Bonding Day 11
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We’ve discovered an interesting thing about Gabriel today, he loves to dance! Our translator, played some music for him a couple of days ago, and he loved it. So we copied the Russian hip hop and played it for him today. He just would not stop dancing! For almost 40 minutes straight he danced! After that, he was all pooped and was falling asleep. During the afternoon, he danced again and again, and didn’t want to be put down.
That evening, our translator took all of us to this Southern Kazakhstan style restaurant for some food and fun. The place looked like a Moroccan Castle complete with a cool sit down eating area, an indoor pond with some koi and goldfish, a bridge and an upstairs billiard table.
Bonding Day 12
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It’s Sunday, and we only have one bonding session with Gabriel. We tried giving him a baby yogurt snack today, but he didn’t like it. When our visit was up, he hesitated to go back with his caretaker. He gave us that look that just made us sad to leave. We’ve got a couple more weeks to go, hang in there Gabe!
When our visit was over, we went to a shopping center on the outside of town for some lunch and shopping. The shopping center turned out to be a huge mall complete with restaurants, arcade, grocery store and a food court. At the food court area, we picked a hamburger place to get food. From the pictures on the menu, it looked good, but when we got the burgers, they were loaded with mayonnaise. I’m craving a sack of 10 jalapeno White Castle burgers back in Jersey at this point!
After lunch, we printed out some pictures for an album that needs to be presented for court. We then hit the grocery store to pick up food and other supplies. What’s nice is they accepted credit cards, hooray! According to the management at the store, we spent so much money that we qualified to have a discount card. I guess we will be needing it with all the crazy prices around here.
A funny thing when doing laundry in Kazakhstan…There are no “dryers” here. Locals here believe that hanging your clothes outside to dry in sub zero weathers will kill the bacteria. Take a look at Gen’s frozen sweater in the picture below…
Bonding Day 13
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Only three more days before we complete our bonding period with Gabriel! Then we file for a court date to legalize his adoption and then we wait another fifteen days for his appeal period. Almost home!
Gabriel had his new porridge today, as suggested by our translator. He gobbled it all down and very little came back up. After his burping session, some juice followed suit and some more dancing. This kid has got some moves!!
At this point, I’d like to say thanks to all the people who have been reading our blog. Your comments help keep us smiling here on the other side of the world. Before arriving in Kazakhstan, I did a search for all the families that have done blogs about their adoption experiences in Kazakhstan. Those families who traveled before us have provided an excellent resource and inside look to those of us following in their footsteps. It is in that spirit that we also would like to contribute to that pool of knowledge as well. This blog is a very personal reflection of our experiences here and it is my hope that the people who are reading this blog will use this information with respect and integrity.
Anyways, enjoy some pictures of Gabriel and his new digz. Check out his feet as well!!
This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under In Country. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
But your boy is the sweetest little Kazak ever! Our Nick loves to dance and sing…..and my husband wanted the name Gabriel so bad but my cousins beat us to it. You guys are just such an adorable family! Great pictures! I am just thrilled to watch all of you become families…thanks for letting us join along. Karen Kitzman (home almost a year with Nick from Zhezkazgan, Kaz.)