Updates

Let's get the boring stuff out of the way first. Our new fingerprints that were taken in Astana have been accepted and we are now in the clear through October 2011! We just have to wait for USCIS to update the National Benefit Center. Once they do, the "system" will be updated and that should be enough for the Embassy here in Kaz. On the Pavlodar front, we have almost all of Ryland's paperwork completed. We were supposed to receive his passport today, but we didn't get. We hope to get it on Monday... Apparently the Kaz government is making all citizens update their identification cards and the deadline is very soon, so the office that handles all of this is extremely busy. Once we receive the passport, it will need to be sent to Astana to get his visa and sent back to us here in Pavlodar. Once we have all of that, we are free to leave Pavlodar and spend the rest of our wait in Almaty. If everything goes to plan and we get the passport on Monday, we could be in Almaty end of next week. Still waiting to see if all the pieces fall in order!!

On to more important stuff - tomorrow is Ry's birthday! The big 5 - a whole hand of fingers!! We are going to have a belated celebration when we get home, but wanted to celebrate his day here nonetheless! Tonight we booked a table at the Kid's Palace (think upscale Mr. Gatti's with much better food) for the party. It's tomorrow at 2:00PM if you're in the neighborhood! We've invited all of our friends over here and hope to have a party of 10-12! We ordered him a cake shaped like a motorcycle and bought one more remote control car and got it wrapped! All of his other remote control cars have died and we have a nice car graveyard in the living room.

Our days are long and boring, but we're finding all kinds of things to do. Today we played a version of Simon Says and he had a ball and learned quite a few new English words in the process! When I say his English is drastically improving daily, I mean it. It's astonishing! Tonight we went to visit with Svetlana and several people were speaking Russian to him and he would answer some things in English. At one point someone called him Dias and he corrected them and said "I am Ryland (Loveland)". He's a very smart boy and I now fully believe that in 2 months time he won't be able to speak or understand Russian. So many people have told me this and I just couldn't fathom it, but I get it now. I wish he could continue to speak both languages, but Dust and I just don't know enough Russian to make that a reality.


We are so ready to come home and are dying for everyone to meet our little guy! I know the weekend will fly by and hopefully we will have good news on Monday!



Love,
The Three Stone's