Our last visit?

We just returned from what is hopefully our last visit with Anna at the baby house. Irina thinks that we should be able to take her home Monday....We will see what the director says on Monday.

We had a great visit today. Annabelle actually cried when we brought her back to her playgroup. She had not done do before and it was quite hard for me to let her go. One of the little boys came up to her and led her away...gee...how little ones can be so kind to each other. He just looked up at me and smiled as if to reassure me ;0))

After our visit, Irina took us to a traditional Kazak store. So many pretty things. (Lynne...Aisaulé now has a dress!!) We bought a few items and will go back with Yannik since there is alot of stuff in there that he would like. We'll let him choose a souvenir for himself as long as it's not the full armour of a Kazak soldier or a huge camel!!!

Houses of Petro

On our way to Cindy's apt, I managed to take a few pictures from the taxi as we were speeding through the streets. This is true Petro. Our apt is in the city centre and everyone lives in apt. buildings. You travel a few miles outside the centre and there are hundred of these houses lining up the streets.

Merry Orthodox Christmas!

Gee...you have to LOVE Kazakhstan....You buy a ring, they give you a bottle of bubbly as a gift!! What a nice surprise.

We may be receiving a really nice gift....It is now official, we will be moving to Astana once our coordinator finishes our paperwork in Petro. This move will end up saving us close to two weeks! The team in Astana think it can find us a bigger apt for the same price as we are currently paying in Petro (bonus since our place is extremely tiny). This morning, the Astana team suprised us with an earlier date of departure than we were even contemplating. If everything works out, we could be leaving as soon as Jan. 31th. Seems fitting...we would be leaving to go to Astana on my birthday (26th) and leaving for Canada on my brother's birthday (the 31th). We'll see...we want to pad it by a few days to make sure that everything falls into place, but we are now discussing our return home.

This afternoon, we are visiting with the Lajoy and Yaeger's families at Cindy's apt....It's Christmas after all!

Silly mood today!!!

We had so much fun during our visit today. The three of us were just being silly "glupinky"....I think we laughed the entire time. We're really just big kids at heart.

Anna let Sven hold her in his arms while he was standing up...usually, he needs to be sitting down on the floor (I guess she allows that since she can always crawl out...so today was a huge milestone for Papa!!!). She is also relunctant in leaving us at the end of the visit...it's more and more difficult to say "paka paka". Hopefully she will be allowed to move in with us on Monday...cross your fingers.

Visit from the boys

Boy... you open the door...and the boys just come running out of the room. We had to remain in the little playroom leading into Anna's room. I think they could hear us laughing.....One boy opened the door...and we were invaded!!! Anna just looked at them, none too impressed....as if too say, he's my papa. Actually, they all say "papa", "mama"....

Motorcycle Mamma

Hmmm..she looks at bit too happy on that bike for Mama. Sven was grinning...so proud of his girl and I just groaned! Actually, the last picture with the "shades" is just too precious!! What a fun little girl she is. It's so much fun seeying her personality shine through in the last few weeks.

A visit from your friendly neighbourhood Immigration Police

Slight delay in posting.. we had visitors. We were just arriving at the apt where two Immigration police officers were waiting for us. They didn't speak English. We understood that they wanted to come in. Boy....my heart was racing. Sven quickly tried calling Irina, but it was busy. We tried to understand what they were asking. They seemed nice so I began to relax a bit. We finally got through to Irina and they spoke. Basically, they wanted to see our passports since our visa had been renewed. Only glitch: Irina had kept them to make additional copies for all of our paperwork. They told her to get here ASAP and they would wait with us. There was a knock at the door 5 minutes later... I thought, phew...but no...another BIGGER officer...so 3 of them looking at us. After 20 minutes of staring at each other and trying to communicate, Irina finally arrived. I can't tell you how happy we were to see her. When they left, she asked if we had been scared...we were ok, but nervous. They kept saying our names. They thought Sven had a swedish passport. Sven then told me, don't say your French, they'll think your from France! In any event....we're in the clear!