Art

We've been looking for a piece of local art to take home and today we went to an exhibition. We found just what we were looking for...something uniquely Kazakh, but that will still fit in with the rest of the stuff in our house. We went to buy it and had them wrap it up since we will take it on the plane. This turned in to a huge debate about how we were going to get it through customs in Kazakhstan. Several calls to the customs office later, here is what we have to do...


1. Today we paid for the art, took it with us and got an official receipt stating that the art was sold to us as a private sale.

2. Tomorrow we have to take the receipt and art to the local Dept. of Culture and fill out a bunch of forms.

3. Wait 5 days and then we should receive a letter saying that it is ok for us to take the art out of the country because we paid for it and it has been verified that it did not come from any museum in Kazakhstan.

Just wanted to share this as a glimpse of how different things are here...
In other news, our attorney has a meeting with the judge that will oversee our case on Thursday afternoon. During this meeting it will be decided if the paperwork that we do have will suffice or if we will have to get updated documents. We should also find out our court date. Waiting patiently for Thursday afternoon...

Had a great day with D today! He is speaking more and more English everyday and it is so cute! Today he kept saying "it's OK" all the time. We were playing with a ball and every time it bounced off of him, he'd look at us and say "it's OK" so that we knew he was fine and not hurt. Too cute!

-The Stone's