Short Pause in Kaz

Medical Clinic Visit

There are two reasons you have to finish up a Kazakhstan adoption in Almaty and one of them is to have a medical exam at the SOS Medical Clinic. The second is the paperwork at the U.S. embassy here. Yesterday our coordinator received a faxed copy of Rosa's passport, so that was good enough to take to the clinic for the exam. For the most part the exam went well. Rosa screamed while they took her blood for the HIV exam. I would still think that our daughter Megan has her beat in the drama queen category though.

The SOS clinic is a nice clinic and the staff was very friendly and helpful. We went with the Brothertons, who traveled with us to Uralsk and then back here to Almaty. They are staying in an apartment that is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment.

We're getting into a daily routine here by going to the Internet cafe, shopping, and doing laundry. Today I washed "whites" which since arriving in Kazakhstan have become "grays."

And Then There Were Two...

Jo Ann left the apartment this morning with our coordinator at about 5:30 for her 8:10 flight to Amsterdam. Last night we tried the best we could to explain to Rosa what was going on. Rosa seemed to take it OK, but she did cry when she went to bed. I now have a world map hanging up in the apartment with our route home and the number of days left before we travel.

I still haven't heard if Rosa's passport has arrived. I'm expecting a call anytime from our coordinator that it is here and that we can go down and get Rosa's medical exam.

Our coordinator wanted me to have some snapshots of Jo Ann, Rosa, and me just in case there were any problems at the embassy, so Rosa and I walked down to a photo place today and luckily, the guy that worked there spoke English. We also went shopping this morning and got some bread and milk.

We haven't really been using the kitchen in the apartment because it was so dirty when we got here. We did clean up the microwave so we might use that. We're on our fourth jar of peanut butter here.

We heard yesterday that Jo Ann's mom's funeral will actually be on Friday and the viewing will be on Thursday night. I guess with Jo Ann making it home a day earlier, they moved everything up a day earlier as well.

The weather has gotten a little warmer. The snow is melting and now we walk everywhere in slush.

Jo Ann's Leaving Early

I didn't post yesterday because we have been scrambling to get Jo Ann home ever since I posted on Saturday. After I posted, we checked our e-mail and read the bad news that Jo Ann's mother had passed away. It happened the night of Thanksgiving. Her mom had Thymus cancer.

We thought we'd be home before she died. She had recently written us an e-mail saying that she would make it through Christmas. Being away when it happened has been pretty hard on Jo Ann.

Based on it being right after Thanksgiving, the best we could do was get Jo Ann home a day earlier than planned or November 28, and this was after some long hours spent on the phone by my sister Connie back home. Jo Ann's dad has planned the viewing and funeral this Friday and Saturday respectively. Jo Ann has been able to talk to her dad and her sister a couple of times on the phone, which has been helpful.

I must stay here and finish up the adoption here in Almaty. Our coordinator here will not schedule an appointment with the medical center until Rosa's Kazakhstan passport arrives from Astana, which will probably be Wednesday. After that, we'll schedule an appointment with the U.S. embassy.

Rosa has found Nickelodeon in Russian on the TV in our apartment and really likes it. I think she likes Sponge Bob. She once mentioned that he was cheese, so at the supermarket I had to find a yellow sponge and explain that that was what Sponge Bob was. Of course, we've been working on less important things like the days of the week, basic nouns, etc.

Last night we ate at Mc Burger but we came home smelling like we had eaten at the Elk's Lodge. All of our clothes reeked of cigarettes, so we had to wash out our thermal underwear last night and they are still wet. We're braving it without them today.

Now in Almaty

We made it to Almaty yesterday without any problem. We are staying in an apartment downtown near the Tsum store. It is a nice department store. We visited a place last night called "Mac Burger." I think they want to be McDonald's. When we were in Tsum we found a place called "King Burger" that uses the same logo as Burger King. There is a pedestrian walkway around the corner from Tsum and at the end of it is a mall. We stumbled across this Internet cafe as we were walking in the mall.

We're all doing fine here. Rosa didn't eat much of her dinner last night at Mac Burger, so we bought some groceries at the supermarket around the corner from our place and she ate some cereal that we bought.

We will have Rosa's medical visit on Tuesday or Wednesday when her passport arrives from Astana. We will then schedule an embassy visit for Thursday or Friday.

Last Posting from Uralsk

Rosa slept well last night on the bed we made on the sofa. She went to bed at around 10:00 and she went right to sleep. She got up at about 8:30 this morning and only ate a little bit of oatmeal. Luckily, she ate a good lunch. One of our American neighbors brought us over some peanuts and she has been eating a lot of those too.

I took this picture of Rosa this morning after she did her own hair. She is wearing all of the new barrets we bought her yesterday at the store around the corner from our hotel.

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. This will be the Thanksgiving that we'll remember for having Cup-O-Noodles. I think we will celebrate at a restaurant tonight with Kate and maybe with our driver and his wife on our official last night here.

I'm not sure where we'll be staying in Almaty. That will be up to our coordinator. We've requested an apartment. I will post to this blog as soon as I can find an Internet cafe. We have been told that we can get a medical appointment for Rosa as soon as we get to Almaty. In other words, Rosa doesn't need a Kazakhstan passport for that step. She will need one though for our appointment with the U.S. consulate to get a visa. Our application for a Kazakhstan passport is already in Astana (the capitol). It will get processed and then sent back here, where Kate will then forward it to our coordinator in Alamty.

Leaving the Orphanage

Today was Rosa's last day in the orphanage. We arrived at her orphanage around 10:00 AM with gifts for a few people there. We also had cakes and treats for Rosa's group. Rosa is in a group of 10 children made up of boys and girls. Rosa is the youngest in the group.

I wanted to post a picture of the small party we had with her group, but Kazakhstan is really sensitive about having pictures posted of its children, so I'm playing it safe and not doing it.

The picture today is of the orphanage director. He's a very nice man that the children all seem to really like.

After leaving the orphanage we had pizza, went and signed more documents and then hung around the hotel room the rest of the evening. Jo Ann had to teach Rosa how to use a shower tonight and she seemed to do OK.

Tomorrow we'll be signing more papers, and packing for our Friday trip to Almaty.

Happy Birthday Kyle! We wish we were there with you but we'll all be home soon!

Happy New Parents
This was taken just after we got the good news about our approved adoption and that we were given "immediate execution."

We'll be picking up Rosa tomorrow after a day of going to notaries and signing documents.

We did some of that today as well as buy our tickets for Alamaty. We will leave Friday morning.

Thank you for all of the encouragement we've received. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers. 

It's Official. We're new parents!
Meet Rosa Jillian Gashler. Rosa is 8 years old. Rosa currently lives in Uralsk, Kazakhstan but she is eager to be moving to her new home in Springville, Utah.

Rosa became the daughter of Buck and Jo Ann Gashler on November 21. 

Bringing thermal underwear was a smart move. I don't think you could survive very long outside without it. We felt so confident bundled up this morning that we walked to our grocery store. On the way we bought some pajamas for LG at a clothing store. Before leaving the U.S., we bought some decorative thermal underwear for LG to use as pajamas, but after experiencing a couple of days of this weather, we realized she is going to have to use them as thermal underwear.

The two big rivers that go through this city are frozen over. We usually see people fishing along the shore. Our translator says that they'll be ice fishing soon on the rivers.

Tomorrow is our big court date. We have to dress up. I wonder what it will feel like wearing thermal underwear under a suit?

Our visit with LG went well. She's really been pushing herself to learn English words and she has stopped saying "da" and "nyet" (yes, no) even when I ask her something in Russian. We found out that there are a couple of older girls who are sisters on LG's dormitory floor that are being adopted from a family just down the hall from us. LG had an "English contest" with them and she won. LG heard Jo Ann or me say "ouch" today and she decided she needed to say that word as often as possible. It was pretty funny. I think LG's pronunciation is good, but she has trouble saying "ear" and "arm." She also has trouble making the 'th" sound in words like "three."

Assuming everything goes well tomorrow at court, we'll officially be LG's parents and we can share photos of her.

Well, I need to go work on my speech for the judge tomorrow.

There wasn't any snow today, but it was terribly cold. In fact, we're thinking the long underwear comes out tomorrow. I'm guessing it was somewhere in the 20s tonight when we dropped LG off at the orphanage.

I worked on my "speech" today for our court date on Tuesday. I think I'll do OK. I'm not real worried about it. I figure I can pretty much say anything and our translator will say whatever she thinks needs to be said.

We talked to our kids at home today. Jo Ann has this way about being really excited about talking to them and then crying once the phone call is over.

We found a bootleg DVD of Season 1 of Alias in our hotel room. It has episodes 4-7, so we're somewhat lost in the story, but it beats watching what we have here on TV in the hotel. We also borrowed seasons 1 and 2 of "24" and now we need to watch season 3, because there are so many unanswered questions.

This is going to be a big week. LG was told today that we have her airline ticket reserved. She's already claimed the window seat. 

Today is Saturday so we got to see LG early. I think our attorney needed to meet with LG's orphanage director today, so they picked up LG for us and brought her back to our hotel. They left us with her for 6 hours, which is more than twice the amount of time we normally spend with her in a day. We managed to find a lot to do though, including going to eat, playing card games, coloring, having her help us sign thank you cards, shopping, and more.

I made the mistake of buying a cheap but loud Barbie toy telephone. I thought there would be a volume control on it, but I can't find one. I think even LG got annoyed with it after a while.

It was snowing again today and then it got a lot colder. There is now ice everywhere. We saw two cars that had slide off of the road and wrecked. I doubt anyone was wearing seat belts, because no one seems to use them here. I tried finding the seat belts in our driver's car once and gave up after a good 5 minute search.

Jo Ann and I are supposed to be preparing our "speeches" for court next week. Jo Ann has already finished hers. I thought I would work on mine tomorrow.

There's no picture today because Jo Ann was supposed to quickly take a picture of me standing next to the Christmas trees at the supermarket we visit every morning, but before Jo Ann could get it taken, the "bouncer" at the store told her that taking pictures was not allowed. You know you're in a strange country when grocery stores have bouncers. For all of the money we have spent at that store, that bouncer should have let her take the picture. In fact, he should have been singing Christmas carols next to the tree in the picture!

We had to go out and buy gifts for all of the people that have helped us in our adoption. Buying gifts is expected, and we even had to buy some stuff for the evil care giver. We figure that maybe she'll be nicer to the next adoptive family that comes along. Just for fun, I forgot to bring my Russian dictionary with us, so it was even more entertaining to watch the Americans point and use what little Russian they knew to communicate. What's really funny is when the discussion gets really difficult, I break out into Spanish.

It snowed again today. Everything is covered in mud again. The dirt road we use to get to LG's orphanage is getting worse to travel on each day.

LG is doing very well in English. She knows about 40 flash cards of English nouns, most of the alphabet, and a lot of greetings. She has a very good memory. Sometimes she uses words that she has only heard once. Now if we could only get her to eat.

It was snowing again today but we needed bread and some other groceries. So we walked to the nice grocery store that we like. Of course you can buy bread at the bread store shack across the street (pictured), but everyone says the bread is really stale and bad tasting.

We met with our attorney today and we were briefed on everything to say for court on Tuesday. Everyone is hopeful that we'll get "immediate execution" meaning we can take LG out of the orphanage for good following the ruling. Actually, they want us to take her out on the 23rd and leave this city for Almaty on the 24th.

Jo Ann will be leaving for home on the 29th. I will complete paperwork with the U.S. consulate, wait for LG's Kazakhstan passport and visa, and take her to get a medical examination in Almaty. I will be home on December 5.

With a favorable ruling on November 21, I will be able to post pictures of LG and let you know the name we have given her, as well as the city we are at. 

We woke up to snow this morning. This picture was taken from our hotel room. It snowed all day.

Today was a pre-court. We got dressed up, met up with someone from the Ministry of Education as well as someone from LG's orphanage and then we all met with the judge that will be presiding over our case. He asked us a few questions, and it went very fast. I think it lasted maybe 10 minutes. He gave us a court date for November 21 at 10:00 AM. This should be the time when he declares us parents of LG.

After pre-court, we went and saw LG. She had some marks on her face that looked like insect bites. One of the care givers said that LG is having an allergic reaction to the sweets we have given her and to not give her any for a while. After we got LG back to the hotel tonight, we asked one of the adoptive parents here that is a nurse to look at LG and she said that it looked like insect bites as well. Of course, we didn't give her any sweets because we didn't want it getting back to the care giver that we ignored her advice. We've had a couple of run-ins with that care giver already. In fact, we call her the "evil care giver."

We didn't take our morning walk this morning for obvious reasons, but did utilize the facilities in the health center. They have a treadmill, stair stepper, cycling machine, and weights.

Paka 

Here is a picture of Jo Ann, Kate (our translator) and Alex (or driver). They are in front of the orphanage. The writing is in Kazakh and it is pronounced "Zas Dahren." I can't recall what it means. You can also see a nice puddle from all of the rain.

We're starting to run out of activities on our evenings with LG. Tonight we got desperate and bought "Ice Age 2." It was in English and Russian. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to play the video in Russian with English subtitles, so we didn't get through the whole video. We'll watch the rest of it tomorrow.

I think LG is practicing her English by herself when she is back at the orphanage on her own. After working with her on her colors and not getting very far, she knew all of them today when we picked her up.

It hasn't rained here for a couple of days, which is nice. Our pre-court is in two days. We will also be given a real court date during that proceeding. We are really hoping and praying for a court date this week. 

It's funny what you can find in the stores here when you take the time to look. A couple of days ago we saw a liquid laundry detergent called "Black Power."

Another weekend is over and we're hoping it's our last in this city. Our pre-court is this Wednesday and we'll be asking for a court date within one or two days.

LG has been good. She enjoys the weekend activities with us. We went bowling and ate at our favorite restaurant with her. She's been meeting more Americans and is always shy byut charming to them. She can comfortably say "hello" and "fine" when asked "how are you?"

There wasn't any rain today which made it a little nicer on the roads. There is still a lot of mud everywhere. 

Another Muddy Day

It was raining again this morning making even more mud. Our driver even decided today not to take the dirt road and park in the location that the orphanage director asked him to park, but to take the paved road to the front of the orphanage. It was a good move. I was worried I was going to have to help push out a stuck car.

Our visit with LG went well. We went to a couple of bookstores looking for books that are in both Russian and English. We were only able to find one and it is about opposites. The book is actually written in English, Russian, and Kazakh. LG doesn't speak Kazakh, but she does know some words in that language.

We had pizza at our favorite place again today. LG usually doesn't eat much. We've been giving her daily vitamins and we hope that is helping. I think she is going to be undersized for her age when she arrives in the U.S. I know she's under weight.

Last night we borrowed a movie from one of our American neighbors here in the hotel. We made the mistake of watching "Elf" and now Jo Ann is bummed out that we are running out of time for Christmas. We haven't really seen any indication that Christmas is approaching over here, but a lot of the banner ads we see when we're using Hotmail are now Christmas related.

Pre-Court Date

We now have a "pre-court" date. It is November 15 -- the day we were supposed to leave Kazakhstan. I obviously need to call Delta Airlines and change the dates. It's just that I don't know what the new dates should be. We won't be able to leave with LG until court, which can only be set up after pre-court. What Kazakhstan lacks in things like clean water and paved roads, they make up for in unnecessary court proceedings.

Our visits with LG have been going well. We have been having them at our hotel room where she has dinner with us. We're slowly learning the things she likes and dislikes. Today we went over some of the vegetables she likes and dislikes. Basically, she likes onions, tomatoes, and maybe carrots. She kept changing her mind on that one.

It snowed here two days ago, but it melted right away. There is mud everywhere here. Every vehicle you see is covered in mud. It's a mess walking anywhere around here.

It was really cold a couple of nights ago and LG took her orphanage gloves with her to our place because we had not thought to buy her any before that time. They looked straight out of "Oliver Twist" so we bought some for her today. She really liked them because they were soft.

We've been slowly teaching LG English words. She can now count to twenty, and knows probably 30 words in English. We really don't have too much trouble communicating when we don't have our translator with us.

Waiting to Meet with the Judge.

We signed papers yesterday that were submitted to the court. It turns out the judge was away for a funeral today, so he is supposed to look at them tomorrow. With any luck, we'll get an audience with him tomorrow. Of course, this won't count as our "pre-court." We still have that and then court. I can't figure this place out with their strange court procedures. From what I understand, "pre-court" is like a drive-thru interaction with some legal people.

We continue to have LG over for dinner in the evenings. You'd think that a little girl from an orphanage would like just about anything, but she seems to have definite likes and dislikes. She'll try anything, but you can tell what she likes and what she doesn't.

We were scheduled to leave Kazakhstan on November 15, but it looks like I'm going to have to change that. I think we may have had our court date by then and perhaps have taken LG out of the orphanage permanently, but we will have to catch a flight to Almaty afterwards and the plane to Almaty only leaves three days a week. Plus we will have about 5 days of additional work with the U.S. and Kazakhstan governments in Almaty. We're now thinking of having Jo Ann fly home after we get to Almaty and then LG and me finishing up everything. Jo Ann has to stay for our court appearance, but after LG is declared our daughter, one of us can go.

It's gotten really cold here. The daily walks to the grocery stores have gotten less and less fun in the morning. I can see them coming to an end soon.

Thanks for all of your comments and personal e-mails. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Day 14 of our 14-day bonding period

Well, we can now go to court, or first, "pre-court" followed by court. Our coordinator and attorney are trying to get us a date. We're hoping a date is assigned to us tomorrow.

The photo today is one of the many Russian Orthodox churches in this town. This one is sort of the show piece one. It is located on the main boulevard of the city. Jo Ann and I have walked to it a couple of times.

Our visit with LG went well. We had her over for dinner. We had soup and macaroni and cheese again and this time we didn't get sick. Jo Ann spent part of the day washing all the dishes with sterilized water before using them. LG didn't really like the soup, but she liked the macaroni and cheese. Today was a very cold day so it made perfect sense to go out for ice cream afterwards.

Our coordinator is now working with a new family from Kansas that arrived to this city today. That means she is currently helping three families right now.

I was going to mention that our hotel was built by an Italian company. Because of this, we get about 4 or 5 Italian TV stations here. We only get two stations in English: CNN International and Euro News. When we were on the second floor we also got BBC News, but on the third floor, that is replaced by MTV Russia. We've been bored enough some days to watch that, which is mostly Russian rap artists. Pretty bad stuff.

Days 12 and 13 of our 14-day bonding period

We couldn't post yesterday because of problems with this computer. We're combining two days into this post.

It's the weekend and that seems to mean marriages. In today's photo, you can see one of the decorated wedding cars we've mentioned before. This was taken outside a photo studio where a bride and groom ran in to get their wedding portraits taken. There were actually a few couples getting their pictures taken.

Our Saturday and Sunday visits with LG went well. On Saturday, we introduced LG to Cup-O-Noodles and peanut butter and she seemed to like both. Today we only had time for a short visit so we had to go to MacJohn's again. LG had fries with mayonnaise (yuck!).

Our documents came back from Astana (the capitol of Kazakhstan) this morning. Now our coordinator can take them to the Ministry of Education and then somehow arrange a court date.

There are a lot of families adopting right now and getting a court date seems to be finding time in the judge's schedule. Most of the adoptive families are American, but there are at least three German families here in the hotel adopting as well. A couple of days ago, we met a family from Iowa that is adopting three older children. Two of the children are from the same orphanage as LG.

We are really missing our family back home. We hope to be out of here and on our way home very soon.

Day 11 of our 14-day bonding period

Today's photo is of Jo Ann in front of our favorite restaurant. They serve a lot of different dishes, but we normally order the pizza. It's not great, but the Americans seem to find the food and prices tolerable and we keep coming back.

It was rainy again this morning, but that didn't stop us from doing our morning walk to the market. We decided that we needed to buy milk and some other milk products for LG for dinner. When I got to the milk section of the store, I looked for anything that looked close to saying "pasturized" but I couldn't see anything. We decided to buy some milk that was in a box that looked safe.

Our visit with LG went very well. We made soup and macaroni and cheese. We also had the milk. LG also had a yogurt. She had never had yogurt before and seemed to like it. LG wanted to play on the computer again, so I managed to find the Windows pinball game and showed her how to play it. She was very good at it. We also played a couple games of "Go Fish!" and the Winnie the Pooh memory game. LG won every game that we played. She has a really good memory. LG even went with me to the small store across the street form the hotel to buy a big bottle of water.

Dinner went well. LG ate some of the soup, all of the macaroni and cheese, and had a couple of glasses of milk.

After we got home, we were both feeling a little sick. We're now wondering about the milk we bought. To play it safe, Jo Ann says she is not going to be drinking any more milk while she is here.

We were told that the kids at LG's orphanage get a 1-week vacation next week, so our visits will probably be earlier in the day. Of course, we expect to be going to court sometime next week and taking LG out of the orphanage for good.

We'll keep you posted on when we have a court date.

Day 10 of our 14-day bonding period

It was cold and foggy this morning. We decided to go to walk to the store anyway, and it seemed like there were a lot of leaves falling off the trees today. There were city workers everywhere sweeping the sidewalks with their crude looking brooms, but as fast as they would sweep them up, more leaves would fall. I'm guessing the snow can't be far behind.

Our visit with LG went well. She visited us at the hotel for about two hours, then we went out for pizza. We played her standard favorites including "Go Fish!" It's really fun to listen to her ask for cards or tell us to "Go Fish!" in her accent. She's been really interested in my laptop, so I let her type on it. She would look at the Winnie the Pooh cards that have simple English words on them and then type them. She seemed to really enjoy this.

Our neighbors next door are leaving for Almaty tomorrow with thier 8-month-old son. They didn't want to pack their stockpile of groceries they've accumulated both here and from the U.S., so we took it off of their hands. Some of the stuff we inherited is kid favorites like macaroni and cheese. They even had salsa! Of course, you can't find corn chips around here, but maybe we can pour it on those crab flavored chips?

We hope to be hearing about dates for our pre-court and court dates. LG knows that these dates are coming up soon and she says she wants us to come pick her up as soon as we can. She's been asking a lot of questions about schools in the U.S., what grade she will be in, how the school bus works, etc.

We think we'll be cooking dinner here for LG tomorrow night.

Day 9 of our 14-day bonding period.

Today's photo is taken at a bus stop about a block from our hotel. This is the main boulevard of the city and most of the businesses and government buildings are located on this boulevard. LG's orphanage is located about 15 minutes outside of the center of the city.

Our morning was uneventful. We did some shopping and some walking around. It's getting colder here and we may need to start wearing something on our heads soon.

On our visit to the orphanage today, we asked LG what she wanted to do and she wondered if we could go back to Intergalactica (that Chuck-E-Cheeze sort of place we went to before). We went there and LG played a strange Japanese video game that required you to jump on some arrows and also work a joystick. Plus it played a really annoying Japanese kiddie song. Sadly, LG wanted to play that game twice.

She then went to the play area where for a time, whe was the only kid there. Of course, she wasn't alone. They have these grownups in there watching you to make sure you are following the rules. Kind of like the playground gestapo.

Afterwards, we had some drinks at the cafe. I also bought LG some bacon chips for the ride back to the orphanage.

When we got back there, some of the kids were cleaning the floors. Perhaps our visit got LG out of some cleaning duty.

Our neighbors upstairs have their 8-month old son staying with them now. They leave for Almaty on Friday. He's a cute boy. We've only heard him cry once. There have been 3 or 4 American families leave for Almaty to finalize their adoptions since we have been here.