6/7/07

Happy Thursday!
We had a very short visit with Miss Lucy today. We had to go with Zhaniya our coordinator to have some documents notarized. Of course nothing in Kaz seems to take under an hour, and we were stuck there for at least that long. In addition the traffic here is awful. It's like down town Boston 24/7!! Zhaniya agreed with me that it's rush hour at all hours : )

Lucy was ready to come out and play when we arrived, so we quickly scooped her up and took her out. She has been very playful this week, and we really enjoy the smiles and her exploring her new toys. Uncle Eddie and Auntie Debbie will be happy to know that Lucy loves her mini shaker I brought her from home. She already bops around when she shakes it. She wants to know when are you taking her to her first concert? We think we have a music lover on our hands : )

We decided to set Lucy up with an email address. We thought it might be nice to print out the emails and save them in Lucy's life book. We hope that everyone that is following along will take a few minutes before she is home (you still have over a month) to send her a message. She will be very excited to hear from Family, Friends, and of course other families that adopted from Kazakhstan. We also thought it's a nice alternative to those who are not comfortable posting comments (although they are now being emailed to me directly, I think?). Please feel free to email once, twice, or as many times as you like. We are setting this up for people to have fun and send her messages.

Her email address is: kazjourneytolucy@hotmail.com

Of course Mom and Dad will check the emails for her, although we are sure she will be checking her own by the winter...HA HA

Have a great day : )

Comments

Hi All,
Just wanted to let you know we adjusted the way the comments are being posted/sent. We have had issues with the blog, and discovered that having the comments emailed to us directly vs. having them posted on the blog will help to speed up the process of posting and save space.

Please keep the comments coming, we love them!!.....

6/6/07

Hello Everyone,
I am starting to sound like a broken record, but we did have another great day with Miss Lucy. She was very playful and smiley today. She of course eats her snack, and then she is ready to explore. Today we played with Sam, a little 12 month old boy who's parents just went to court today (and everything went great). Lucy is such a little flirt, she kept wanting to be closer to them, and hanging on Lisa, the Mom. It was very funny : )

Lucy had something sticky in her hair today, we couldn't figure out what. Of course I tried to wash it out, with out much luck (as you will see in the pictures). She also clapped for us when swinging with Jon. She was a very happy girl today.

We have another family working with our coordinator. They started there visits today, and they are adopting an 18 month old girl. They will have the same visiting time as us, so that will be another little face for Lucy to see. She does seem to love being around the other Children.

Tonight Jon and I are going to eat out. The apartment has treated us well, but we can only eat so many sandwiches or so much pasta : ) So we are off to the "Soho Almaty Club". We of course have eaten there twice before, but the food is good and we like it. We like to keep things simple........

Enjoy the smiles of the day : )

6/5/07

Hello,
It's a cool and cloudy day in Almaty. We tried to load the pictures and update the blog earlier this morning, and of course the Internet cafe was having issues, so we had to wait and do both yesterday and today this afternoon.

Lucy was great, as usual : ) We got to spend a little time outside, but not much it was really cool out and the playground was pretty wet from the rain last night. She is definitely into the routine of going out, and gets very antsy if we don't follow through.

We played in the music room, and Lucy of course being the chowhound that she is, was very happy to eat her snacks. She had double fisted bread and butter when we arrived, were talking a ton of butter (she was a little grease ball : ) We gave her yogurt, applesauce, cookies and cheerios. She loves her snacks! If we don't instantly open the bag and offer her something she starts pointing and grunting. She is too much : )

Here are the pics of the day, enjoy!

6/4/07

Sorry we didn't update Sunday or Monday. Sunday was a very hot day in Almaty, so hot that we only lasted outside for about an hour. It was about 100 degree's out, crazy!...

Sunday we walked to the Green Market and looked around. It's basically a huge flea market. We didn't find the type of souvenirs we were looking for, but it was fun to walk around. The rest of the day was a lazy afternoon in the apartment with the AC on : )

Monday was of course a Lucy day, our favorite kind of day. We had a wonderful visit with her, and we noticed many new families visiting with different children. It warms my heart to see other children being chosen by families and knowing in the end they too are going home : )

Lucy was finally dressed in summer clothing. We got to see her arms, and her little legs. She was very playful today, and seemed to enjoy her stacking cups (well knocking them down and then Daddy would build them back up : )

She had yogurt for the first time and absolutely loved it. So today's menu was a yogurt, a banana, a bowl of cheerio's and some apple. At this rate she will gain about 10 pounds before the summer is over. That's ok, we want to plump her up!! You know us American's, we love to eat (or maybe that's just us O’Neill’s...HA HA).

Enjoy the pictures, and we will post today's when we return from the baby house...so stay tuned......

6/2/07

Greetings!
We are finally at the Internet cafe with Wifi connection. WOO HOOO It's been a long three days with no way of loading the pictures. Our Camera card will be happy today as well : )

We will add pictures from Thursday, Friday and of course Today.

We had a great morning with Lucy at the baby house. We got to see the other families that visit in the morning, and as always it was great to have some English speaking conversations. It's so wonderful to see how much all the babies have blossomed over the past two weeks. They all noticed it in Lucy as well : )

Lucy is definitely more tired in the morning then the afternoon. Figuring she wakes around 6:00 a.m and has been up for four hours when we arrive, we think she likely still needs a morning nap (that she has been getting in about three weeks, since she left the other baby house). She of course is always up for food, and today we noticed other families feeding there babies yogurt. Next week we will bring yogurt as well as apple sauce. Hopefully Lucy likes the new additions to her diet : )

After our visit we went to the Mountains of Almaty. They were very beautiful and we will post a few pictures. We also got to see the Olympic size skating rink that is situated at the base of the mountains. I of course can't remember the name off the top of my head, but we have these facts written down at the apartment.

We then went to lunch with Zhaniya, Assel and our driver. They took us to an Italian restaurant, so still no traditional Kazakh food. We are not complaining, Pizza treats our stomachs well and knock on wood so far no issues at all with food or water.

Two weeks down today!! Jon just asked me if I can believe it, and my response was "yes, I believe it" and I couldn't be happier. The longer we are here, the sooner Lucy comes home to the States. WOO HOOO We certainly appreciate all that the US has to offer us and likely will always remember our time here, but always cherish our true home in Boston.

Lots of love and hugs from Lucy, Jon and Julie and we hope everyone has a great weekend!

Paka Paka (bye bye)

6/1/07

Greetings from Almaty!

Today is Jon and Julie's 5th wedding anniversary. When we answered our door this morning to let our coordinator in so we could get going to the baby house, she brought the driver up with her, and she handed me a bag with a gift and he handed me white roses! The gift was a traditional Kazakh husband and wife doll. I have to say it started the day off on a great foot : )

We then headed to the baby house for the celebration of the children. The baby house was decorated with stuffed animals, balloons, streamers, plastic monkeys and donkeys. Very nicely done by the staff at the baby house. We were the first and only family that was invited to attend this celebration. The families that normally visit in the morning were asked to come later today. Jon and I feel EXTRA special to have been there. We of course went and scooped up Miss Lucy, who seemed very happy to see us (she was so cute standing in the play pen smiling over at us).

We were then asked to go to the music room upstairs. All the baby house officials and staff, and children were sitting and there was an open area for a performance. We were so surprised to see all the 3 and 4 year olds dressed in there Sunday best (were talking tuxedo vests and ties on the boys and very fancy dresses on the girls) and they sang and put on a performance for the group. It was FANTASTIC! Of course Lucy had a different agenda while this was going on, and was wanting to get down and crawl, so I got to experience what it feels like to stand in the back of the room with the fussy baby (just kidding). : )

We took TONS of pictures and I will share a few, that is as soon as the darn Internet cafe is back up and running. We walked over again today to find out that it's still not up. Jon is scooping the map right now to figure out were there sister site is, and if it's close we will pack up the bag and head over there tonight or first thing in the morning. We are now up to about 100 pictures needing to be transferred. If no luck, we will ask our coordinator to direct us to another place tomorrow after we get back from the mountains.

After our exciting morning at the baby house, our coordinator took us out to lunch (wine, beer and all) on her for our "celebration". She toasted us several times and also told us we are the youngest couple she knows that has adopted from Kazakhstan. We did not eat Kazakh food, but rather Chinese (her pick). She also told us she is very happy that Lucy Zhanna has found a loving family, and she knows that the baby house feels the same way. She hopes to come visit us in Boston some day, and she also hopes we will come and visit her in Washington D.C in a year or two when she goes to visit a few other families. We told her we would do our best : )

We certainly feel lucky to have found our special girl on the other side of the world. We just can't wait to take her to our side : )