The big outside

Snoozy baby yesterday. You can't really tell from this photo, but he's now in american clothes. Yay Gymboree!

Jailbreak! We made it outside, quite unexpectedly. It was the one day we didn't bring our baby wrap. Haven't quite figured out the hat thing yet.

Sweet munchkin, happy mom. :-)

Cute as a bug

Grumpy munchkin the other day.

Yogurt face yesterday. We totally scored with the yogurt. He gets it now, mama and papa bring suger. He cried after he finished the yogurt!

He IS an american after all! What baby doesn't like cheerios? NO baby! "I pick them up, I put them on the floor, I put them in the bowl, I put them in my mouth, I take them out of my mouth, I put them on the floor, I put them in my mouth, I pick them up..."

A beautiful view on the (long) drive to Shchuchinsk every day. The landscape is really beautiful, flat, and endless.

Our living room in the apartment.

Apartments, journeys, babies...

The horn above our bathroom. What the hell...?

Where the magic happens...

The beautiful curtains in our living room.

Jen's new favorite thing in the world, fried bread and chocolate spread. All health food, all the time!

Our Kitchen

Hi all,

So yesterday was a landmark day for us; we became terribly lost in Kokshetau! Well, that's an exaggeration, really, as we always knew how to get home, we just didn't know where we were GOING! Poor Dave and Jeanie were so kind to make us dinner for 6:30pm, and we were so kind as to show up (finally) at 8:15. Sigh. We definitely lost about 5 pounds a piece last night, lemme tell ya. A few mile walk turned into a full blown jungle trek, negotiating huge mud puddles that form on the "sidewalks" of Kokshetau. I decided that it was safer (and certainly more convenient) to just walk in the street like everyone else. Ok, not safer, just more convenient. You should see the women here in their high heels negotiating the mud! I would fit right in if I would just get myself some 3" stillettos. As it turns out, we were making a big spiral in towards the cottage (where Dave and Jeanie are staying) and we gave up one block too soon and spiraled out again like idiots. Finally I saw a landmark I knew and convinced a very grumpy and defeated Brian to follow me for just another 15 minutes. Thank GOD we found it or else the night would have been ruined.

We are staying in a nice flat on the other side of town (pictured). While it certainly feels more traditional than the cottage, I think we're going to ask to move to the cottage when Dave and Jeanie (and their four kids!) leave in a couple of weeks. We don't have gas this morning, and so coffee has been interesting. In the cottage there is a housekeeper, a babysitter (if you want one), a laundry person (if you want one... are you getting that this is all the same person? The famous Luba?), and snacks in the fridge every day. It's also a big place with a fantastic bathroom. We're going to ask... but we'll see!

Visits with Evan are going great, better every day. He still cries when we take him from his caregiver, but that lessens every day, and yesterday he cried when we left! He also fell asleep on mom, which made me really happy. We got busted for letting him sleep, as it throws off their schedule, but it was worth it!

Anyways, gonna post a bunch of pictures now and see about breakfast. Please write us emails about your life at home! It's great to hear news from you, even if it seems mundane to you it is fascinating to us!

Love,
Jen and Brian

Evan's First Laugh (Video!)

Hey all,

We just started tinkering around with Imovie today and started selecting clips to share with everyone back home. Due to the size of the files and our limited internet bandwidth, we're keeping them short and sweet, but we are planning to post them regularly.

Jen mentioned Evan's tentative laugh in the last post, a laugh that made us wonder how much he's really laughed during his life. Anyway, looking over the video today, we realized that we had completely forgotten that we caught his first laugh with us on tape! We just finished uploading the clip to Google video.

Here's the link:

Evan's First Laugh

It was just the first of many.

Enjoy!

Brian

And the star of the hour...

Jen's first bottle!! I was SO proud after making it. But then when we tried to feed it to the boy he spit it right out. Apparently he's used to drinking whole milk now, not formula. After several days of failing with the snacks, mom has decided to forego nutrition for a while. Today he gets milk with a little bit of sugar and some cookies. I'm not messing around anymore!

As it turns out, the kid laughs, too! We got our first laughs yesterday. They were quiet and tentative. Actually, I wonder if he has laughed much at all in his life. The laugh was a low, quiet "hee hee hee hee". It was very sweet. It's only a matter of time before he's screaming with laughter with the houseful of toys we have at home!

He ate the cracker, but he didn't like the cracker. I had to eat three of them to get him to continue crunching on his. I could see his point; they are very bland crackers! Today, cook-ays!

Look! Family photo! But Evan's too busy checking out the mayhem...

This one's for Sue Jones! Man, as I said in last night's drunken post, yesterday was a rough day. After the car broke down we had our visit with Evan, but we were late and so the visit was cut short. Makabat (our lovely translator, pictured) hired us a taxi to take us back to Kokshetau after the visit. Thank god she came with us because this guy was a piece of work. The car was more comfortable than Yergeldi's broken one, but this driver was literally the reason deodorant was invented. I literally had my hand up against my nose for most of the trip, trying to smell instead whatever lotion I had last used. It was awful! Brian has said I'm not allowed to post other details about this car ride home for fear that his mother will have a heart attack. Let's just say we got there QUICKLY!

So after all of this, Makabat, the Douglasses and us all went out to dinner. It was great, and as previously mentioned, there was a LOT of vodka! We are recovering today, though are doing surprisingly well. We're sitting here trying to figure out how many shots of vodka we each had. We are surprised to determine that it seems that I had more than Brian. He can count 5-6 shots, and I can count 7-8. That walk home was fun, I must say (honestly). Vodka really did, in this case, make a hard end of the day seem like no problem.

Sue, we tried to get Makabat in on the picture joke, but apparently she needs more than 8 shots of vodka to be into it. That's ok, we've got another 6 weeks to get her hammered and in on the game!

Jen

More about town...

The big, central square in Kokshetau.

The huge ferris wheel near the square. Unfortunately someone fell from this a few days ago and died. We will NOT be riding it.

The pipes that run through town that pump heat in the winter.

A big, impressive building in the square.

The hotel. For you families who have yet to travel, this is an option for you. We're happy in our apartment, however.

Around Town

At the bazaar, this is the equivalent to Home Depot. A big warehouse filled with every imaginable pipe, tool, etc.

A typical walkway in Kokshetau. It really is a pretty city.

The movie theater. Brian's going to try to buy a poster in russian of one of the movies we've worked on. We saw an enormous Matrix poster last night. Sweeeet.

The bazaar! We were victorious and bought towels, lunch, and a couple of gifts.

Anybody need a dress?

The Heap

Yergeldi's man-purse, which cracks me up.

Unfortunately yesterday Yergeldi's nice car broke down, so we had to ride in his second car, a much older and less comfortable ride. He told us in Russian that this is what it's REALLY like to be in Kazakhstan! Or at least that's what we think he said.

A beautiful view on the ride to Shchuchinsk.

A typical house on the outskirts of Shchuchinsk. The country is changing and growing, but the majority of people here are extremely poor. They make in a day what we make in half an hour. And that's the people who are paid very well.

So it was all fun and games in the car. We RACED down the road at a blistering 40mph. Then Yergeldi decided to take a shortcut, and so began the demise of the vehicle. The roads are similar to Costa Rica in their quality. We quickly bottomed out and lost something or other... was it the transmission? Hell if I know, but here is a picture of the sad car as we walked away. Yergeldi was pissed. He's a formidable man when he's angry!

I love Kazakhstan, I hate Kazakhstan, I love Kazakhstan, I hate Kazahstan

Tomorrow morning, when I'm over the hangover I will soon suffer, I will tell you why I feel both love and hate for this place. Right now, I am drunk off my ass. And Brian is worse. We both learned something tonight... It's not club soda that gets out a stain, it's VODKA. I spilled cherry juice and vodka all over my beige bermuda shorts tonight, and our translator assured us that if I just poured vodka on my shorts that there would be no stain... and she was right!!!

Goodnight! S ee you on a more sober day!

Love,
Jen

Advice for future travelers...

Hi everyone.

We just got back from a 2.5 hour walk, and our lazy american asses are VERY tired! We're definitely going to lose some weight on this trip!

Anyways, we had a great time. It was nice because it was our first chance to be out on the town alone without any americans or translators, so we had to fend for ourselves. Once you do that for the first time, you start to feel a bit more comfortable in this very foreign land. We bought towels, a potty, lunch, knives for the apartment, and we scoped out some VERY cool souveneir gifts for those of you who are cool enough to deal (Pete and Sandra, you just wait... yours is by FAR the coolest we've seen so far!).

So through our relatively tame adventures, I am starting to think of little tidbits I want to share with other Kaz traveling families, especially those coming to Kokshetau, especially those of you coming in summer.

-Shorts are fine. Tanktops are fine. Ladies, a godsend for me has been Gap brand camisoles with a built-in bra. They pack VERY small and are perfect for the heat with no other shirt. Also been wearing bermuda shorts and capris. Bring a hoodie of some sort, as it rains in the afternoon.
-Sandals feel great, but it's a catch-22. The sidewalks and roads have a lot of pebbles on them, which inevitably end up in your shoes. I would suggest bringing both tennis shoes and walking, cushy sandals. I have a pair of slip off clog/tennis shoe hybrids which have been nice and I can wear with (not so fashionable) or without socks. I didn't bring normal tennis shoes like an idiot and now I'm regretting it.
-Plan on there being a shortage of towels when you get here (at least there was in our apartment). We just bought two bath towels and two dish towels at the bazaar for $9.
-Don't be afraid to go across town (10-25 minute walk, depending on where you're staying) to the bazaar. Just keep your money and your hands in your front pockets. Bring a calculator.
-Don't be afraid to eat the food. We just bought lunch for two for 50 cents at the bazaar (fried bread with unknown meat inside...whinny...ugh...but whatever it was, it was good). One Pepsi cost the same as lunch for two!
-In Kokshetau and Shchuchinsk baby houses, bring a package of diapers to pilfer from in your apartment. They are very expensive here and the women at the baby house will ask you to bring a few each day.
-Go out now and find the most comfortable backpack you can find (think REI or Copelands Sports). In hindsight, we both would have bought a small version of a "backpacking" pack, with the cushy hip strap to put the weight of the pack on your hips. We've been hauling all our crap with us wherever we go because we never know it we'll end up with the other american family here or not, or where our driver will be picking us up. Both of our packs are not the best, not that big, and not that comfortable. We underestimated our need for them. If you have yet to buy a diaper bag, I do NOT suggest the Columbia brand backpack; it's not comfortable to wear.
-Bring tissues. All they've got here is sandpaper toilet paper. They sell tissues by the teeny package, but best to buy a package of travel tissues from home and bring those, as these are expensive.
-Basic words you need to learn are simple, hello, goodbye (Paka Paka!), please, thank you, how much.
-Buy your gifts and donations HERE! We definitely should have done that, as it would have saved us lugging two very heavy bags with us.

Time for a NAP! I'll make more suggestions as the trip goes on.

Jen

More pictures...

Evan's new favorite toy... at least yesterday!

Another view of the music room.

Check it out!!!

Mom and munchkin

Play play play!!! All play, all the time!

Lots of pictures today!

The beautiful music room where we visited Evan yesterday.

One of the wood carvings in the music room.

Brian's first attempt at getting the little guy to smile!

Munchin' on a snack. This kid is HUNGRY!

We knew he had a smile in there! In fact, he has many!

We had a much better visit with Evan yesterday. We're a little short on time this morning, so this won't be a long post, but here are a bunch of pictures! Included are a sampling of these amazing wood carvings that are all over the music room. Tomorrow we will post some pictures of our apartment and the city we are staying in, as well as the city Evan lives in.

Love,
Jen and Brian

With Papa

First pics, more coming tonight/tomorrow!

Leigh Ann, break out that champagne!

So, wow. Wow. wow. wow. We met our son today! Though I think that if he had his way he would be left alone by us and allowed to continue upon his merry way without us. Boy, can this kid scream! He was NOT into us at ALL!!! I thought I might be able to win him over at first when I gave him a Gerber baby cracker; unfortunately he spit it out immediately into his hand, looked at it with an insulted and unbelieving face, looked at me and then screamed some more. This situation was not helped by the fact that it was rather late in his day, he was tired, hungry AND sick.

So I'm getting ahead of myself... let me explain. We arrived in Almaty one and a half days early due to the flights being much cheaper (like $3K cheaper). We had requested an earlier than planned meeting with the infamous "sisters" (the wonderful ladies that run this operation), but we were told that it was unlikely to happen before Tuesday, and that we would not travel to Shchuchinsk until Wednesday at the earliest. Well, we let Jim know that we were coming early and that if it was possible we would love to meet earlier than Wednesday. Lo and behold, we TOTALLY lucked out when they scheduled our meeting AND our travel for Monday!

The meeting with the "sisters", or in our case the "sister", Gulzanu (?) went extremely well. The whole event was rather unexpected, actually. Their office was very nice and modern and Gulzanu was extremely friendly and welcoming (not to mention beautiful!). I think we had been expecting to be grilled by a forbidding nun-type, but as it turns out the whole office was as lovely as could be. From our meeting we went to the airport and boarded a plane to Astana. No, we didn't have to take the "Yak" plane! But we will probably have to take it on the way home.

When we got to Astana we were a little surprised to meet a man (our driver) who had our name a little wrong and didn't speak english. Still he seemed very sure of what he was doing, and everyone else had gone, so we rolled the dice and went along with it. In the car I was shortly reassured when I saw some WPA paperwork; we were with the right guy! Then we drove for 3 hours to Shchuchinsk. Outside the baby house we met our translator, Mahabat, and we all drove straight to the Ministry of Education to do more paperwork before we were allowed to meet the little guy.

Which brings me back to where I started. He was not into it! I can't wait to blackmail him when he's older with his "first family photos" of him screaming bloody murder and us looking uncomfortable!

So, the great part of all of this is that eventually his caregiver needed to go in to feed the other babies and we were left alone with Evan. Again, he screamed and screamed, snorted, blew his nose, and coughed and coughed. But after about 10 minutes I decided that he was just gonna have to give me a big hug whether he wanted to or not; enough of this asking permission to hold him! I stood up, snuggled him tight, got a good grip and held on. After a few minutes his screaming turned to snuffling and occasionally coughing. The poor little guy! It took him a while to discover that I wasn't going to cause him horrible harm. I got him to calm down, but after too long looking at anyone's face he would start screaming again. Leave it to us silly americans to overstimulate a tired, hungry, sick child!

In the end he still wasn't sure about us, but that's ok because we're sure about him! We're hoping hoping hoping that he'll be well for our visit tomorrow. And that maybe, just maybe, he'll accept my apology for giving him such an icky cracker!

Alright, I'm passing out now. More tomorrow!

Jen

Safe in Kaz!

So here we are!!!

Wow, one might think that 30 hours of travel would literally drag on for an eternity, yet we made it through without incident. I'll admit that the last flight really sucked; my sleeping pills had worn off and my butt was in protest of being forced to sit, AGAIN, for another 6 hours. But we made it!

Going through customs was much easier than we thought, so that was great. Our translator and driver were right outside the glass as promised with our names on a sign. Our translator is a sweet girl named....um... well, it WAS two o'clock in the morning and it's a very russian name! I will make sure to figure it out today. Anyways, she was a total sweetheart and was anxious to learn about what people are like in the U.S. We were happy to oblige as we were driven through Almaty. She said we were the "happiest" people she had met so far; I said it was just because we were so excited to be here! AND we didn't lose any bags, either!

So, the truly great news is that we have our meeting with the sisters THIS MORNING! And then we leave for Koksheteau this afternoon! It sounds like we don't have to take the "Yak" plane, and will be flying to Astana and driving from there. There's a decent chance we might get to meet our son this evening, as Shchuchinsk is on the way to Koksheteau by car (my apologies, I'm sure I'm still spelling all of this wrong...). We are hoping this is true and have a little bag of toys and snacks all packed up for easy access! We are SO excited! And, even if we don't get to meet him today, we will tomorrow and tonight we'll get to UNPACK (we can't find anything in this mess, lemme tell ya!).

Ok, we're going to head down to the lobby of the hotel in search of breakfast. More on the other side of parenthood!

Love,
Jen and Brian

Kudos...

I just wanted to make a quick post before we go on our flight to Frankfurt. Leigh Ann, our ever patient and wonderous coordinator, you deserve to give yourself a bit pat on the back! You SO rock! You have been such a great support to us during the ups and downs of this process, and we appreciate everything you (and the rest of the folks at WPA) have done for us! You are forever in our hearts! We can't wait to meet our little guy!!!

Love,
Jen and Brian

Leaving the country at 9:10

Hey all,

My first solo post here. I'm sitting in JFK, finally gathering my thoughts as I watch a 747 pull away from the gate. This one’s heading to China. We, of course, are heading to Kazakhstan, well, Frankfurt, Germany is next, then on to Kazakhstan. But first, 3:05 left of our layover.

Though it may come as a surprise to many who know me, this will be my first overseas trip. I’ve never been to Europe, much less Asia, and here I am, on my way to a place most people have never even heard of!

One would think that this trip would be absolutely terrifying. It definitely has been at times. I’ve had my moments where I wondered what exactly it was we thought we were doing. Is this really us, doing this? Crazy!

The home study seems like a lifetime a ago... at least. And back then, the actual trip seemed like a distant dream. But now, here we are. The waiting is over. I’m sitting next to my wife at Gate 7 of the International Terminal of JFK, and we’re already on our way.

Together, we’re going to the other side of the world to get our son.

It’s the “together” part that’s makes it all okay. It’s together, that we’re staring a family. It’s the “together” part that makes me sure that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

(It’s still pretty crazy though.)

Brian

Thoughts from 37,000 feet... and JFK

And suddenly, in the time it takes for a plane to liftoff the runway, this is much more real than it has ever been before. It's hard to describe this feeling, it's a surprising feeling. I have been the queen of paperwork for 10 months, controlling and analyzing every detail, every step. Doctors' visits, passports, visas, apostilles, apostilles again, birth certificates, marriage certificates, mortgage papers, bank letters, social workers; the list literally goes on and on endlessly. If we hadn't left this morning my list of things to do would have only grown, a strange fluke in human nature to never actually complete a to-do list (or maybe it's just in MY nature). The endless influx and outgo of paper has made it easy for me to never actually believe that this adoption was going to happen. It's sort of like watching tv every night; it feels like life, but it isn't really. It seemed like I was adopting a baby, but only in the remote sort of sense, in a conversational sense.

But now it IS happening. We are on the other side of the paperwork fence. We are up in the plane now. We are living, I think, yes, that's what you call it! We are not going somewhere easy, this is no beach resort. This is an adventure. This is it. This is the beginning of our new family, the point where we bring this life home with us, and we can't control him! We're about to do something insane!

I am thinking, "Did I do this?" I remember being up in the plane with Lisa before, skydiving years ago, and thinking to myself "Wow, I'm about to jump out of a PLANE, and it was MY idea." I don't know how I thought I had gotten myself to that point before I realized that it was my own drive that did it. It didn't feel like me, it didn't feel unique. It felt sort of like "the thing you do", at least until I was truly getting ready to jump out of the plane. Then I realized, people do NOT jump out of planes every day, most people NEVER jump out of a plane, I got myself up here and no one else! You know those adventure magazines you might see? Those camping magazines, extreme sports magazines; most people never actually DO any of that! As it turns out, they just read the magazines! Here I was thinking that it was normal to jump out of a plane, like a rite of passage, like graduating from high school or something. And here I was thinking that it's normal to fly across the world and adopt a child...

Well, it ain't normal. None of this crazy stuff is, and certainly not this journey we're on. It may not be normal, but it's fun! Except for that soda I spilled on my lap mid-flight... sigh...

Jen

Good Morning!

I don't know why I'm posting this, exactly, I guess I just wanted to share. I'm sitting here, at 3:54am, drinking my first cup of coffee, listening to the Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R", and trying not to puke. Here we go!

Love,
Jen

Food? What's that?

Well, I've pretty much gone off food now. We're two days away from leaving (HOLY SH*T!), and I seem to be on the all-liquid diet at this point, which consists of smoothies and wine (that should surprise no one). As a general rule I should not be allowed out of the house, at least not with a credit card. Poor Becka had to endure a day of shopping with me today to buy baby Legos (he will be BRIAN'S son, after all), toddler spoons, special cups, and all sorts of other junk I don't need. I'd chalk it up to nervous energy, but I've been described (ahem) as having no self control before now, so I'm not sure if that's a sufficient enough excuse.

Sigh. I wish Saturday were tomorrow. Very soon Saturday WILL be tomorrow! This is a tricky spot to be in. There's nothing left to buy, do, clean, arrange; the only thing left to do is worry and I'm feeling sort of over that. Time to GO!!!

Jen

Travel dates already!

One might think that 9 months is long enough to prepare oneself mentally for the trip of a lifetime. Sadly, this is not the case and we are caught off guard regardless of the notice. "You mean this is real? We're going to get a, a WHAT? A baby? What do I feed it??? We're going to get there HOW??? On an old Soviet plane with minimal insulation? Frost on the interior of the cabin, you say?" These are just some of the questions going through our heads right now.

I am guessing that as the date approaches, we will enter into some sort of stupor. We will be in the phase of the rollercoaster right at the very top of the first drop, and we all know there's no un-harnessing yourself from those things once you're at that point.

Anyways, we are leaving on the 24th of June! I've attached a picture of Brian for your amusement...

Jen

Welcome to the Cantwell travel blog!

Hi everyone! We are preparing to head to Kazakhstan to adopt our son, Evan! This is the first installment to chronicle our journey to Shchunisk, Kazakhstan (we still don't know how to pronounce it!). We are hoping to leave by the end of June, but are packing this morning as if we're leaving tomorrow! We will be staying in the neighboring larger city of Koksheteau (don't know how to pronounce that one, either), population 120,000. This whole experience has so far been an emotional rollercoaster for us. Right now we are excited, but yesterday we were scared out of our minds. They tell us that our travel from Almaty (our touchdown point in Kaz) to Koksheteau is likely to be on an old Soviet jet of "unknown" make. On this plane ride of 3 hours we can expect a lot of vodka, and varying temperatures depending on where you sit on the plane. One couple told us that there was frost forming on the interior of the plane by the time they touched down! Whoohoo! Yep, freaking out a little bit...

So, hopefully very soon these posts will include NEW pictures of our little dude, and happy, smiling pictures of all of us safely in Kaz! We will post this month as we hear news of our impending journey.

Love,
Jen and Brian