport was not in Almaty yet. We could have it overnighted if we were will to pay an additional $100. Otherwise it probably wouldn’t be there until Friday. We were scheduled to leave Almaty for the USA Tuesday night, so I had to call Quentin and have him get ahold of Eldo at Golden Rule first thing in the morning. Quentin called that night at around 9pm and said Eldo was working on it but it didn’t look promising to leave the next day. He called again at 11pm and said Eldo had found us tickets on the 31st, 2 days later. We booked them (thank you again Eldo!) and breathed again=) It made us really nervous to have to change the tickets less than 12 hours before we were supposed to leave. We had to trade in a nice 2 hour layover in Frankfurt for a 7 hour layover, but overall it wasn’t bad.

Wednesday the passport had arrived and we headed to the embassy later that afternoon. YOU CANNOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE EMBASSY. I was pulling out my camera when Nicolai told me “NO!” and pointed to the security personnel. Good thing to know=) The appt. went quickly. The man I talked with at the window was American. He explained all the documents he was giving me. There was the manilla envelope that you are NOT to open and are to give only to the immigration officer upon arrival in the USA. He gave me a packet of documents including her birth certificate (old and new) in Russian and English. Her adoption decree in Russian and English, the court decree and other documents related to court both in Russian and English, and her medical information. Then he handed me a paper about applying for a social security card. Then I got her passport! Yeah!! Her visa was in it. That was it. I took everything back to our seat and Nicolai asked to see her passport. Am I glad he did! Her passport number was incorrect on her visa. He took it back to the window and they cancelled the visa that was in there and issued another. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK ALL INFO ON THE PASSPORT AND VISA. It needs to match up.

We were now officially done with everything that needed to be done before I could take Alina out of the country! But we had another day and a half to wait. We went shopping=) We left Almaty at 3:15am on the 31st and after 2 long flights landed in Denver where Alina became a US citizen! After customs I was directed to the immigration area and told to wait for my turn. Alina’s name was called and her packet of info handed over. About 10 minutes later we were cleared to go. Mom had gone to get the luggage so that we could rush to our next flight to Boise, Idaho (we only had 1.5 hours in Denver). We managed to get to the gate and found the flight was still there. They were waiting on the pilots to arrive. Alina had been great on all the long flights. She got antsy and bored, but Mom and I managed to keep her occupied. The last 2 hour flight was not as easy. I think she decided that enough was enough=) She hollered for awhile and then discovered that ripping out the pages of the magazines was a lot of fun and relieved stress. She shredded them. I was really sorry to leave a mess for the flight attendants, but I thought it better than a screaming child on a 2 hour flight.

Part 3

We landed in Boise at 8:30 pm. My sister was there to meet us and take us to her apartment. Alina was in a daze by this time. My sister had the carseat installed so I put Alina in it. She did not like it at all. She hollered for awhile but eventually calmed down on the drive. We unloaded and put in some laundry and went to bed. Alina ended up sleeping on me for most the night. Poor thing was exhausted and very unsure of what was going on. I couldn’t get her to sleep more than a couple hours in the playpen at a time and finally gave up. The next morning we headed to my mom’s house and visited with my Great-Aunt Margo and some of her children and grandchildren. Alina was back to charming everyone=) She wouldn’t let anyone hold her but she walked with my help and giggled and smiled. That night we saw my other sister and her husband and Alina was all smiles again.

Sunday we headed back to the airport to drop us off to go to Salt Lake City so that Alina could meet her grandmother there. Again the first night she slept with me, but the next night she spent the whole night in her crib. We visited with Grandma and her sisters who were visiting. Alina also met her Aunt and Uncle and cousin Ayvah.

Tuesday morning we headed back to the airport to go home!!!!! We had a short 1 hour flight to Denver then a 2 hour layover that Alina enjoyed crawling around and looking out the window. Then 2 hours to Minneapolis! We were met by Quentin and our 3 girls. Alina was under the impression that she was an only child I think, and entitled to ALL Mommy’s attention. She saw the girls come give me hugs and kisses and her eyes got real big. She was not sure at all about this. We got in the car and she was happy looking out her window for awhile. Then she decided that she wanted out. Luckily we were fairly close to home then.

Alina had refused to take much of a nap on the flights so was very tired. We got home and she wouldn’t let me out of her site and preferred me to carry her. The girls were excited, but Alina wasn’t really in the mood to see anyone new. She wouldn’t let Quentin near her.

I put her to bed and we all went to bed. She did sleep through the night in her crib though!

Okay. That post is long enough=) I will continue from this point in another post. I will say that the next two days have seen Alina come to really enjoy her sisters, though Reina and her have a bit of sibling rivalry going on. Alina is extremely jealous of anyone near me. She is crawling and exploring everything. I am predicting that she will be walking within a month. She is already starting to take steps on her own. Right now she is pushing her little car walker around and grinning from ear to ear=)

That’s it for now!