Goodbye Aktobe!

We had another morning of waiting around for the Natashas to come over and explain the next steps to us. They ended up getting here right after Max went down for his nap (luckily, he was not awakened by Natasha Li's cell phone conversations....the Russian language always sounds very angry, especially when she is raising her voice because the other person is having difficulty hearing her). We had some (almost) startling news during our meeting. They said that they did not have our passports or Max's because they were with the Immigration Police. They would not be able to get them until Monday morning around 10am. Immediately, we were afraid that we would have to postpone our flight to Almaty to Tuesday since the daily flight to Almaty leaves at 9:55am. They assured us that we could still leave tomorrow and use our notarized copies of our passports and Max's birth certificate to board the flight. They will send everything to us by mail on Monday or Tuesday and we should get it by Wednesday. We were very relieved that we didn't have to change our travel plans.

We took a short walk after naptime and then came back to start packing everything up. We will finish that job after Max goes to bed which is actually right now as I type this (it is 8pm right now). We will have to get up very early tomorrow because we are getting picked up at 8:10am. So we're going to cut this post a little short and get down to work.

We feel that we have done a lot of complaining about being here in Aktobe and we do not want to give anyone the wrong idea. While there is much to complain about and a good amount of our time here has been unpleasant, uncomfortable, or just plain difficult, we couldn't be happier about how things have turned out so far. We have made good friends with Jonathan and Shannon from Alaska and with Alan and Melinda from Georgia. We have also been very happy with our translator Natasha and have become friends with her as well. We have even begun to soften our feelings for our coordinator Natasha, too. But obviously, the best part about being here for the last month has been bringing Max into our family and getting to spend so much one-on-one time with him these last two weeks. In time, even with all the problems, setbacks, and difficulties, we will look back on our time here with fondness.

We will attempt to post tomorrow in Almaty, but we do not know if we will have an internet connection in the apartment or whether we will have to seek out a cafe with wifi. Rest assured, if we do not post tomorrow, that doesn't mean that something is wrong. We will post as soon as we are able.

Laura Holland asked if Max's passport photo was adorable. You be the judge.

But Max did have some fun today while we were getting stuff packed up and he was getting ready for his bath.