Hello, Almaty!

It is about 10pm on Monday night and we have been trying to get Max to go to sleep for going on two hours now. We would like to go to sleep soon ourselves, so we’re going to try and make this a brief recap of the last two days and since we have a slow dial-up connection, there will be no pictures or video (not that we have any to post today anyway, we’ll try to get some for tomorrow).

We were picked up in Aktobe a little early on Sunday and we were not quite ready. We just needed the extra 10 minutes to get it all together. So the Natashas came up to help us get everything downstairs and loaded up. We got to the airport with no trouble, paid for our heavy baggage, took some photos with everyone and we were off.

Max did very well on the flight, as long as he was being fed animal crackers, fruit snacks, or Cheerios. The one time we tried to put the food away and have him try to sleep was the one time he cried. Since it was a short two and a half hour flight, the constant feeding was no big deal (he will NEED to sleep on those 9 hour flights when we return home). We were met in Almaty by Kate and our driver Leonid and they took us to our new apartment. The area we are in is very nice with a pedestrian street about a hundred yards away. We miss the luxuries of the palace, but at least we have hot water here. We took a short walk to the nearby market to get some groceries and then met with our coordinator Marina after dinner. When she left, we had bath time and then bed time, which went perfectly fine last night.

This morning, we met another adoptive parent from the US. Her name is Kristy and she is adopting her son Alex from Kyzylorda region. She is from Owensboro, KY and she is here with her father on this trip while her husband is back at home working. We all went to the SOS International Clinic for a quick medical checkup for both Max and Alex (everyone was healthy and Max has even gained some weight – he’s up to almost 23 pounds which is about 3 more than back in May and he’s about an inch and a half longer). We stopped to get a dial-up internet card on our way back and then had lunch and naptime. After Max’s nap, we took a walk down the pedestrian mall. There are many cafes and stores. We did some souvenir shopping and then had dinner at a nice café. We got home a little late, so we skipped the bath and TRIED to put Max right to bed. It is now 10:30pm and it has been a solid two hours of him not sleeping. We are sitting here at the computer listening to him entertaining himself by making all kinds of noises (at least he’s not crying). We’re not sure if it’s his new surroundings or what, but whatever it is, he is trying his best to stay awake. I think we’ll wrap this up, do the dishes, and then try to fall asleep ourselves (maybe he’ll sleep if we’re ALL in there trying to sleep).

Tomorrow, we are supposed to go up into the mountains if the weather cooperates, so hopefully we’ll have some good pictures to share then.