A Road Trip - and 2 Visits

Today was visit #14! It was also the start of us visiting twice per day - at least for today through Thursday. On Friday we go to court, and on Thursday some time we will learn all about what we need to say and do while in court. I've been asking the other families at Baby House #3 who have been to court what it was like, and they say that it was not too bad. Some of them said it only took 15 minutes. But somehow, I think a room full of people sternly speaking Russian might be a little daunting even if Chuck does all the talking. In between visits today, we went to the agency's office and filled out lots of paperwork - some in Russian and some in English. Some of the Russian paperwork was probably stuff that was necessary for court. The English documents were Bryce's passport application and immigration paperwork that will go the US Embassy. Lots of signatures!

Today's visits were good, and it was wonderful to be able to visit twice! We visited from 10:30am to 12 noon and again from 2:30 to 4:00pm. Bryce was really active during both visits and did a lot of crawling around and standing up (and very little crying which we were happy about). He also did a lot of babbling - we think he does more at every visit. Maybe our running commentary during our visits is paying off. He is making all sorts of noise, and it is nice to see progress which we feel we have seen in the past 2.5 weeks. Today's toys of the day were his books, and we read both of them quite a few times. He is fascinated by the pictures and by turning the pages which he is learning to do all by himelf. Today we also gave one of the Baby House doctors 1500 tenge which will be used for Bryce's passport photos.

It is winter in Almaty again today. It started snowing last night and snowed through this morning. But yesterday was about 70 degrees and sunny. Andrei, our driver, took us on a road trip. We left the city and drove north about 100km to the Ili River valley where there was a big climbing/hiking/biking area and 800 year old petroglyphs of Buddha. Driving, both in the city and out of the city, is an adventure. In the city, traffic laws are definitely loosely obeyed. Out of the city, the highway had huge potholes, and drivers had to be alert in order to avoid tire-eating holes. Once we got there, we spent most of the afternoon hiking. We hiked along the Ili River to the Buddha petroglyphs, and hiked all over the rocks, watching climbers and mountain bikers. It was a beautiful place (although we were a bit disappointed to see so much litter). We were kind of amazed to think that the Ili River flows out of China. On the way, it passes through Lake Kapshaghai, a 100km long reservoir. We drove by the reservoir, and it was huge and very blue-green. The area outside Almaty reminds us a lot of the area outside Denver. Almaty sits at the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, but once you start driving north the land is a flat as a pancake, dry, and with few trees - similar to eastern Colorado.

After our return home, we ate dinner at the Soccer Bar and had a great pizza. Then a huge windstorm kicked up so we returned back to our apartment to watch a DVD. We brought 4 movies on DVD with us, and they have been a great alternative to TV sometimes! Today it was back to traditional food, and we sampled more laghman (noodles) for lunch. Later this week we will start thinking about souvenirs to take home with us, as we don't have that much time left to buy them.