Killing time in Almaty

Nathan was so excited to leave the baby house with us. We were told by no less than three people that he has been talking about "my America" since we left. He has been telling everyone that his mom, dad and brother are coming to take him to "my America", and he even knows where it is on the map! 

Not surprisingly he was excited to change his clothes (see the photos of the clothes he left behind), and then we spent one last hour in the bonding room with the other families who were in Semey at the time. Two of them were adopting boys in Nate's room which was really cool. The Director of the baby house came in to say goodbye. It's kind of crazy after all the massive amounts of paperwork that we've done at every step of the way that all we needed to do was sign two little composition notebooks and then he was ours! We did manage to get a picture of Nate and the director together before we left...I think he was pretty happy to see him going home with a family!

The flight to Almaty was horrible...most turbulent, swervy, all over the place flight I've been on in a long time. I cracked my head getting on board because I was trying to help Nathan get over the threshold without falling through and I almost knocked myself out. Good thing the top of the door frame was padded or I would have needed many Kazakh stitches on top of the giant goose egg! After doing fine the first half or so, Nathan threw up for the whole rest of the way. Between that and the splitting headache we were quite a crew. The flight attendant guy kept coming over to practice his English...yikes. 

We are one step closer to home...Almaty...where we are busily killing time. Our first morning here we woke up to snow - what a welcome! Days are long but it is SO much better than being at the baby house! We are free to do things our way and start becoming a family. Nathan is really enjoying watching movies and playing with the few little toys we have. He doesn't seem to be overwhelmed by the noise of the crowds, the mall, or anything else for that matter. He is adjusting really well and his English is coming along quickly. He understands much of what we are saying and is doing great at repeating everything we tell him.  He is very much like Matt in some ways, and nothing at all like him in others. Very interesting to get to know him better! 

Speaking of Matt, he talks about him all the time and even "called" him from his phone (remote control)! Yesterday when he saw xbox controllers in the mall he screamed "Matt, Matt" and went running over to them. How did he know?! Too funny!

Right now we are waiting for Nathan's visa to be processed in Astana, at which point it will be sent here to Almaty. Then we can have his medical exam done, and finally, his exit interview with the US Embassy. These are scheduled for Monday and Wednesday so I believe we will keep our flights that are on Friday. We are ready for America!!