Our Adoption

The End

2010-07-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

Since our journey to Ryland is complete and we are finally home - we thought that it was time to close this blog out and start fresh by chronicling our new life as a family. If you're interested, please follow along at our new spot, http://txstones.blogspot.com/. It's been an incredible adoption journey, thanks for sharing it with us!!!

Love,
Dustin, Cortney & Ryland Stone

Progress Update

2010-07-28T22:09:00.000-05:00

Ryland has been adjusting ridiculously well so far...or so we think! He's taken to our family right away and loves them like his own. He asks for each of them by names throughout the day and gives big hugs/kisses when we see them without prompting. Grandpa and Aunt Chandler watched him for a few hours so I could get my hair done and he was fine - no problems, no tears, no asking for mama or papa...SUCCESS!!!

Since we have a pool, we wanted to get him in swimming lessons pretty quickly so that he could at least learn the basics. He's having a blast and loves to go to "swim school" every night! The teachers say that they can communicate with him just fine and if he looks confused, they just show him what to do. Today they asked "Who wants to jump in first?" and Ry was like "ME, ME"!

I know that he doesn't comprehend most of what is going on, but he gets pieces of it and understands more everyday. Everywhere we go, he asks if it is America too. I think he thought that was the name of our house!! He is still amazed by airplanes, cars, limos, trucks, trains and points every single one out!!

Our biggest struggles right now are discipline, food & playing on his own. He likes to pout when he doesn't get his way and we are still working out our boundaries. Food-wise, he tries everything, but isn't too keen on American food yet but he is getting there! He wants someone to play with him all of the time and doesn't grasp the concept of all the millions of little things there are to do each day. He gets a little better each day, but it is something that we're working through. The last struggle is no naps...that equals no "time" during the day to get anything done. He goes non-stop from the time he gets up!

He has SOOO much to adjust to and I am sure it's overwhelming! The part we didn't prepare for is how overwhelming being parents actually is. As happy as I am, there are times throughout each day that I grieve for my old life. I guess I need a transition period, too! As I was getting ready the other morning, I looked at my bathtub in my bathroom and just missed it so much. It used to be clean, inviting, relaxing and bottles of potions/bubble bath were all around it. That morning all of the bath toys from the night before were scattered in the tub and wash cloths were everywhere. My potions and pretty towels had been moved to the side, replaced with bright colored monkey towels...I missed my bathtub. As I am sitting there, thinking of my old bathtub, Ry comes barrelling in with a big smile saying "Mama, beautiful"! Perfect timing...I snapped out of it...bathtubs are over-rated anyways. I can guarantee you that he has had more fun in that tub in a week than I have had in it in 3 years!!

Love,
Cort

A boy & his dog! Don't let Sadie's look fool you, she is loving all the extra treats that Ryland happens to give her!

HOME...at last!

2010-07-24T20:49:00.000-05:00

Things have been absolutely crazy since we've landed and we've been going 100mph!

The long journey home was not as painful as we thought it would be and Ry was a trooper the whole way. He never got sick (thank you, thank you, thank you) and was in a pretty good mood most of the time. He LOVED being on the airplanes, loved watching movies & loved his new leapster that we saved for the plane ride home! He wasn't too keen on the airplane food, but hey...who is? Landing in DC was cool and it was neat to see the excitement on Ry's face when we finally landed in America! The moment we landed @ DFW was very emotional for me. I didn't even realize it would be, but the second we landed I just felt such a burden lift off of me. Everything that we have worked so hard for, over the last 3 years, had finally all worked out. We were home...as a family! I can't even begin to describe that feeling...it was overwhelming.

Since we landed at 7:30 at night, we asked our family to please not meet us at the airport and let us get him home to see the house, meet Sadie and then get some rest. I know it was very hard for everyone, including us, not to see everyone right away, but it was definitely the best and things weren't too overwhelming for Ryland. So after we landed, Dustin waited for the luggage and Ry & I ventured out to find the car. Quite the trip!! It was hot & humid and after we'd been outside for 3 minutes Ry said that Texas was hot and he wanted to take his shirt off. GREAT...he hadn't been here for 10 minutes and he already wanted to go shirtless at the airport!!! As we were walking, we had to stop about every 30 seconds to look at another plane taking off or landing.

We slept good the first night and that next morning, most of our family came over around lunchtime. Ry took to everyone immediately. Big hugs & kisses to everyone, he sang everyone the ABC's, Monkeys Jumping on the Bed & Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes. Wasn't shy at all...Skype really works miracles, it was like he already "knew" everyone. I can't say it enough...he is such a trooper! It's literally been like he's been a part of our extended family for years! Both sets of grandparents are just in love with him already, his aunts and uncles adore him and he & his only cousin, Nyah, are best friends already! We've spent most of Thursday, Friday & Saturday with various family members and he has LOVED all the attention!!! Dust & I are so relieved...

Here's to you Ryland - you're the best thing that's ever happened to us!!

First Pic as an American citizen!!

He loves swimming in his pool and asks to go swimming at least 50 times a day

Sleeping all night, in his own room and his own bed with no problems...so far!

Ryland & Nyah

Bath Monkey!

Fun Times in Almaty!

2010-07-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

We’ve had a really good time here so far! Yesterday we went to the medical appointment for Ry and it was quick & painless. We spent an afternoon poolside and went to dinner with Lisa & Beth. We had some great pizza and shared stories about each of our adoptions so far. It was so nice to meet them both and I wish them both the best of luck in their adoptions! Their babies are absolutely ADORABLE!!! After dinner we took a quick stroll through Paniflov Park and headed back to the hotel. Ry & I grabbed some ice cream in the restaurant while Dust tried to get some work done. It’s a little tricky getting him to sleep when we are still up and Dustin is working in the same room! The internet here isn’t unlimited and we have to pay by the ½ hour.
This morning we headed to Kok Tube to take a cable car ride up into the mountains. Of course, we pick the one day a week when the cable car doesn’t run until 6:00 PM. I was so bummed, because I spent about 30 minutes this morning trying to explain to Ry, in our limited communication what a cable car was! They had a bus though that took us to the top. It was very nice and had beautiful views of Almaty. They had souvenir shops, restaurants, a small zoo & a roller coaster that went down the mountain. Ryland LOVED this and has talked about how fast he went for most of the day today! This afternoon we had a 3:00 appointment with the US Embassy and all went well. So far, everything in Almaty was quick and painless. We have all paperwork in our hands and the official told us that as soon as we land in Washington DC, Ry is an official US citizen! He his so excited to have his own passport now!

We head to the airport about midnight tonight and we are only 4 flights away from home! We are scheduled to arrive July 21st @ 7:30PM at DFW. Crossing our fingers for no delays and no lost luggage this time!!

Here’s a few pics of our excursions!

Yes, he prefers to sleep in the crib...

swim time

Russian Orthodox Church in Paniflov Park

Roller Coaster down the mountain-side

View of Almaty

The Stone's

Apples Are From Kazakhstan

In Almaty!

2010-07-18T08:31:00.000-05:00

We made it to Almaty with no problems. I was stressed out the whole, turbulence filled plane ride here because I just knew he would get sick but everything was fine. We are worried about the long flights coming up later this week though! He didn’t understand waiting to board the plane and asked for the plane every 30 seconds or so. He was PUMPED getting on the airplane and taking off, but was bored & restless during the rest of the flight. It’s going to be a loooong trip home!!

We have to take him to a medical appointment tomorrow and then we have an exit interview @ the Embassy on Tuesday. We want to leave ASAP, but there aren’t a whole lot of flight options. Right now we are on hold for a flight on Wednesday that has an overnight stop in DC and if that doesn’t work, we won’t be able to make it home until Saturday. We are still working with the travel agency trying to firm everything up.

We’re staying at the Hotel Kazzhol and have very nice accommodations, including A/C! I’ve visited tons of hotels throughout my life, but today I figured out the absolute best thing a hotel can do to accommodate families – have a pool! They have a beautiful, indoor swimming pool here and Ry was very happy to kill a couple of hours down there! The restaurant is fantastic and I’m worried we will gain back all the weight we’ve lost by eating here for a few days! They have specialty Swiss ice cream which is absolutely delicious.

After we got to our room, some of the staff wheeled a crib into our room. We tried to tell them that we didn’t need a crib – Ry could sleep in once of the Queen beds, but it was lost in translation. We just let them set it up and told Ryland he didn’t have to sleep in it. He almost cried and told us he wanted to sleep in it and put his stuffed bear & dog in there! We’ll see how tonight goes, but it looks like he wants to sleep in the crib!! I’ll definitely get pictures if he does! At least he can’t fall out of the crib – last night he fell off the couch and Dust found him sitting on the living room floor half awake & very confused. Dustin told him everything was OK and laid him back down and he was out like a light!

Ry’s little suitcase has not left his side for about 24 hours. He even took it with him to the bathroom this morning before we left the apartment. I think he was so afraid that we would leave all of his stuff behind!

What a Day!

2010-07-16T09:35:00.002-05:00

This morning @ 11:15 the phone rang. Our translator. “Can you be downstairs ready for a taxi in 15 minutes to go the coordinator’s office?” Ryland was in the bath tub (we finally got hot water back around 10:30 AM this morning). We ran around finishing getting ready, bathed & dressed Ry, gathered the rent money and ran downstairs just in time. Taxi mishap…we wait outside for 30 minutes…finally a taxi comes. Once we get to Svetlana’s office we find out the following:

- The passport came!!!!!

- All paperwork to sign out Ryland from Pavlodar is in process and should be complete about 5:00PM

- The Director of the Orphanage is there and asks us if we would please make an impromptu trip to the camp where the other kids are to say good-bye.

- How can we say no???

So we leave the office and head to the travel agent to book our tickets for the 1st leg of our trip home – Almaty! Of course, they don’t take CCs and we already took out our ATM limit earlier this morning to finish up the rent money…GREAT. We had to go to a bank and withdraw money which literally took almost 40 minutes. We had to fill out a questionnaire that seriously asked us if we were the President of a foreign country or the Chief of a foreign army. No…we are just a couple of Americans looking to take out $400…not $500,000…$400. Yikes…good news though – we are now in the bank’s system so they next time we are in town and need to withdraw money, we are golden. (What a relief!)

Then we went to the orphanage to have “Tea Time” with the staff that was still there to say our good-byes. Next stop, the grocery store, so we could pickup drinks and snacks to take to the kids at their camp. About a 45 minute ride out to the camp in a large van with no A/C. Today it was about 95…I can’t remember the last time I sweat this much…I also can’t believe that I am taking the time to type this post before I take a shower…yikes. I feel like I’ve been camping for a week – I don’t even care if there is no hot water tonight! All the kids were so excited to see Ry and it was just like paparazzi. He did not like all the attention/hugs/kissing on him, but was happy to see his friends/family. We visited with everyone for about 45 minutes and then took another hot trip back home.

We finally got back to the apartment around 6:30 – craziness when we thought that we were just taking a quick trip to Svetlana’s office this morning & would be back by lunch!

Tomorrow we will be packing up and finishing up everything else that we want to do in Pavlodar and then Sunday morning we will head to the airport about 10AM. Ry is over the moon to go on the airplane! I know he will think Almaty is America… Poor thing – he just wants to finally get there and see what all the hype is about!!

Thurday

2010-07-15T12:20:00.000-05:00

The passport didn't come...but it's been confirmed that it's on a train to Pavlodar right now and will be here at 7:00AM tomorrow morning. We will see!! This *shouldn't* hold us up any and it looks like we will leave Pavlodar on Sunday and head to Almaty.
To kill some time this afternoon we took another trip to the beach. Ry had fun and wanted to swim today. Swimming consisted of one of us holding him in the water and him moving his arms around in every single direction! Pretty cute. He took the big plunge and put his whole head under 3 times and is verrrrrrrry excited that he has a swimming pool at home and can swim all the time. Swimming Lessons...here we come!

Day 3 of no hot water in the apartment... I hate it! Showers & washing dishes is just miserable without hot water. Please come back...we miss you. Ry's bath time takes 3 times as long because I have to continually boil pots of water.

We went to dinner with our translator & coordinator tonight and had a really good time. Excellent food and great conversation. I am going to miss our "family" over here in Kazakhstan so much. Everyone that we've worked with has been absolutely amazing and I consider each one of them good friends of ours.

Ryland's English and the communication within the Stone household has been amazing. It's been 2 weeks since we were able to pick-up Ry and we haven't had to call a translator once to assist with conversation. I am just astonished and am so very proud of Ry, Dust & myself. It's like we just sync and we "get it". There is often a lot of communication to explain a simple thing, but that's working just fine for us!

The behavioral issues that we've had with him so far seem to just be a "kids his age thing". He's energetic, but what kid isn't. I'm not sure if any of these are adoption related or not and am interested to discuss with the professionals back home. We've had a couple of times where he's lied to us about something small. He cannot stand for Dustin and I to show any affection and if we do, he withdraws and pouts. We've started doing a lot of family hugs.

Hope you are all having a great week!

Signing off for the night,

Cortney

The Latest

2010-07-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

Still no passport for Ry, but it has been promised for delivery tomorrow by lunchtime - we will see! Thanks to the Kaz community for reaching out with tips for us in dealing with the passport office.

The best news of the day came from the Embassy here. Even though we are waiting for the updated I-171H, this will not hold up our trip home since our Home Study and fingerprints are updated. If everything goes to plan and we receive the passport tomorrow, then we will leave Pavlodar on Sunday morning and head to Almaty. We should be able to leave Almaty on Wednesday or Friday depending on how our appointments in Almaty line up.

WE ARE SO READY TO COME HOME!! We can't wait to show Ry his new home and meet his family. We are hoping that we have good news to share tomorrow!

Other than that, we are just having fun figuring this whole thing out. Small victories seem like big, huge successes! Tonight I was able to get Ryland to go to sleep without me being in the room with him. AMAZING!!!! It's remarkable how much more trust he has with us in just 2 weeks time. He is doing great, eating wonderfully and having minimal behavior issues. So far, we have really lucked out. I know that it is not typically this easy and I'm sure we'll have plenty of issues once we are finally home! Dustin and I are working great as a team and give each other some "down time" throughout the day. This new life is so fun and exciting, but it's really nice to have 30 minutes here and there to paint my nails, catch up on Facebook and just zone out. It has really helped us stay grounded and not completely lose our old selves that we knew and loved so much.

Love,

Cortney

Ry falls asleep in the bedroom and then we move him to the couch once Dustin is done working. We go into the room last night to find him dead asleep like this. Even the flash from the camera didn't disturb him.

Ryland's Bubble Show

2010-07-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

Save the Taraz Ten

2010-07-12T11:57:00.002-05:00

There are several families right now that have gone through the bonding process in Kazakhstan and have had a judge deny their petition to adopt. If you have your kids right now, give them an extra squeeze and think of these poor families that are waiting for a miracle.

One of our friends created a "Save the Taraz Ten" cause on Facebook. If you wants to join, please go here:

http://www.causes.com/causes/503597?recruiter_id=141926179

Monday - July 12th

2010-07-12T11:52:00.001-05:00

We received news on Ryland's passport today, but it wasn't the best news. His paperwork went missing for a while and then was finally found. They are hoping to process his new passport tomorrow and get it to us on Wednesday. We won't know for sure until Wednesday. In the meantime, we are still waiting for CIS to update the system with our new clearance and age preference. Hoping to hear news on this soon as well. So for now, we are just waiting and trying to do everything in Pavlodar that we can before we leave.

The sun is supposed to come back tomorrow and we want to go back to the beach for a couple hours. On Wednesday we're going to go to an indoor pool and we are interested to see how Ry acts in the pool to give us a little glimpse of where he'll be once we get home. He has had a little cough, just in the morning, for the past couple of days. I thought it would go away, but we had our translator take us to the drug store today. The "kids" cough syrup that we got wasn't fruit flavored like back home and smelled like fennel. I was worried about him not taking it well or spitting it out, but he drank it like a champ. Such a little man!!

Yesterday we all went with Dust to get a long over-due haircut. Even though Ry didn't need one, we wanted to use this experience to get him used to a barber shop and since he wants to do everything that Papa does anyway, why not? He got a little trim and got his hair in the front cut shorter so that he could spike it up (you guessed it...like Papa). After that we went to the Irtysh Hotel for some lunch and he was AMAZED by the beautiful, clean, mirrored elevator ride up to the top floor. So different from the dirty, tiny elevator in our building! Once we got home we took a quick trip to the grocery store because it was getting really dark and looked like a big storm was coming in. We didn't make it a quick enough trip. Just as we were finishing up, the storm came and rain/hail was pouring down and the power in the store went out! We were using our cell phones in the aisles to get the last things we needed. I thought Ryland would be scared, but he loved it and giggled the rest of the time! Once the rain let up, we checked out (apparently the only things on generators are the cash registers...not the refrigerators...) and headed home. The streets were FLOODED and Dust carried all the groceries, I carried Ry and we waded our way home. We were completely soaked halfway up our legs and of course Ry thought he was missing out on the fun and wanted down into the puddles too! We got home, stripped down, washed the dirt off our clothes/shoes and got Ry into a warm bath! It was quite the experience!

Yesterday we started teaching him the ABC song and he is doing quite well. Tonight during bath time, he wanted me to help him sing it the whole time. As soon as we would finish, he would say "AGAIN"! He knows the very beginning, so if I would start to sing that part, he would say "I got it" and do it himself!

We're doing great - just waiting to come home! When I think about the situation that others are in, it reminds me to just be so happy that we have him...even though we aren't home yet.

Love,
Cort

He thought it would be hilarious to put on Papa's shorts and go show him! Most days I think we should have named him Dustin Jr.

Before his first haircut as a "Stone"

After

Chandler- this one's for you...Watch out, it looks like someone is pining for your job!! He was so happy that I let him vacuum all on his own!

Ryland's 5th Birthday!

2010-07-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

This morning Ryland got to open his present from us! He was very excited and gave us big hugs and kisses before even unwrapping it!!!

Looking sharp before his birthday party

Family pic at the party before we ate

All the kids posing with balloons

As a special gift for Ry someone gave the kids a bubble show. Ry was very shy and quiet during the show but in the end he went on stage and was put inside a big bubble!

Ry's motorcycle birthday cake (banana filling...Cortney was not a fan)

A little dab of frosting on the nose for some big laughs

On the way back home with a big stick of cotton candy

Showing off his presents that he got from guests at his party

Ry sporting his new Kazakh hat

Scooter Time

2010-07-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

Updates

2010-07-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

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

Our walk around Pavlodar

2010-07-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

The infamous traveling dolphin show

We could finally fly the kite without having to run!

Looking for boats

Ry's first car rental experience

Keeping Busy

2010-07-06T10:16:00.001-05:00

We've been doing our best to kill time around here! Even Ryland is asking to go to America several times a day! Yesterday we went to the beach for a couple hours and had a good time. Ry was beside himself and smiled the whole trip through! He was ok playing in the sand, but had to constantly go back down to the water to rinse off his hands and his toys. After that, we went to see Toy Story 3 in the afternoon. Ry enjoyed it and especially loved the popcorn; Dust & I thought it was cute, but couldn't understand any of it! We'll have to go see it again once we're home. Most of the kids DVDs we have here at the apartment can be played in English or Russian. We always ask Ry what language he wants to watch them in and he usually picks Russian. Since yesterday, he has requested English! He is learning more and more every single day and it is absolutely amazing how well we are communicating with each other.

Today we went to see a traveling dolphin show and that was a very interesting experience. About 1/2 way through Dustin leaned over and said to me that the dolphins weren't even the interesting part...how right he was. Not sure on the whole animal's rights thing, but I was in shock that they had the dolphins (really baby beluga whales) in such a small tank. It was like a large, above ground, backyard swimming pool. There was some type of entertainment (think rodeo clown) that lasted more than half of the show and was pretty terrible. Ry almost fell asleep and asked to go home several times during the show. At one point, they had the dolphins "paint" a picture and the stopped the show to auction it off around the arena. Strange. Also, at the very beginning, they asked for volunteers to come up and there was a pre-arranged couple that went up there. After doing the trick with the dolphins, the guy proposed to the girl. It was over the top cheesy...we were just cracking up. I told Dustin that if he had done something so ridiculous, I would have said no!! Anyway, long story short, the traveling dolphin show was a big bust!

In less than a week, we've made so much progress. The first night Ryland cried at bath time and didn't want anything to do with it. Tonight during dinner, he said he wanted a bath! He's a great eater and will eat most things and I have finally mastered milk porridge, well, I don't know if mastered is the best term, but he will finally eat my version!! He loves fresh vegetables (any kind), but is not a fan of them once they've been cooked. We are learning just as much about him as he is about us everyday and things are getting so much easier. We've been tweaking the bedtime routine every night to see what works the best for us and we're making great progress!

I am officially taking some time off of work for the next couple of months, so it's been a big adjustment for me to take on more of the domestic duties while Dustin focuses on work. Since we both work a lot, we both typically do everything. I'm not quite sure how one little man adds so much extra laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning...but he sure does!

Well, I'm off to pick up the apartment, again!

Love,
Cort

Playing ball at the beach!

People watchin' - just like his mama!

Ry & Dust got matching temporary tattoos from the "Cars" movie. This really made his day and he loves to lift up his sleeve and put his arm right next to Papa's!

Happy Fourth of July

2010-07-04T09:36:00.000-05:00

Happy Fourth of July!!! Wish we were back home to celebrate, but made the best of it today. Dustin's whole side of the family is celebrating at our house this weekend and they all got together with my side of the fam for dinner. We were jealous and of course wondering how the conversation went without us...probably about us, I'm sure. For the last couple mornings, we've been able to Skype with family and it's been fun. Ry has no idea how it works, but loves showing all of his stuff to whoever on the other side of the camera. I'm sure our family is loving getting to see and hear him live.

Ryland's First Boat Trip - Irtysh River Cruise

View of the beach from the river

We may not have had fireworks for our 4th, but we had a great day on the boat & at the beach!

Big Hugs, Kazakh Flags...could this pic be any cuter?

Checking out the scenery! Words of the day: boat & jet ski. Every few minutes he would get so excited, and I mean beyond excited. Go figure, he now wants a boat and a jet ski! He would point out every one and whether or not it was fast and tell us the color. "Smo-tree, Smo-tree (look, look) boat, fast, yellow".

Happy boy on the boat with his new shoes (don't hate...there's not a lot of shoe choices here! You get what you get...). Can't wait to get home & shop for little man!

YES...there are rednecks in Kazakhstan...

After the River Cruise & lunch we took an impromptu long walk and ended up at the beach. We plan to go back tomorrow for a more prepared beach excursion, so hopefully better pics to follow. Every time I see parents with their kids in underwear instead of bathing suits, it absolutely appalls me, but what were we to do??? When in Rome...

Sitting here, watching the excitement in Ry in getting into the water like this for the first time was overwhelming for me. He was just overjoyed to strip down, run to the water, to splash and squish the "sand" in between his toes. He was in awe, he just couldn't fathom that he could do that. I got choked up just watching the happiness and feeling so lucky to be able to bring this joy to him. Then I got even more choked up thinking of all the kids just in this town, let alone the world, that have never experienced it, never had the chance to have a normal childhood like so many of us take for granted. It just broke my heart.

A HUGE thank you goes out to our parents who did everything they could for us to make our childhoods as special as they could...that's all a parent can do! I never thought about it before... I'm sure our parents weren't over the moon about taking us to amusement parks, roller skating rinks, and all those other fun kid activities, but I know they were thrilled to see us have such a great time. Thanks again...like you always told us, we'd never even begin to understand until we had our own.

Love,

Cort

Trip to the Mall

2010-07-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a few pics from our day today. We took a walk to the mall to get Ry some tennis shoes (scooter & flip flops = scraped toes), took several walks with the scooter and finished the night up at Classic Pizza for Dinner. Ryland was not a fan of pizza...weird...we were not expecting that!! Luckily he gobbled up the crust, mashed potatoes & some soup. We had scrambled eggs for breakfast and it was the first time for him. Although Dust makes a mean scrambled egg, I was worried he wouldn't eat it - but he had no problems with the eggs, banana & yogurt. He has an appetite like his father!!! He is saying the cutest things every day and is constantly cracking us up! Today he learned fast and slow and, of course, fast is his favorite! While riding the scooter we hear this constantly "Papa, help...fast". We are loving spending all this time with him and exploring Kazakhstan...but are ready to come home!!! It takes a lot to entertain him for 12 + hours with not a whole lot to do!! Tomorrow, we are hoping to go on a river cruise...another first, a boat ride!!

Inside our train cabin just as we were pulling back into Pavlodar.

Tickle Time!

Ice Cream! Shortly after this picture he said "Mama, pink please". He wanted to trade me! :)

At a scenic place on our walk home from the mall.

At the fountain right by our apartment. He thinks all fountains are just beautiful!

Stone Trio

Astana

2010-07-02T09:37:00.001-05:00

What a crazy day!!! I don't know where to even begin, I could be blogging for hours just describing everything we did yesterday! We've been resting and still trying to recover all day today! But it's just after 8 and we actually had Ry in bed, asleep by 8:05!!! SUCCESS!!! I am so proud of us! The problem is that I have so much to do now, but just want to sleep! So, here's an abridged version.

The taxi ride there was long, but we had a great driver and had great conversation - so glad we brought Symbat with us! About 4 hours into the trip Ry got car sick...all over Dustin! :( It was rough - we brought extra clothes for Ryland, but not Dust...now we know for next time! Dustin's jeans were stiff and smelled horrible for the rest of the day...but what were we to do? Each day we learn 50,000 new things that will help us out tomorrow! We have the "aha" moments and just smile at each other!

On the road trip there we stopped at a roadside "diner" for breakfast. Quite the experience! We sat at an old style traditional Kazakh table (where we sit on the floor). The bathrooms were a lovely experience. Before yesterday, I have never gone to the bathroom in an outhouse with wood planks over a gigantic pit. I walked in and there was just a scary looking wood floor with a huge hole...that's it...no toilet, no toilet paper, no hook for your purse, and definitely no sink...lovely. Our driver cracked up at how high maintenance I was!

Astana - Bayterek Tower (Ry was amazed at the glass elevator ride up to the top!) He had his first experience later that day on an escalator and loved it as well.

Papa & Ryland @ the top of the tower

This is an imprint of the President's hand. You are supposed to put your hand in there and make a wish.

Even though he tells us all the time that he has flown planes before (to the sun) here is his first pic as a pilot!

Bumper Cars - His word of the day yesterday was cool! Everything that he saw was "cool". While were eating dinner, he told Symbat that he had an incredible day and that everything he did was amazing! She was cracking up because she said it was so rare to hear children say those words in Russian.

This boy loves his motorcycles!

Rockin' his pajamas about to get aboard the train. This was BY FAR his favorite thing. He loved the train!! The whole time he was awake on the train, he looked out the window and pointed out every single thing he saw. He also did this as soon as we arrived in Astana. "Mama - look - taxi, crane, tractor, big truck, bus, train"...etc.

Family Pic

Oh yeah, the whole reason for the trip! We went to the Embassy and got fingerprinted with no problems. Everyone there was nice and very helpful. We're hoping this will only delay us a week or two. Dust and I went to the Embassy and left Ry with Symbat at the hotel. He was completely fine and didn't cry at all! This gave us such a huge sigh of relief!! Once he is used to our family & friends, I know he won't mind staying with them while Dust & I take a quick break!

We had no idea how exhausting this whole 'being a parent thing' really is!!

Goodnight all!!

Love,

The Stone's (or as Ry says the "Schtone's)

First Official Day as a Family of 3

2010-06-30T11:28:00.001-05:00

Poor kid had a long day!
- We arrived at the orphanage about 11 and packed his stuff up. He
quickly said his goodbyes and gave out hugs. His new caregiver was very
emotional and gave him her whistle that she always wears to round up the
kids. He LOVES it and we are so thankful that it's been "hiding" in my
purse for a few hours!!
- He was very excited to leave and as we were walking out he said, in
English, "where is the taxi"? All the "Where is______" games have been
paying off!!
- We then stopped by the Baby House where he lived from 2-4 and said
our goodbyes there.
- Next stop was Kids Village to say goodbye to sign off on some
paperwork. This was a VERY confusing stop for Ry. When we got there,
he didn't want to get out of the car. Once it was time to leave, he
wanted to stay. He was very tired at this point and thought he was
"home". After some explanation from the translator, he was good to go
and hopped into the car.
- Then it was on to lunch. We gave away several cakes and sweets today
and at every stop, Ry said he wanted cake and didn't want to give them
away because he wanted to eat them all! We call that a "hungry fella"
in our family.
- After lunch was passport photos which he wasn't too thrilled for, but
we got them done.
- Several pick ups and drop offs along the way of misc. paperwork
people.
- During all of this excitement, Dust had been on and off the phone
with the Embassy. The easiest/quickest trip is to Astana, but they are
only doing fingerprinting one time in the next week. Tomorrow from
2-4... So during all of the other errands, we tried to buy plane and
train tickets and explain to Ry that our first night as a family may be
on a train!!! No planes would get there in time...the train to Astana
tonight was completely full. It's been crazy!
The plans are that we have hired a taxi to drive the three Stone's + our
translator to Astana early in the morning. (About a 5 hour drive...on
what we hear are terrible and very bumpy roads). The taxi drive will
only cost us 14000 tenge which is about $94...we couldn't believe how
cheap that was...for all 4 of us! We should arrive in Astana around
lunchtime. We will rent a room at an inexpensive hotel for us to use
off and on throughout the day. Symbat will stay with Ry while we go to
handle the fingerprinting. After that we're going to check out some fun
things in Astana and then take the train home later tomorrow night. A
quick/crazy trip, but Ry is really excited to go on the train! A
private room on the train for all of us will cost about $45. We just
can't get over it!!!

- We finally arrived home and Ry was very excited to get in the
elevator and go see the apartment. He thinks we are in America now and
as soon as we walked in door, he looked around and said "Where is
Sadie"?
- He checked out everything and kept asking if everything he saw was
his. Moi means mine? Moi? Moi? Moi? Moi? Moi? We tried to explain
that it was all of ours, but that was a little over his head.
- We rode his new scooter, had dinner, bath time & a terrible attempt
at bedtime at 8:00PM! It's now 10:30 and he's still wide awake. I guess
we shouldn't have let him have that nap in the car today!
It's been a looong day for all of us, especially Ryland! Tomorrow
should be an adventure! Dust and I are tired and I sure hope Ry gets
sleepy soon! Will post when we are back from Astana.

Today is the day!!!

2010-06-29T22:06:00.001-05:00

Can you believe it???? We can't! We're dressed, ready and sitting here in anticipation, just waiting for the phone to ring! Svetlana is already working on getting all of the paperwork official today and as soon as it's ready we can go and pick Ryland up!!! We're going to stop by the bakery first and pick up several cakes/sweets/candies to take to the orphanage with us. After we pick him up, we will also stop by the Baby House where he stayed when he was little to say goodbye to the caregivers & Director there. SO EXCITED!!!!

Our next stop on the way home will be to get his picture taken for his passport so that Svetlana can start that side of the paperwork...and then it's finally HOME! Well, to our home away from home!

Dustin and I are so ready and cannot believe that it's finally time! I know that Ry is excited too and I just hope that we won't ever let him down. I hope that we can bring half of the amount of fun into his life that he is bringing into ours. A lot of people have told us that Ry will be so lucky to have us as parents, but Dustin and I truly believe that we are the lucky ones!! This little guy will forever change our lives - he already has!

This day is the first day of the next chapter of our lives - wow!!

Love,
The Stone's

PS - Get on Skype so you can say hi to all three of us later!

So excited as the calendar countdown got closer!

Our Kaz cutie

Russian Bath Experience

2010-06-29T21:54:00.000-05:00

Since I have a quick minute before today's festivities, I wanted to share my experience at the Russian Baths. I had such a good time and cannot wait to do this with my friends back home. A 'Girls Night Out' was definitely needed - and Dust enjoyed having a few hours to himself as well!

This is the outside view of the place. It's a restaurant, hotel, bath house, disco & they have an outdoor pool for summertime fun. If you are lucky enough to ever get to Pavlodar, check this place out. It's on the road heading to the airport, just outside of town.

We had a private room all to ourselves. A small pool for cooling off.

The super hot sauna (they don't mess around here)! You stay in the sauna for as long as you can stand it and sweat out all of the toxins. To cool off, you spend some time in the pool. Then it's back to the sauna again! Once you're done with all that - it's shower/scrub, face masks, etc. I felt so cleansed & refreshed after this.

The Dining Room area (We snacked on some meat shishkabobs, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers & herbs. They bring out a tray of fresh basil, parsley, lettuce, mustard leaves, etc. and everyone just nibbles on the herbs!

Shower/Sauna area

Cooling off in the freezing cold pool! (Natasha, Svetlana, Me & Symbat)

Symbat & Cortney as we were leaving (our translator)

Little bit of a crisis...

2010-06-29T08:02:00.001-05:00

We received an email from our local CIS office that is working on
updating the age range on our paperwork that will allow Ryland to
immigrate to the US. We updated our Home Study while we were back in
Texas and sent them a copy, but they informed us that our fingerprints
expired yesterday!!! So they can't issue the approval yet... We are
waiting to hear back from them as to what the heck we do since we are in
Kaz. In the meantime, we've called the embassy here and best we can
gather so far (the visa office was closed today) is that we will have to
travel to Almaty or Astana to get fingerprinted and they will FedEx our
fingerprints to back to the US for processing. They say this usually
takes a week or two. PERFECT!!!! Another delay! This holds up some of
the out processing in Pavlodar as that form is needed! Who knows how
long we will be here now...I'm beginning to think we should buy a
vacation home here!
Anyone else had this happen to them while in country?

Frustrated in Pavlodar,
Dust & Cort

PS - Everything is set as of right now for us to take custody of Ryland
tomorrow around lunchtime! Will keep you posted!!!

My Name Is

2010-06-28T03:55:00.001-05:00

Tea Time

2010-06-27T03:24:00.000-05:00

Everyday during our visit to this new orphanage, the caregiver invites us into the kitchen for tea, juice and snacks. It’s been really nice to have this time to visit with her and hear stories about Ry. She loves to cook and always has a new thing for us to try. Yesterday she had this delicious torte and today she made these Kazakh pancake –like things. We’re being spoiled! Today she was telling us that all of the kids in the house call her “mama” except for Ryland. He told her that he already has a mama, but he will call her aunt. He tells the other children that he has finally found his mama & papa!

For the first time today, he called this Tea Time that we have everyday “Chai Sotka”. (Chai =tea & Sotka=cell phone). The first day when he was finished with his snack, he decided to drive his car around the kitchen, but he was making too much noise, so I traded him for the cell phone game. He now knows that after he is done eating and the adults are still talking, he asks to play with the cell phone so he is still at the table with us. Too cute! He absorbs things so quickly.

As we’re getting closer and closer to the 30th, the calendar seems to be helping more and making a little more sense to him. Today he was so excited that there are only 3 days left.

Saturday's Dacha Visit

2010-06-26T05:37:00.000-05:00

This is the view of dachas from off of the highway. Each piece of land is the same size with a small one room house on it. Very interesting for us!

This is our coordinator's family dacha. Her mother and father work the garden every day. The fresh strawberries and raspberries were out of this world...a whole new approach to local/organic!!

Large view with a BBQ going in the far corner.

Potatoes & the outhouse in the back. The fresh tomatoes were just perfect - best I've ever had.

Dust & Cort Dacha Style

Svetlana's sister (Natasha), her father and our driver (Gennady). So excited to eat the shishkabobs! It smelled absolutely wonderful & tasted even better!

The family was so nice to not only show us the dacha, but to prepare a meal for us! We feasted on lots of fresh vegetables, herbs, & fruits! They grilled shishkabobs, eggplant & peppers for us to try as well. A nut torte for dessert and some tea made with all herbs from the garden! It was a real treat for us! Over our meal we were told lots of stories of Soviet times and it was an amazing experience that we will never forget!

(Svetlana, Cortney, Dustin, Natasha & Svetlana's Mom)

Before our afternoon of feasting, we worked up an appetite playing with Ry today! Each child out there wanted to show us what they could do! A little boy came up and huggd Dustin while Ryland was on my lap and Ry jumped off to go and have Dustin hold him...he's not ready to share his parents yet!

A few more tears when it was time to leave today...poor thing - he just wants to stay with his mama & papa! 4 MORE DAYS!!!!

Love from Kazakhstan,

Cort & Dust

Count to 10

2010-06-25T05:12:00.000-05:00

Friday's Visit

2010-06-25T04:51:00.000-05:00

Finally Friday!!! Not that it means much to us as everyday is the same for us in Kaz! Today we really worked on English, which was hard because Ry was squirmish and had a hard time focusing! Today we focused on "Where is _______ (mama, papa, the green car, etc.)". He had a lot of fun because we incorporated hide-n-seek for every "Where". His favorite was for him to hide and us to say "Where is Dias?" and look all over for him!

Speaking of Dias, we finally had the name discussion with him today. We explained that in English, Mama is Mom and Papa is Dad. He asked what his name was in English and we told him all about Ryland. He said that he likes the name and is very excited to have the same family name as us. He can say Stone without a problem, but he cannot say Ryland! Leave it to me to pick a name that starts with R, the one letter he has the hardest time pronouncing; it came out something like "Loveland". We'll keep working on that!

Everytime he gets restless while learning English, we remind him how he needs to learn English to live in America. He instantly re-focuses and says that he really wants to learn so that he can talk to everybody. Wish his attention span was just a little longer, but we will get there!

Tomorrow after our visit, our driver is taking us to his dacha to show us everything. This is a piece of land outside of town where you can grow anything you want. Since everybody lives in apartments in the city, the government has given them a little piece of land outside of town to cultivate. This is a very traditional Soviet thing and we are really excited to learn more about it tomorrow and try some fresh fruits/veggies.

My Russian "Baths" experience was post-poned due to the President's arrival and we have rescheduled for Sunday afternoon.

We showed Ry how to take a self pic today and he was super excited, this is 1 of about a million!

The Stone's

Learning English words - of course, he found the airplane first!

Kisses to all of our family & friends!

President's Visit

2010-06-25T04:29:00.000-05:00

The President of Kazakhstan came to visit Pavlodar yesterday and today and it's been fascinating to watch the city's makeover. They've been re-painting everything and planting flowers everywhere. It really looks beautiful. The city just put up a beautiful statue on the way into town from the airport. Here are a couple pictures that we were able to take on the way home from our visit.

Up close of the painted rocks rurrounding the statue.

Flags

These are 3 pictures from a resort area in the Pavlodar region. That is our white van that we get shuttled around in (or as Ry calls it, "The Big White Taxi")

Our Little Monkey

2010-06-25T04:18:00.000-05:00

Down in the basement of his new house, there is an exerise room that they showed us yesterday. Ry had so much fun climbing around and trying out everything in the room!

No Tears!!

2010-06-24T08:41:00.000-05:00

Had a fun visit with Ryland today and the best part was there were no
tears when it was time for us to leave! He just got his red, remote
control car and decided to take it for a spin! He still asked a lot to
come home with us, but even he said that it will only be a little longer
until he can finally go home.

No time for a whole post now, but just wanted to share a quick update.

-Cort

Wednesday

2010-06-23T06:50:00.001-05:00

Had a pretty good visit with Ry today. We got there just as they were eating breakfast and we joined them again. The other kids really like having visitors everyday. The caregiver told us that last night before bed time, Ry showed the whole family his photo album. He told them about each picture with us, where we were & what we were doing. Cute stuff. All the kids were very happy to get a Kinder Egg and each one had to show what surprise they got. We played outside at the playground for a little while, but we were quickly surrounded by the paparazzi (lots of interested kids from every house). Ry looked a little uneasy, so we went back inside his house to play. Once it was time to leave there were tears again, but it wasn't as bad as the last couple of days. Only a week to go! Sometimes I think showing him the calendar makes it worse instead of better; we may try no calendar tomorrow and see how that goes...

In more exciting news, the furniture we ordered for Ryland's room was delivered and Grandma (Dustin's mom) was very busy yesterday starting to put the room together! Thanks so much for waiting for the furniture delivery, Patti!! Opa & Oma (Cortney's parents) had painted the room right after we left for our second trip to Kaz. It is amazing how different it looks already! The pink, green & white are gone! We want to keep the room VERY simple at first so that its not too much for Ry and we will add in all the fun stuff a little at a time over the summer.

CIS Update - The CIS (Immigration) office needs more detailed info than what our Home Study had. We need to have a couple changes made and they allowed us to just email them the changes instead of having to mail. Hopefully we can get that fixed this week!!

-Cortney & Dustin

P.S. - Tomorrow I am being taken to the Russian Baths for a relaxing (hopefully) afternoon! I hear they can sauna like it's nobody's business here! We'll see!!

The beginnings of Ryland's room! Please note the mini leather chair that matches Papa's chair in the living room!

Main office building @ the new orphanage

Houses in the background with a large courtyard in the center

The house where Ry is staying

Tickle Time

About to go down the slide. There was mud at the very bottom so he wanted us to catch him so he didin't get dirty!

Swing Time

Such a cute boy!

Dustin & Ryland

Cort & Ry

The kids at Ry's house made us this turtle and told us it would bring us long life. They also gave us this bowl as a gift today. So sweet!

Hard Time

2010-06-22T04:50:00.002-05:00

It’s been a tough couple of days for the Stone fam here in Pavlodar. All of the children from Ryland’s orphanage have been sent to summer camp. The orphanage will shut down for the better part of the summer to give the staff a break. Since we only have about 8 days until we can pick Ry up, sending him to summer camp with all of the other children wasn’t feasible. The Director decided to send him to a new orphanage right outside of Pavlodar that is set up very similarly to Kids Village. (About a 20 minute drive from our apartment.) Yesterday we picked him up from Kids Village to go with him to the new orphanage. He was very nervous and didn’t understand what was happening. As soon as we got in the car, he asked if we were going to America. Poor kid... He was very clingy and had had to either hold our hands or be held. We toured the new place with him and were able to check out the new house and other children. He was very, very upset when we had to leave and cried. It was hard for us, because this is the first time that we’ve seen him cry and be so upset. It doesn’t matter how we try to explain everything to him, he just doesn’t understand. It just breaks my heart to see him so upset. He is so scared and nervous and I can’t do anything to help him understand.

What a hard summer this little guy has in store. So many changes… We wish that he could’ve stayed at his old orphanage for just another week to make things easier on him. It is what it is and I have to keep telling myself this…

Today when we got there he was very glad to see us, but he was a little reserved. He wanted to be right with us and got very nervous if one of us left the room. We played for a while and went over a lot of new words in English. It amazes us at how well he can say things and how happy he is to learn a new word and have Mama & Papa tell him “mol-o-di-yetz” (good job)! He gets so proud of himself! We joined his temp family at the breakfast table and that was a cool experience. He gobbled up his milk porridge, bread & milk. Today they served him tomato juice, which he didn’t really care for, but had a few drinks when I asked him “plllllease”! Let’s hope this sticks and all I have to do to get him to do something is say please with a sweet face! (And to all of those I work with, yes – I am capable of being sweet!!)

Time to go was rough again today. He kept saying that he wasn’t at home and that he wanted to go to his home with mama & papa. Tears came rolling down his cute little face again and it just breaks me. He had a death grip on our hands and didn’t want to let go. There were lots of promises for tomorrow to attempt to help the situation. (Speaking of, we’ve got to walk over to the grocery store to find some kinder eggs!) We went over the calendar again and it’s only 8 more days! Dust & I are so excited and he is so sad because he can’t understand! I just want to grab a sleeping bag and move into his new house with him.

The process is long and hard and I hate that the “system” won’t allow us to take him a little early, if for nothing else than to make things a little easier on the poor kid.

The bright spot, if there is one, on these last few gloomy days is that you can really see that he looks to Dustin & I as his rocks. To him, it’s like we’ve always been his parents. He loves us so much and we see that everyday. He literally wants nothing more in the world than to come be a family with us, all together. Our translator says that when we finally get to bring him back to our apartment that he will follow us everywhere. He will worry every time that we leave a room. Breaks my heart… He really is going to have a tough summer with a lot of change; I just hope that Dustin & I can make each transition as smooth as it possibly can be.

Hoping that tomorrow will be a tear-free day!

Cort & Dust

Stone Summer Plans

2010-06-22T04:49:00.002-05:00

We plan to stay here the rest of the time until we are finally able to bring Ryland home.

Here is how the timeline kind of looks for now.

Our 15 day Appeal Period will end on June 29th. During this time we will continue to visit Ry everyday. Once the Appeal Period ends, we are able to take custody of him while we wait for the paperwork out-processing to be completed.

June 30th, we pick up Ry and he lives with us 24/7 at our apartment here in Pavlodar.

Paperwork (birth certificates, passports, exit visas, etc.) gets done and we will leave Pavlodar and head to Almaty around the 11th of July. We will take Ryland to a medical examination and have a final exit interview at the American Embassy. Fly out of Almaty and head home around the 14th of July.

Like all things in this process, this is just a “guideline”!

Having Fun

2010-06-20T05:02:00.001-05:00

Happy Father's Day, Dustin!!!

2010-06-20T04:00:00.000-05:00

Dust,

I want to wish you a very Happy Father's Day! I couldn't be more proud of you; you are a great dad!

Love,

Cortney & Ryland

Saturday - Fun in the Sun!

2010-06-19T08:56:00.000-05:00

This is a calendar that we made for Ryland to try and help him understand when we will finally be able to take him home. He still has no concept of anything past tomorrow...but we're trying!! We thought if he could put a new sticker on it every day he would be excited about the countdown. (PS - no laughing at the calendar!! Life at home without a printer is interesting, so you have to make do!! Dust & I both started to make a calendar on our computers before we remembered we couldn't print them!!)

Ry taking a quick break from the concert he was giving us to learn about the calendar and put stickers on yesterday & today.

He loved snacktime today with a tangerine & quickly gobbled it up!

Today's color of the day...YELLOW! (Taxi yellow to be precise) He wanted to wear a yellow shirt, play with the yellow balloon & we happened to bring yellow shades for today!

(Ry used his stomach as canvas for some lovely art today. When we got there, he lifted up his shirt to show us his creation...and I totally forgot to get a picture of it!)

Family Picture!

As soon as we showed him a new water gun, he wanted to fill it up and go outside to look for bugs. He doesn't like bugs, but loves to soak them with water...from a distance, of course! He got in real close for this grasshoppper & we were surprised! (I remember many a hot summer days watching my brother "hunt" for grasshoppers, too! This one's for you, Ty!!)

He squirted Papa with the water gun once and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED being chased by us for the rest of the visit! He laughed so hard while he was running.

After our visit with Ry, our translator invited us to join a group of her friends at the beach (river). There was a large group and we had a great time cooling off in the river and playing games with her friends! It continually amazes us how friendly all of the people are here. Today, everyone instantly accepted us into the group and shared food with us. I can't say enough about all the people we've met here - we just love them!

Also - we played one game with them where everyone had to take a turn walking about 10 yards with some kind of different/interesting movement. Dustin decided to bring a little bit of Texas to the beach and imitated riding a mechanical bull the whole way, including spanking himself halfway through! Needless to say, he was a crowd-pleaser!!!

Before coming to Pavlodar, we would have never thought that it could get so hot here! Today was 97 and the river was quite refreshing! (We have some lovely sunburns on our backs/shoulders now!) Seemed like everyone in Pavlodar was trying to cool down at the beach! We had a lot of fun and CANNOT WAIT to bring Ry here - he will absolutely have a blast!!!

Time for dinner, lotioning our sunburns & spending the rest of the evening sitting directly in front on fans!

Love,

Dust & Cort

Russian Child Talk

2010-06-18T05:02:00.000-05:00

Unless you've prepared with some extensive Russian lessons, communicating with your child and the local population here in Kazakhstan can be a daunting task. And let's face it, Russian is a hard language to learn!

We've come across a handy worksheet forwarded by a friend on our blog and wanted to share it with all of you. It has been very handy and virtually doubled our Russian; although nothing can quite replace immersing yourself while in-country.

Please feel free to download the worksheet from our web page here.

Enjoy!

Just for Fun - Taxi in Pavlodar

2010-06-18T04:42:00.000-05:00

Friday

2010-06-18T04:33:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple pictures from our visit yesterday. We got to spend some time in a new room and had a lot of fun. This room has a piano and Ry was very excited to "play" it. He even found some notarized documents that he insisted on using as sheet music!

We have a new translator that started yesterday. She is very nice and we like her a lot; but we miss Tanya! Each person translates things very differently and we really got used to Tanya's way of explaining things. We also spend several hours a day with her and miss our friend very much! It was definitely time for her to stay home and get some rest as her baby is due very soon. Ryland was a little shy with Cymbat (our new translator) but we are confident that he will warm up to her soon.

Today we had a lot of extra time to kill, so we walked over to the shopping mall & bazaar to look arround. We found a pretty cheap scooter that is just Ry's size and I am so excited for him to see it when he comes to live with us in the apartment! We picked up a few more toys (I know, I know...he'll definitely be spoiled rotten) for him to have once we get custody of him! There's not much to do here in the apartment!!

This is where his towel is hung in the bathroom (2nd one from the right)

On his bed- they rearranged the furniture

Playing us some music

Kids Palace

2010-06-16T05:15:00.000-05:00

We were able to take Ryland to Kids Palace today and he had so much fun! He loves taxi rides and as soon as we got in, he asked if we were going to Texas! Kids Palace is an indoor place that has arcade games, bumper cars, etc. They also had a café where we ordered milkshakes, croissants and some meat dumplings (Ry’s request). He literally downed his milkshake (more like flavored milk) in 2 minutes! He was so full that he barely had room for his dumplings. He was so excited to ride on a motorcycle and car in the arcade. He loved spending time here and asked if we could come back again. He had a great time in the taxi pointing out every other taxi/car/truck/crane/fountain/park that he saw! Here are some snaps from our day – enjoy!

The Stones

In the library before we left for our adventure

Getting ready to leave - so excited to get in the taxi!

In front of the old man fireplace

In a motorcycle race

In the Aladdin Room

One Happy Boy!!

Family Talk

2010-06-15T09:00:00.005-05:00

Haircut

2010-06-15T05:17:00.000-05:00

Though we've asked and asked not to have his haircut, our request slipped through the cracks yesterday and Ry has a new do! The Director told us last night as soon as it happened and she felt so bad! Believe us, his hair was the last thing on our mind yesterday!

We had a fun visit today and talked to Ry about what's going on. Things are very hard for him to understand; he just doesn't get it. We've been his mama & papa for months! We talked alot about his birthday today and guess what he'd like??? Of course...another remote control car, maybe black this time! He said that he'd like to eat some meat dumplings on his birthday. That's about all we could get out of him. He also thinks that instead of taking a plane home to America that maybe we should take a motorcycle!

He is getting really good with his colors in English and can count to 10 on his own (sometimes he gets stuck on 8, but hey, who doesn't!)

Court Day

2010-06-15T05:05:00.000-05:00

• Our court hearing was scheduled for 10:00AM. We arrived and went through the general info again and listened to the info on all the new documentation. The judge went around the room and asked all parties if they agreed with our request to adopt Dias. All parties agreed except for the prosecutor. The prosecutor requested more time to make her decision and ask that we reconvene at 6:00PM.

• We were surprised because we thought the judge would only ask for 15 minutes or so…

• We left the courthouse around noon and went back to the apartment to have lunch.

• We changed our clothes and went to visit with D from 2 – 3:30.

• Came back to the apartment for a little work & rest. Changed back into our court clothes and headed to the courthouse.

• We started our court session about 6:15PM & the prosecutor went through her final statement and eventually said that she thinks the judge should grant our adoption. HUGE sigh of relief, now we just needed to hear it from the Judge’s mouth. Instead, the Judge said she needed more time to make her decision…please come back at 8:00PM.

• At this point, I lost it. I started to tear up in the courtroom as the Judge briskly walked out. The waiting and anxiety finally took its toll on me. Outside of the courtroom everyone told us not to worry that the Judge would definitely give us a positive decision. I was worried though…I just needed to hear the words.

• To kill some time, everyone went back to my lawyer’s office to have a celebration of the forthcoming positive decision. I tried to go along with it, but really wasn’t in the celebrating mood…I needed to hear that yes.

• Everyone gave a little speech and toast to us and it was very nice. Dustin gave a speech to everyone thanking them for all of their help in creating our little family. It was a nice party and everyone liked their gifts.

• Right before 8:00PM everyone got ready to leave. Only our lawyer needed to be present to hear the Judge’s ruling and she told us that we could go home and she would call us. The translator had to go and couldn’t go to the court with us. She said that if we wanted, we could go with her and she could try to translate a YES to us once the judge said it.

• Of course we wanted to go with her! We got back to the courtroom and waited for the Judge to come in. She came in and read a few sentences and then smiled at us for the first time. We instantly felt better and felt such a huge weight lift off of us. Our lawyer smiled and said “It’s a positive decision!”

• The Judge agreed to everything and officially changed his name to Ryland Dias Stone. She told us that we would now be listed as his parents on his birth certificate and all other documents in Kazakhstan.

• RELIEF!!!!! We really feel that the “hard” part is behind us now; let the fun begin!

Our lawyer/coordinator, the Director of the Orphange, Rep from the Dept of Guardianship/Care for all of Pavlodar & of course, The Stone's.

It's Official

2010-06-14T10:29:00.000-05:00

It has been a long and crazy day, but we just wanted to let everyone know it's official; our application to adopt our son has been granted!!! We will update more later when we have some time, but for now please meet our new son, Ryland Dias Stone.

Dustin's Tech Talk

2010-06-13T10:51:00.001-05:00

Having the opportunity to live in Pavlodar for a few months, I’ve made a short list of some tech “must haves” for all those planning a trip to Kaz:

Wireless Networking

This is a hard one unless you know for sure if you’ll have high speed internet available (if so, sometime’s the modem provided will include a wireless router). We brought one this second trip but did not need it, so it’s a gamble taking up precious luggage space. We really enjoyed being able to move around the apartment with our notebooks and iPhones and still be connected vs. tethered to the wall with a 2 ft cable.

Side Bar: On our first trip to Kazakhstan, dial-up internet was our only option. If you have multiple devices that need internet like us, you can setup an ad-hoc network on one laptop and share the internet to the others via wireless.

Here are the steps we used on a Windows 7 machine:

Open Network and Sharing Center
Click Set up a new connection or network
Scroll to the bottom and click Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network and click Next
Click Next after information screen
Create a Network name (anything easy – not like there will be many wireless networks around your apartment!)
If using Windows XP or older, just select WEP for Security to keep things simple. Otherwise WPA-Personal will do fine.
Create a Security key in the last field (when you hover over it will tell you how long it needs to be)
Click the box Save this network and click Next to complete set up

Now under your wireless connections, you should have the new network highlighted with Waiting for users. Other devices can now see the new wireless network and connect.

You must ensure that you are sharing your internet connection. Right-click on your current internet connection and select properties. Under the Sharing tab, click the box next to Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection, and select the correct connection in the drop down. You will get a prompt but can simply click OK.

Skype Calling Plan

We didn’t discover this beauty until our second trip! At $2.99 a month, we are able to load our Skype iPhone app (via wireless network) and call back to the U.S. for free; unlimited minutes! The call quality is excellent (even on slow connections like dial-up – around 16 kbps?) and you’re able to punch in numbers from your address book right from the app. I’d like to say the app may have some quality of service built in that it will take precedence over other internet traffic at the same time to ensure good call quality (we have not taken steps to make this happen).

USB Dial-up modem

You never know what kind of internet you’ll be able to get while in Kaz! We had both our laptop/netbook over here and it was really easy to simply plug in the USB cable and go, especially since our netbook did not have a built in modem…

USB Flash Drive

There were many times this thing came in handy! We used this to move files between our notebooks (when networking was missing or inconvenient), trade documents/pictures with our in-country team and bring photos for printing at the photo store. MUST HAVE!

USB Hard Drive

Before coming to Kaz, we downloaded/copied a bunch of movies and TV shows to our small USB hard drive (250G). While you may have one channel in English that repeats the same content over and over; we found this to be an invaluable source of entertainment. Interestingly, the TV shows are more popular because they are in shorter increments (30min) and its fun to keep up with the series like back home. Also great to backup your photos and videos. Pack this baby in your carry-on!

Kindle

If you love to read, this is a life-saver. While we don’t actually have the full Kindle device, we have the app for our iPhones and use it everyday. ENSURE you buy/sync all your books before coming to Kaz; Whispernet is not available on some networks (the Sprint network that allows your books to sync wirelessly to your device). This will save a lot on luggage weight as well (even the book Apples are From Kazakhstan is available on Kindle).

Internet Proxy

On the dial-up connections, we found that certain web sites are filtered out and not accessible from Kaz (like Blogger!!). We found two workarounds for this:

1. We were able to VPN back to my work and use the internet connection from the office. Note: you must ensure the VPN policy does not have split-tunneling enabled (where you can access work resources and use separate internet connection same time). If unsure, you may need to check with your network team back home.

2. Use a free Internet proxy website. When the VPN was unavailable, we used sites like http://internetproxy.net/ and punched in the address from there. We’re basically just bouncing off an ‘approved’ site to get to a filtered one…

Irtysh Hotel

If you’re in Pavlodar, the Irtysh Hotel can be another option for high speed internet. The lobby provides free high speed internet even if you’re not a guest. The internet connection isn’t that great, but a lot faster than dial-up! The hotel used to even serve a great lunch at the bar in the lobby with an English menu but we found out yesterday that went away; only beverage service now (too bad, the Borsch and Double-Taste Chicken was excellent!!!). There is one catch… the hotel requires a VPN connection to access their internet (via free access card at front desk). This means you can not use another VPN connection from your device at the same time (like back to work). So this is great for casual surfing but if you require a VPN to work, this will not do.

SIM Cards/In-Country Cell Phone

We have not ventured out and tackled this one yet. While it would be handy to have a cell phone (out and about and need to call our translator for a taxi?), we were able to endure just fine without one. Email, Skype and international phone cards were enough for us. If you talk back home a lot, phone cards back in the states calling INTO Kaz are much cheaper! You can get calling cards to Kaz for as low as 2 cents/min. Another couple bought a SIM card locally and used inside their cell from home, but they said they hardly used it. We have not looked into getting a mobile card for the internet from the local provider.

Gotcha Day Discussion

2010-06-12T12:26:00.001-05:00

What day did your family choose to celebrate Gotcha Day?? Which event during the process symbolized the most meaning to your family? Just interested to hear everyone's opinions.

"Nowadays, many families celebrate the day their child was adopted. Families vary in what they call it: Gotcha Day, Adoption Day, Family Day, Adoption Anniversary Day.

There is no one "right" day to select as your adoption day. It might be the first time you and your child met, the day you went to court, the day your child got home, or the day the adoption was finalized. The idea is to celebrate the special aspects of how your family was created and/or expanded."

- Cortney

Friday in Pavlodar

2010-06-11T04:23:00.000-05:00

We started having some internet troubles yesterday and had to look into it with the internet company. Long story short, our apartment wasn’t signed up for an unlimited plan and we had already used our allotted time. What we have now is slightly faster than dial-up but nothing great. We are looking into Plan B…whatever that might be. Ideally, we would love to stay in Kaz after the court decision on Monday until we can finally bring D home. The problem is that we just have to have high speed internet so that we can continue to work. Another month of not working just won’t cut it. Hoping that we can figure out another situation soon… Not even officially a “mom” yet and life gets that much harder trying to figure out the right balance of family, work, home! D is depending on us and needs us, but so does everyone else!

Several children wanted to join us during our visit with D today. It’s really hard for us when this happens because we don’t get to spend the one-on-one time with D and we typically don’t have enough fun things for 6 kids to do! Luckily, we brought a movie in Russian today so that entertained them for most of the time. D got upset once and told us that he was offended. He doesn’t love the idea of sharing time with his mama & papa!!! The translator and I talked to him for a while and he was just fine after that. It’s a hard spot because all of the children crave so much attention. Towards the end of our visit after getting a chance to cool down from the summer’s heat, we went outside to play some basketball. D loved to be picked up so he could slam dunk and dangle on the rim. One sure way to get him down was to tickle his sides! We left today on a good note; all the kids got to take home a ball or toy of their own.

-Cort & Dust

Luggage

2010-06-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

Our luggage has made it!!! Apparently it did miraculously show up
last night in Pavlodar so we were able to pick it up on the way to the
orphanage. After our visit with little man we were able to go through
everything and unpack. Nothing missing! A few squished gifts, but
minimal damage. We were amazed!

Had a fun time with D today. We worked on the Spiderman puzzle and a
few art projects. His current fave is to sharpen the colored pencils
and then glue the sharpenings to his color book pages. I think it's
pretty impressive; it takes true talent to turn trash into art.
Apparently he had a little puddle jumping fun before we got there and
his shoes/socks/tights were soaked. And yes, I said tights. We took
them off and just let him wear his shorts and it was the first time to
see his legs!!! He has had tights on everyday. He's going to be
amazed to live in TX and not have to wear tights under all clothes!
Definitely no need for multiple layers there, for 10 months of the
year anyway!

Good day all-in-all and we were able to successfully work
simultaneously from our apartment!!! Talk about working remotely!

Pics

2010-06-08T21:11:00.000-05:00

In Almaty on our trip back to Texas a few weeks ago.

In Almaty on our trip back to Texas a few weeks ago. The view from out hotel.

Ready for court.

Dust - we are so glad we left his suit here in Kaz!

The new dress from Kazakhstan; hopefully it was a good luck charm.

Court Update

2010-06-08T20:37:00.001-05:00

First of all, so sorry for the delay in updating everyone! We finished up court about 5:30 and were back home, in bed & asleep by 6:00. It was a very exhausting day! Gotta love jet-lag!

All in all, we feel that our court hearing went well. Our case is unique and we did have some hurdles, but we think that we answered/explained everything to the judge’s liking. Our court hearing was about 3 hours long and very intense. There were 8 people besides Dustin and I that had to testify. Everyone that testified supported Dustin and I adopting D. The judge requested some more paperwork that she would like to review this week and she would like to make her final ruling next Monday the 14th of June. The paperwork that she wants seems to be more of covering her back than to aid in making her decision. I think she wants an extra large file on us to avoid any chance of her decision being appealed. We feel ok about how everything went and don’t see how she wouldn’t rule in our favor, but until we hear the words, we will be worried. It is so hard for us to explain how we feel about this and so much of our journey to adopt D. It’s just unexplainable… We love this little boy so much and can’t imagine an unfavorable ruling from the judge. If we do get a no, then we will appeal the decision and go down that very hard & treacherous path.

If the judge rules in our favor on Monday, then the 15 day appeal period will begin on Tuesday. Once the appeal period is complete, the paperwork out-processing begins. If everything goes to plan, then we hope to have D home, in Texas, by mid-July. But, we all know how “plans” go over here in Kaz!

We were up early this morning working and we will go visit D about 10:00. Can’t wait! We didn’t get to see him yesterday because of court and we miss that little guy!

Luggage Update –

Still no luggage. We’re being told that our luggage finally made it to Astana! It was supposed to arrive in Pavlodar late last night, but for some reason it didn’t. We are now being told that it will arrive on the plane here tonight about 6:00…we will see!

Crossing our fingers & our toes until Monday’s decision!

Love,

The Stone’s

dustncort@gmail.com

PS – To all the Kaz families out there in any stage – if we can be of any help explaining our situation and what we’ve learned on our journey so far, feel free to email us. We have met some families along the way that have been so amazing, helpful, supportive & understanding. We can only hope to help someone by a fraction of what we’ve received. To all of you – THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! We’ve survived some very hard times with your knowledge, love & support and KNOW that we will still need you in the future!

Reunited!!

2010-06-07T10:58:00.000-05:00

It's official - D is the best kid ever! When we first saw him today he was playing outside and came right to us when he saw us and gave big hugs & kisses all around. He had a HUGE smile on his face for the first 30 minutes or so and wanted us to hold him, hug him orhold his hand. He told us that he missed us very much and that he loved us. He is such a sweet boy. We spoke with his caregiver and he was good while we are away; no major incidents. She said that he missed us very much, but that he didn't cry. Every night before he went to bed he asked to see the 2 photo albums that we left for him and he would look through every photo. His caregiver told us that doing this helped him to feel better. She said that he talked about us all the time and showed any guest in his house all of the pictures. He also told everyone that he has a new dog, Sadie, and would tell stories about what they were going to do. He didn't ask for the car once! We showed up with a new remote control jeep that we picked up on the way to see him, but since it hadn't been charged it only worked for about 5 minutes. He was perfectly fine with us taking back to the apartment to charge it. It seems like his trust is even better now after this experience. We had a great visit with him today and we feel so much better about everything. It's the simple things in life that puts everything else into perspective. (Missing baggage seems like small potatoes!)

After our visit, we went shopping for the items needed for court. I felt terrible dragging around Dustin and our translator (who is 8 months pregnant) looking for things. After several hours, we finally rounded up everything needed for tomorrow. We met with our lawyer and went over everything that will happen at court tomorrow and prepared for all of the questions. We have a lot of homework, but everything should still be fine. We feel confident, but don't really know what to expect. Like all things we do, we'll just see what happens and go with the flow. You can't stop the Stone's.

Baggage Update -
Luggage is still MIA...it was supposedly on a flight to Yemen last night that has landed, but the system has not been updated yet. No one seems to know what's going on...

Too much going on right now...we need to get through tomorrow and hope for news on the luggage soon.

Love,
Cort & Dust

PS - Did we mention how amazingly awesome D is! What a trooper; we couldn't be more proud of him!

We've made it to our second home!

2010-06-06T08:47:00.000-05:00

We have arrived in Pavlodar! We are very jet-lagged and are walking around like zombies now. The new bed in the apartment is AMAZING! Waiting for the password for the internet, but it doesn't look like we'll have any problems with that.

The Director of the orphange wants us to visit on Monday when the staff is there. :( Makes sense, but we didn't want to hear it when we got off the plane. We will get to go visit D tomorrow morning and this gives us time to wash our clothes, rest up, find a new remote control car and attempt to track down our luggage (still a work in process).

In Astana

2010-06-05T14:11:00.000-05:00

We have arrived in Astana after a crazy journey so far! Our US
Airways flight from Dallas to Philly was diverted because the plane
ran out of fuel...nice! That caused us to miss our Lufthansa flight
from Philly to Frankfurt. We were able to catch a US Airways flight to
Frankfurt, but we sat on that plane for 2 hours before take-off
because of maintenance issues. When we were finally able to fly
Lufthansa, everything was great during the leg from Frankfurt to
Astana. But, thanks to all the craziness with US Airways, our luggage
is MIA. I knew I should've put his car in my carry-on, but I didn't!
Not to mention all of our clothes and gifts for court! It's
frustrating...but what can you do?

Lufthansa is doing what they can and will deliver our luggage to
Pavlodar ASAP. It looks like we'll be hitting up the toy store before
heading to the orphanage!

To those of you with upcoming travel plans to Kaz, we'd like to give
the following advice. Fly Lufthansa if possible (service, food, staff,
seats, & professionalism is far superior...in our humble opinion).
Also, for us it was so much easier flying through Astana as opposed
through Almaty. The airport here has a much more calm and organized
feel... and they have free wi-fi! Lastly, if you are abroad, have an
iPhone and have access to wi-fi, sign up for the Skype App ($2.99/mo
unlimited calling). I'm making calls on my phone here to back home
and the sound quality is perfect. Let us know if any questions, we'd
be glad to help!

Going to attempt to get some sleep - we found a lovely row of chairs!

We CANNOT wait to see D tomorrow!!!!!

Cortney & Dustin Stone

At the airport - about to board the first flight!

2010-06-04T12:40:00.000-05:00

What are your weekend plans?

2010-06-03T07:39:00.000-05:00

This is what we have in store for this weekend!!

US AIRWAYS 04JUN DALLAS TX PHILADELPHI PA 100PM 519PM

RESERVATION CONFIRMED 3:19 DURATION

LUFTHANSA 04JUN PHILADELPHI PA FRANKFURT 625PM 840AM
RESERVATION CONFIRMED 8:15 DURATION

LUFTHANSA 05JUN FRANKFURT ASTANA 210PM 1140PM
RESERVATION CONFIRMED 5:30 DURATION

AIR ASTANA 06JUN ASTANA PAVLODAR 750AM 855AM

RESERVATION CONFIRMED 1:05 DURATION

Can't wait to see D on Sunday!! We are so ready!

--Dust & Cort

Excellent News!

2010-06-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

Our judge has agreed to have our court hearing on June 8th, a week from today! We'd like to leave Friday so that we have a full day in Pavlodar before court to visit D and prep for court. We are SO EXCITED! The crazy part is that our visas will be ready at the consulate in NY on Thursday. They will have to overnight/early AM deliver the visas to us so that we get them Friday morning and fly out Friday afternoon...pretty short window! It's a gamble, but what isn't in this process!?! We are trying to get all the last minute preparations done. Key word...trying! We are glad that there is high speed internet at the apartment and can't wait to experience that! It will make communication to work, family & friends so much easier!

Our coordinator spoke to the Director of the Orphange and she said to tell us that D is doing well. He misses us very much, but is excited for us to come back with the red remote controlled car! She said that the staff knows to tell him about the car when he asks about us. I'm thinking I should get another one just in case there's a baggage handling mishap; establishing trust is so important!! ;)

Hopefully we'll have travel reservations in the morning!

Goodnight y'all!

Cort & Dust

Happy Memorial Day!

2010-05-31T11:18:00.000-05:00

First and foremost - Happy Memorial Day! We are so thankful for all the soldiers that have sacrificed for this great country! Although you are lost, you are never forgotten.

Our judge starts a month long vacation this Saturday so she would like to push our court date back to JULY! Our lawyer is going to meet with the Chairman of the Court early this week to see if there is the option of switching to another judge. We are just waiting to hear what will happen. We will feel so much better as soon as we have a plan...whatever that plan might be.

Painting D's room has been an experience and we have several coats of Killz covering up the bright colors that were in there before. We plan to paint the colors later this week.

While you are BBQing, shopping, at the lake or pool - take a minute today and think of all the soldiers! I am so proud of my Dad, husband and all of our family/friends that have served our country!!

More Delays

2010-05-28T07:52:00.000-05:00

We found out yesterday that our visas won't be ready until Thursday or Friday next week, which doesn't give us enough time to get to Pavlodar for court. Our in-country team is working on what we should do next. I've been working so hard on trying to stay tough, but broke down for a little yesterday. I've been mising D a lot and was really looking forward to seeing him middle of next week. There's been some strange court decisions and things happening in Kaz that have me worried as well. So glad that we are already in Svetlana's hands, but still nervous...Hopefully the delay in getting our visas will only delay our trip for about a week...hopefully.

In other news, the bedding we ordered came in yesterday from Pottery Barn and I am excited about it and confident that D will love it. We plan to paint the room this weekend and the furniture is stil set to be delivered on the 22nd of June.

Hoping for more news soon.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and is able to spend time with family and friends remembering all those that have sacrificed for us.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend,
Cort

2010-05-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

Life back home has been crazy busy!!

This weekend we shopped like crazy and found furniture and bedding for D's room. We're having fun shopping and finding stuff, but we are stressed out too!

Court is still scheduled for June 4th and we plan to head back to Kaz early next week. Still waiting on information about our new visas, so we haven't been able to make any travel arrangements yet.

Our home study update is in process and we hope to receive the completed update this week.

It seems like we have a never-ending list of things to do, but it's nice to be busy! All that downtime in Kaz really gets to you!

We miss D so much and think about him all the time. We wonder what he is doing and how he is handling this time apart. We see things all the time that remind us of him. Last night we went to Toys R Us and found soooo many things that we think he will like. We are so excited for him to come home and know that we are going to have so much fun!!! We bought a remote control boat and we know that he will have a blast driving that thing around the pool!!

-The Stone's

Back home

2010-05-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

We are back home and trying to re-adjust! The trip back was long and we are still stiff from sitting for so long. We had our home study update interview this morning and we are in good hands! We should have everything finished and ready to go soon!

It's amazing how much we miss D already! I hope that he's doing ok and not constantly wondering about when we're coming back.

Homeward Bound

2010-05-18T10:13:00.002-05:00

Our lawyer met with the Judge and the Chairman of the Court this afternoon and due to the difficulty ofour case, they cannot schedule the court date this week as more info needs to be gathered. Our new court date has been set for June 4th. Since our visas expire on May 25th, we have to head home. We have made all of our travel arrangements this evening and we will be flying home in less than 24 hours. We will leave Pavlodar tomorrow night and arrive back in Dallas on Thursday afternoon. While home we are going to work on our getting our home study update completed and apply for an updated CIS approval. We will be issued a brand-new visa that will be good for 3 months (hopefully we won't need all of that!!!) We'll be home for about a week and a half before we have to fly back for court.

We can't even think about how hard it will be to say goodbye to D. We HATE this, but it is what it is and there is nothing else we can do at this point.

Off to clean, pack and everything else!

Cort & Dust

Sunday

2010-05-16T12:22:00.000-05:00

Today I was able to meet with D’s caregiver for about 30 minutes and I got a ton of great info. I have been working on a list of questions and got everything answered today. While I was inside with the caregiver, Dust was outside with D and the other boys from his house playing soccer and volleyball. He was showing D how to play volleyball and bumped a ball to D that hit him in the face. He rubbed his face for a minute and then looked at Dust and said “It’s OK”! All of the boys then said “It’s OK” – D has been telling them all the English he is learning!! Hilarious!

After our visit was over and it was time to take him back home, he said that he wanted to go home with us.  We told him that he couldn’t today but that he could come home with us soon. He asked how about tomorrow and we told him not tomorrow but later this summer once it gets hot. He was sad and said that he wanted to come home with us now. It broke my heart… This is so crazy and time consuming and it’s hard for us. It must be so hard for him especially since he doesn’t understand the concept of time. Poor baby.

When it was time to say good-bye he told us that he will miss us and that he loves us very much. This is the first time he’s said this on his own. If we tell him we love him, he will tell us back and if you ask him if he loves us he says yes. Wow…what a declaration for a 4 year old! It melted our hearts… He also asked if we could bring him a kinder egg tomorrow! “Mama, please”. He told us that he loved them because it was chocolate and a toy all in one! He is such a perfect fit for us – blows our minds everyday. We CANNOT wait to bring him home so that everyone can meet him!

I miss home more than anything, but I don’t know how I’m going to be able to leave him here. I can’t even think about it.

Love,

Cort

PS – Anyone seen or heard of any Russian food stores in the DFW area?

This is the artwork that we bought that has caused all the problems!!

Leaving D

2010-05-15T07:51:00.000-05:00

We hate the idea of leaving D while we are between trips, but don’t have any choice. We’d like to reach out to anyone that’s done this before for any tips/advice for things that we can do to make the separation easier on him (and us)! We plan to leave letters, toys & treats for him with his caregivers to give him periodically while we are away. We thought about a calendar with stickers, but since we are not sure on a return date we are not sure if that will be a good idea.

Suggestions???

Court Date

2010-05-15T07:50:00.000-05:00

We have a court date…May 27th…the problem is that our visas expire on May 25th and we have to be out of Kaz no later than the 25th. SERIOUSLY!?!?!? How does this stuff constantly happen to us?

Our team here is doing everything that they can for us and the judge has told our lawyer that her hands are tied, the 26th is the best that she can do. So, our lawyer is going to try to meet with the Chairman of the Court (head of all judges) later this week to try to get our date moved up. The soonest she was able to setup a confirmed meeting was for Wednesday, but she is going to go to his office on Monday to see if she can get anywhere. She is going to bring the Chairman a gift from us that will hopefully help…

Cross your fingers for us!

If they are unable to change the date, then we have no choice but to go back home. (We can not extend our current visas for any longer.) Once home, we will be able to re-apply for a new visa. Once we are approved for that, we would need to come back for our court meeting in early June. (No later than June 5th, because starting the 6th, our judge will be on summer vacation!)

CRAZINESS!!!!

Trying to wait patiently,

Cortney & Dustin

Journey to Ekibastuz

2010-05-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

Today we had the great opportunity to visit D’s motherland – Ekibastuz (Or how the local teenagers call it – Eki-‘Boston’).

Ekibastuz is about 150km from Pavlodar, and a very bumpy ride. It seemed as we made great time, passing slower vehicles on the left and occasionally dodging some local wildlife. Along the way, we passed a large Kazakh cemetery with large buildings, stone works and fenced off burial sites; pretty impressive. Just before entering town, we passed an extremely large coal mine worksite (thought it was a plateau from a distance). In fact, the city sign for Ekibastuz is a large mining wheel with a golden star in the middle.

Once in town, we went to visit the orphanage which housed children from 7 to 18 years of age. The setting was very well taken care of, arranged in sort of a dormitory fashion, and the staff very friendly.

Flowering trees lined the sides of the main street and tulip-shaped lights were suspended from street-lights; a nice look to it. Our first stop was the old maternity hospital where D was born. Initially we thought it was this large, blue and yellow-painted building, but after parking around the side learned it was just the small section attached. Perhaps 50 ft wide and 3 stories tall, it was one of the oldest buildings in the town.

We took some pictures of the Roman Orthodox Church and Mosque before heading back to pick up our travel-mates from the orphanage. We stopped for lunch at a favorite restaurant where we enjoyed some Borsch, various chicken and beef dishes and finished up with some Tea with milk (prepared in a Kazakh fashion). Our trip back was equally eventful. We even passed through what I called a “Texas Twister” that blew a few tumbleweeds and pushed our van sideways!!

All in all, it was a nice visit to D’s birthplace and a great chance to see some of the country. Fortunately it was a beautiful day and we have lots of pictures to share with D.

Today we should receive a court date (hopefully before our visas expire!) and look forward to visiting our son again tomorrow morning!

Da Zavtra! (until tomorrow!)

Kazakh Cemetary

Russian Orthodox Church

D's Maternity Hospital

Ekibastuz City Sign - Us with Marie Chan and Svetlana

Thursday, May 13th

2010-05-13T07:42:00.002-05:00

Our lawyer had a good meeting with the judge today. She is a new judge and this is the first time our lawyer has worked with her. This is also the judge’s first foreign adoption case. Our lawyer believes that this will work in our favor and end up being a good thing. The judge didn’t question any of our paperwork during the meeting, so we should be ok on that front. Our extended visas expire on May 25th and Svetlana asked the judge if we could please have our court date before May 25th as we will not be able to extend our visas again. The judge said that she needed to think about it and review our case. She will call Svetlana tomorrow and let her know when the court date will be. We have to be out of Kazakhstan by the 25th, so worse case we will leave on the 25th!

Tomorrow we are going to Ekibastuz! This is the village that D is from and where he was born. We are going with Svetlana as she will be doing some work for our case there. We are all crashing our friend Marie Chan’s visit to Ekibastuz to visit her son. His orphanage is located there and she has made this journey several times! We are excited to see where D is from, but are not looking forward to the hour and a half car ride each way! This will also be the first day since we met our little guy to not visit him.  Oh well, I know he will appreciate the pictures from there someday!

Had a great visit with D today and when we picked him up, he not only had his backpack, but the toy still in it that he took home yesterday! This is nothing short of amazing! Typically when he takes a toy home, we never see it again; it ends up lost or broken. He is doing great on the computer game and looks at us each time he wins a little challenge so he can show us! High 5’s all around!

After our visit today, our social worker took us out in search of a Kazakh blanket. We went to this large building that offers all different types of classes for kids. (Something similar to a YMCA type of place.) We visited an Art Teacher there who hand-makes all kinds of traditional Kazakh items. We found a great blanket and table decoration. She was so excited that we liked her work that she wanted to give Dustin a traditional Kazakh hat while he was trying it on, she also brought out a small one for D! Adorable! Can’t wait for the father/son pics! The people are so nice and friendly and want to share their culture with us.

We are trying to learn a few more Russian words/phrases each day and it is going pretty well. Along with D learning English every day – I am hoping that our transition at home goes as smoothly as possible!

As I type this, Dustin is playing D’s Cars game on the computer to try and unlock some new things for him…or so he says!

Love,

The Stone’s

PS – We got the water back about 7:00 last night!

Water - come back, we miss you!

2010-05-12T04:33:00.000-05:00

Water...you forget how much you use it until you don't have it anymore.

We woke up this morning to no water at all in our apartment...it's 3:30PM and still no water...sure hope it's back on by morning. Our translator told us that this happens often and sometimes the water could be turned off for days. Lovely.

Yesterday we found a little backpack for D. We gave it to him today and you wouldn't believe how happy it makes a kid to have their own backpack. He couldn't get over that it was his and wore it for our entire visit! He would only take it off to go through the entire contents, again, and then put everything back into the backpack and put it back on. It was cute.

Once we get there in the mornings, we typically go to his house to pick him up and then go to the library to play. Today he was waiting for us in front of the library. The teacher in the library told us he had been there all morning, waiting for his mama & papa. He told the teacher that he loved us and that we come to play with him every morning.

We are becoming a normal fixture at the orphange and everyone knows who we are. We've been visiting with D for a month now, every single day. We've been having a ton of fun with him here, but we are ready to be home!

Anxiously awaiting tomorrow's meeting with the judge and the water to be turned back on...
Dust & Cort

PS - Apparently Sadie is getting plenty of water while we are away! My dad sent me this pic of her having some fun at their pool!

Art

2010-05-11T04:40:00.000-05:00

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

Victory Day!

2010-05-09T07:39:00.002-05:00

We had so much fun today!! We picked up D and the social worker and headed down to the river. It was his first time riding in a van and he was pumped about that. On the way there, we passed a camel on the road…seriously, I can’t make this up! I couldn’t get to the camera in time…too bad!! Once we got there, we were given Victory Day ribbons (black & orange) by a really nice Russian lady. She was very happy to see Americans joining in celebration with them. We were a little late to the parade and it was packed, so we didn’t get to see much. D was up on Dustin’s shoulders and probably got to see the most. He was interested to see all of the soldiers, but admitted that he was a little scared of them. Every time he saw a soldier he asked if they had a gun.

After the parade, we walked to the park by the river with the fountains and D was amazed by them and thought they were beautiful. It was his first time seeing the river and he really liked it. They had horse, donkey and camel rides and we asked D which one he wanted to ride and he picked the closest donkey! The donkey ride salesman whisked him up and on the donkey and took off before we even knew what was happening! Dust threw me some money to pay for it and ran after the donkey to try to get some pics! After the ride, we asked if he wanted to ride a different animal, but he said no, that was enough!! We took lots of pictures and walked all around the park. Lots of people were flying kites and just enjoying the day. Victory Day is a very important holiday here and a BIG celebration.

Our social worker’s family was all there for the celebration and she wanted to take us over to meet all of them. She is one of 10 siblings and they were all gathered in the park. They were very nice and extremely hospitable. They invited all of us to join them for a picnic lunch. Dust and I LOVED every minute of it! Everyone was happy and cheerful! There was all of this delicious homemade Kazakh food and fresh fruits and veggies that they grew. We all enjoyed the food, but none more than D; he chowed down!! They raised their glasses and gave many toasts, to Kazakhstan, to Victory Day, to family members that have been lost and to their new American friends! They were fascinated with us and asked many questions and introduced us to their children that learn English at school. When it was time to leave, my face hurt from smiling so much! The people were so happy and full of life and it was infectious! They invited us over for a traditional Kazakh meal and we can’t wait for that!!

He held our hands the whole time and got soooo tired! He wanted to be carried a lot and was affectionate, even though he was mesmerized by everything all afternoon! On the way back to find our driver, we finally found the coveted airplane shaped kite! D is a very happy boy now and can’t wait to play with it tomorrow…pray for wind! He had his first tastes of cotton candy and caramel popcorn today…both were huge hits! When it was finally time to take him back, he took fistfuls of popcorn back to his house!

SMILES, SMILES, SMILES – it was a great day for all of us!

WWII Memorial in Memorial Park

Flames & Flowers at the base of the Memorial to remember those lost. There was a huge line of people waiting to lay flowers and pay their respects.

Kaz Flag

Some girls on the camel ride of a lifetime!

Riverfront Park

Family Picnic (Our Social Worker's Family)

Our new Kazakh Family - The Ladies (our SW is in the aqua jacket)

Our new Kazakh Family - The Men

Smart Boy

2010-05-08T05:05:00.000-05:00

We bought the “Cars” computer game in Russian for D to play with and we have been amazed at just how smart he is. There are all sorts of puzzles and things to figure out and he gets them ridiculously quickly. (The game says 5+, but I will admit that some parts stump me!) So far it seems he is a good mix of both of us – smart & impatient!! Since the weather has been so nice, we’ve loved flying the kite and making bubbles outside. Today we had a couple little girls join us for computer games and bubbles. D didn’t really want them to take a turn on his brand new computer game, but finally obliged. He kept telling and showing the older girls how to do it. He was very cuddly today and wanted lots of hugs, kisses and attention.

Tomorrow is Victory Day to celebrate the end of World War II and they are having another big show/parade. The Director has allowed us to take D to the celebration tomorrow and we are so thankful! We’re going to pick him and the social worker up and then head over to the festivities tomorrow morning. We are anxious to see how tomorrow goes as we know he will be on sensory overload again! Can’t wait to tell y’all all about it tomorrow!

Cortney

May 6th Update

2010-05-06T04:24:00.000-05:00

Our paperwork is finally on its way to Kazakhstan and we are very excited! Should arrive next Friday the 14th or sooner. Yesterday we were able to visit 2 churches here in Pavlodar and it was interesting to see both of them. At first we stopped by the only Catholic Church and were greeted by a very friendly staff that gave us a tour and allowed us to take as many pictures as we wanted. After that, we stopped by the Russian Orthodox Church and things were not as friendly. The church reminded me more of a museum than a church and they allowed us to take pictures, if we made a donation.

We’ve still been visiting with D every day and love the time that we get with him each day. It’s amazing how many hours of fun a $1 bottle of bubbles can create! Today we brought a kite that we got for him last weekend, but there was no wind. Every other day is sooo windy, but not even a breeze today… the one day we bring a kite. He didn’t care and said that he didn’t need wind, so he just ran up and down the road in Kids Village flying his kite. It was so cute to see how much the simple things in life make him so happy. He kept cracking up and laughing at himself, and us, running up and down the street with him. He is such a joy and brings so many smiles to our faces daily! Every time that he was ready to go again, he’d say “OK…one, two, three!” and start running.

After our visit today we went back to the Bazaar and bought a couple soccer balls for the kids to play with and found a little store that sold Kazakh souvenirs and items. I had a field day in there and the little old ladies loved me to pieces and kept bringing out more and more things to look at! So excited about all the presents we are bringing home for D to enjoy over the years!

I’m reading a great book right now about Kazakhstan and if anyone is interested in learning more about this country, check it out. Apples Are From Kazakhstan By: Christopher Robbins

-Cortney

PS – Still no high speed internet…

Russian Lemonade...Dust liked it, but I wasn't too fond. Tastes sort of like cream soda with a hint of banana (to me). Not the lemonade we're used to!

During art time, Dustin created this to show D our trip home with him. Starts with all of us getting in a taxi, flying on the airplane and arriving home. Then D can go for a ride in Papa's truck, with Sadie (the red thing next to the taxi). :)

Inside the Catholic Church in Pavlodar

Russian Orthodox Church

Catholic Church

Inside the Russian Orthodox Church

On the grounds of the Russian Orthodox Church

Lonely Toys Update

2010-05-06T04:05:00.000-05:00

A HUGE thank you to everybody that has helped out, donated and spread the word about Lonely Toys & Clothes! We are so excited and are continually overwhelmed at the support that you all have shown us! We’ve already raised over $1,000 and donations keep trickling in!! We can’t wait to help bring some fun into the orphanage!!

lonelytoys.blogspot.com

Not much to report

2010-05-04T07:01:00.002-05:00

Not too much going on right now. Since our Bonding Period has ended, we are still able to visit with D everyday and are having a fun time! We do a lot of the same everyday and I’m sure it doesn’t make for fun reading! He can pretty much count to 10 in English on his own now and is saying new words every day. He’s pretty decent at please, thank you, candy, bubbles, good morning, bye, Spiderman and today he really worked at how are you. My parents have found out that the elementary school in our neighborhood is the ESL school for our area and we are really happy about that! There is a summer school program this summer that we hope he can attend – if we can get him back to the States in time!!

Still waiting for our high speed internet…the apartment owner checks on it everyday for us, but the telecom company here is slow. Tomorrow afternoon we are going to go on a tour of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the Catholic Church here in Pavlodar. Should be interesting and we are looking forward to an afternoon out!

On the paperwork front, our home study letter with the age range increase is on its way and it should leave the US on Tuesday or Wednesday. Our in-country coordinator is going to start working with the judge and our court process this week. Hoping that our home study letter will work in lieu of an actual update and we should know by end of week.

Hope to have some great pics to post tomorrow!

--The Stone’s

Photos

2010-05-02T07:25:00.000-05:00

Medical Building @ Kids Village

Arm Wrestling Competition

There is no sink in the bathroom, so we brush our teeth at the only sink in the apartment...kitchen!

We have bought eggs in a carton before, but today all they had was bags of eggs...we walked very carefully back to the apartment!

Older Kazakh Women singing @ Friendship Day

Cort - Friendship Day

Kids Village Houses

Friendship Day in Kazakhstan

2010-05-01T08:03:00.000-05:00

Today we went to visit D early this morning so we could go see the Friendship Day celebration downtown by the river. Friendship Day is held every May 1st and celebrates all the different cultures in Kazakhstan. Everyone is very friendly today and you hear a lot of “Happy 1st of May”! They blocked off several streets downtown where the celebration would take place. When we walked up to the stage area, you could see all the kids and adults in costumes getting ready for the event; lots of colors and flowers! A little after noon, the Pavlodar officials showed up and the show began. It was sort of like a parade; each group of performers marched up in front of the main stage for their turn to dance and sing. The main stage had big speakers and video screens so the crowd could see and hear everything. Balloons and streamers shot up into the air while each group performed. It was really great to see this in person; we took several videos that we can try to upload when we have better Internet access. The last group to perform was a bunch of little kids with flower hats – all dancing around and singing; super cute!! After the parade, we crossed over to the park and river where vendors were selling bubbles, kites, etc. The water fountains were streaming in the background and smells of cooked shish kabobs filled the air. It seemed the whole town was there enjoying the nice day and festivities. Down by the river, they had an arm wrestling competition in action – where can you see that nowadays?! The river was very beautiful and even had a sand beach. We’ll have to come back for a day just to take pictures! In the streets by the park, there were Gypsies selling rides on a camel and some donkeys. Cort was disappointed that they were for children only! After buying some trinkets from the vendors, we stopped for lunch at an authentic Russian restaurant with another couple here adopting; it was very good! When the check arrived for lunch (in an ornately carved wooden box), they also brought a guestbook; so of course we left a message. You’ll have to check it out if you’re ever in Pavlodar! There was so much to see and experience, we actually ran out of batteries in all our cameras!! This seemed like a busy day for us since we are used to long afternoons at the apartment; but such a good change of pace.

Friendship Day Celebration Parade

River with Russian Orthodox Church in background

More Friendship Day Parade

Dustin & Cortney by a park fountain

Camel ride. Sorry Cort, kids only!

Dustin & Cortney

Celebration Dinners

2010-04-29T07:42:00.000-05:00

In our normal lives, every time that something good happens and we have any reason to celebrate we go out for a celebration dinner. Tonight we would definitely be going out for a celebration dinner, but instead are talking about where we would go if we were home!! Our Bonding Period is now complete and we received promising news on our home study update this morning! Right now we are waiting on some updated paperwork that needs to be sent to us. We are in a small holding pattern until we get that. Once the paperwork arrives, our coordinator will be able to request a court date. The days here are long and each day is a whole new emotional roller coaster!

Today’s visit with D was pretty low key and we mostly did arts & crafts. He’s about done with being in front of the camera for all the constant “official” photos for court each day. He’d much rather be behind the camera taking pictures of everything and anything. I felt a little guilty today, because I lied to him…but I’m sure it’s for the greater good. He didn’t like one of the pictures that he took and wanted to delete it and asked how to do that. We told him there wasn’t a way to delete! So scared he would accidentally delete “official” photos. I’m sure it’s the first of millions and just part of being a mom, but it made me think…

Our life right now is a series of steps, processes and things to handle. We raise our glasses and toast to completing two major steps on our journey today and in the words of Jay-Z…”On To The Next One”!

Cheers!

Cort & Dust

Trip to the Bazaar- 13th Day of Bonding!

2010-04-28T06:19:00.000-05:00

Today we were able to take D on a supervised trip to the Bazaar to buy a few more clothes items! We were so excited! It was his first time in a taxi and he was very excited, but once he got in the car he went silent! He was taking everything in and was on sensory overload. He sat in the middle between us the back and was a perfect rider! Hoping he keeps that with him! Once we got to the Bazaar, he held my hand and didn’t let go for the remainder of our outing. He didn’t ask for one thing and we had to really coax him to tell us if he liked a pair of pants we found for him. Of course, like any boy, he didn’t want to try them on! We bought the pants and traded the jacket we got him for a bigger size and that was enough for one day! As we were headed out we stopped to get him an ice cream. He held a napkin in one hand and would wipe his mouth and fingers after each bite – hope he keeps that as well! In the taxi ride back you could tell we had drained him and he looked so tired!

All in all, it was a great first experience taking him out of his element. I was worried that he would ask for everything he saw. Dust and I talked about it over breakfast this morning…how we would handle not buying him everything. Although I know it wasn’t a wasted conversation, it wasn’t needed for today! Where he is comfortable he is a totally different kid, it’s going to take some time to adjust to things here, let alone back home.

Still no concrete news on our home study paperwork, but we have a few potentials that we are working on… Cross your fingers for us!

-Cortney

PS – I had the MOST delicious pancakes this morning stuffed with apricot jelly, kind of like a crepe.

One of the girls in D's house, wrote this and gave it to us. To the best of her ability, she spelled out our names, Dustin on top, Cortney on bottom and D's in the middle.

One of D's favorite things is the camera, he loves to take pics and then view them! Above is a pic he took of me and below is one he took of Dustin.

The view from our balcony to the left. The things in the center of the pic are the other balconies to our left. We are on the 7th floor. The pipes on the ground are the heat pipes for the building.

On the 12th Day of Bonding...

2010-04-27T08:33:00.002-05:00

Today we met D at his house getting ready to play outside with his friend; the only 2 boys not in school today. Both he and his friend were wearing the sun glasses we gave out yesterday; way to share! This is round #2 for the sun glasses; a whole day without breaking! He wanted to go play in the library again, probably to get out of the heat. We can’t believe how hot it has gotten here already; thank goodness they finally turned off the heat in the apartments! Unfortunately we packed for Antarctica, but we make due where we can. We brought a new art set today including crayons, markers, paint, pencils, etc., all packed up in a little briefcase he can carry around. His favorite part of the whole kit was the pencil sharpener! He had to re-sharpen every pencil in the kit and then sharpen the opposite end so you could write with either side. It’s funny the things we think he’ll like only last 5 minutes and the trivial things entertain for hours! After the kit was snack time; apple juice and a toy water gun filled with jelly beans. Every time we bring him a drink, he’ll shake it near the end to see how much is left. If just a little bit is left, he’ll want us to cut off the top to make sure he gets every drop! We’ve been working on his counting in English and some mannerisms like Please and Thank You. He’s getting really good at counting and will even anticipate and count by himself! He’s learning so quickly. After snack time, we filled up the water gun and went outside to “water” the trees. The gun wasn’t well made, so he just opened the cap and watered all the newly planted trees from Saturday. Once it was time to say good-bye again this afternoon, we were told we may have the opportunity to take D to the bazaar tomorrow to go shopping! I hope we get to go, that will be very exciting to get him out of his element and let him pick out some things he likes!!

As far as our paperwork goes, we are still looking to find a solution to our home study update. We just recently learned that we need the paperwork changes to apply for a court date, not just by the court date! We’re still working with a couple independents and our former agency to come to an agreement; we’ll keep you posted.

P.S. – Sorry for the typo in the link to Lonely Toys!! Here is the correct link: http://lonelytoys.blogspot.com

Lonely Toys & Clothes

2010-04-26T04:00:00.001-05:00

Dear Online Community,

While in Kazakhstan adopting our son, we have found a hole that we
would like to fill. Kids Village, the orphanage our son is from, is
funded by the government. They only receive funding for bare
essentials. We visited the house that he lives in with 7 other
children and there was only one toy in the house, a lonely yellow
remote controlled taxi - with missing batteries. The kids wear
whatever is available - all the children (boys and girls) share the
same clothes. We have decided to reach out to our community to see
what we can do to help Kids Village out! We'd like to raise money
that we can use to buy toys and clothes locally for the children at
Kids Village.

Please check out the page that we have created for this and help out
if you're able. We'd appreciate you spreading the word about Lonely
Toys so that we can help the children out as much as we can.

lonleytoys.blogspot.com

We can't wait to post pictures on lonely toys when we hand out all
the new clothes and toys!

We genuinely appreciate all of the support! As you can imagine, this
is very close to our hearts and we see the void here with our own eyes
everyday. We know first-hand how much the simple things can improve
these kids' lives!

Love,
Dustin & Cortney Stone

lonelytoys.blogspot.com
www.dustncort.com

Day 10

2010-04-25T07:56:00.002-05:00

Our bonding days are flying by! Today we had a couple other kids that wanted to come play with D and us, so we all painted and drew away the morning. We worked on some English words a little more, he can count to 10 with help and our favorite is when he gets to 3 which he pronounces as flea (so cute)! His fave new English word is bubbles. We brought some today thinking that he probably wouldn’t be interested…boy were we wrong. It was bubbles, bubbles, bubbles for the rest of the time! Catch bubbles with your hands, shoot bubbles with an airplane, catch bubbles on the wand. Make tiny bubbles, big bubbles and of course eat the bubbles!!! We would have never guessed he would have so much fun with bubbles! A 10 year old girl in D’s house brought me a book in English today to show me that she will start working with D everyday to teach him English! I was so impressed! Of course, the book was an adult grammar book, but we loved her sweetness!
We are doing great but are sooo hot! They turned the heat off at our translator’s apartment, but not at ours yet…we are crossing our fingers for any day! Today we were going to paper, rock, scissors to see who had to cook dinner in the hot kitchen, but luckily Dust just said he would do it! We went back to the bazaar to try round 2 for jeans for D. Found some that we think will work, but I thought that last time!!! Today I remembered the measuring tape though!
The Stone’s

Spring Cleaning Day - Bonding Day

2010-04-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

Today all over Kazakhstan was Spring Cleaning Day. All schools students and business employees go to clean their respective buildings. They cleaned, re-painted, did yard work. Pretty impressive. At Kids Village it was the same! All the children and staff were outside freshening up the buildings and surrounding areas. During this time, Kids Village plants a couple trees each year. This year they wanted us to plant a tree with D right in front of his house. They said that they wanted to name the tree after him so that they could remember him after he went to America. To say that this 4 year old was a BIG help planting the tree was an understatement. He wanted to do EVERYTHING that Dustin did. He was holding the shovels and kept saying that he could do it himself; he never got tired and never lost interest! It's hard work for a little boy, but what a trooper! They only wanted him to hold the tree, but he HAD to dig the hole with his Papa...too cute!

We were so impressed with Kids Village and so happy that they let us be a part of this experience!

Not to mention, we saw first hand what help he will be back at home!!! :)

Bonding Day 8

2010-04-23T03:49:00.001-05:00

We arrived today to find a bald spot in the back of D’s head! We asked what happened and apparently he was chewing gum last night and put it on his pillow and forgot about it. When he fell asleep last night, it got stuck in his hair, so they shaved it out. Lovely…little boys, gotta love ‘em! We brought all of his new clothes and tried everything on. He especially loved his new shoes that fit him and his sunglasses! He walked around all the office and showed everybody his new sunglasses because he looked so cool! Each new shirt or pants we tried on him, he had to walk out of the room and go see what it looked like in the mirror! It was adorable, he really loved everything…especially the socks and shirts with cars and motorcycles! I can only imagine that making the monumental switch from briefs to boxers can be hard thing to do!!! We brought him so new underwear (boxers) and he said that they weren’t underwear, just shorts and that is how he was going to wear them!!
During snack time today, he worked on learning the names of all of our family in the photo album that we made for him. (PS – Leah, we get complimented on the photo album allll the time!) He knows Sadie’s name without hesitation and also has Chandler and Nyah down. For some reason he really struggles with Tyler, Leah, Christen & Todd! He keeps calling both sets of grandparents the Russian term for grandparents! I know that our moms will just love being called babushka (sp?)! We also worked on counting in 5 to English and learned the English words for ball, juice, thank you, help me and ok! He now loves high 5 time with Dust and I! Every time he does something he looks to us like “are you going to say high 5”? Cuteness!
After snacks, we were able to go to a soccer stadium next door and play with a new soccer ball. We had so much fun and he loved running around. He loved to wear sunglass like mama & papa today and wanted to take pics of all of us in our shades! He didn’t bring a coat with him so he wore my hoodie which looked like some kind of Monk robe on him!

Love,
Cortney & Dustin Stone

Typical Day in Kaz...for those of you who are interested...

2010-04-23T03:48:00.001-05:00

We get up at about 7:00 in the morning and check email, eat breakfast, shower and get ready to go to the orphanage to visit D. Our driver/translator pick us up about 9:45 and we head over to Kids Village (about a 10 minute ride from our apartment).
We play and spend time with D from 10:00AM until about noon. After that, we typically head home or head to the Irtish Hotel to have lunch and check email and post an update to the blog. By mid-afternoon we clean up the apartment and take a trip to the market for items for dinner. We usually watch a TV show (right now we are in the middle of Heroes & Always Sunny in Philadelphia) on the laptop for awhile and then make dinner. After dinner we read or play games until about 8:00 PM when we get on the internet and try to Skype with fam & friends. Once we’re finally frustrated of the internet dropping (gotta love dial-up), we head to bed about 10:30 – 11 and watch a little TV before trying to fall asleep.

Also in the afternoons, we work-out, do a load of laundry, go toy shopping, etc…depending on the day.

And then we get up and do it all over again!!! We are REALLY looking forward to getting high speed internet installed in our apartment, which should be ANY day! By doing that, hopefully we’ll be able to work in the afternoons/evenings!

TEXAS

2010-04-23T03:46:00.001-05:00

In reading through some of the blog comments about our home study update, we were so embarrassed that so many people did not know where we were from. WHOOPS! We are from Texas and very proud of that! I’ll try to throw a couple more y’alls into my posts!

Also, on the home study front, we think we have found a lady to help us in Austin...thanks Dad!

We could go on and on about how disappointed we are with our former agency right now...but we will refrain. Karma...

-Cortney

Bonding Day 7

2010-04-23T03:42:00.001-05:00

We were able to meet the official Orphanage Director today as she was back from vacation. Super nice lady; as is all the staff @ Kids Village…we really lucked out. At first we met with the Director and with the representative from the Guardianship office to make sure that everything was going ok during our visits. Today was movie day! We brought Ratatouille and Tom & Jerry in Russian. He’d stay interested for a couple minutes, but then would want to play with his new police motorcycle. We put together the Spiderman puzzle again and he is getting faster at finishing it each time. We played with a new game on our cell phone that let him be a pilot and fly a plane – loved it! Today we got to spend about 3 hours with him and when it was time for us to go, we got to walk him to his house. He told us that he didn’t want to go to his home and that he wanted to come home with us to America and that he would fly on a plane to get there! We’re making progress everyday!!

Right after the visit, we went with another coupe here from Canada and our translator to the shopping mall to have lunch and do some clothes shopping for our kids. Lunch was delicious; we had dumplings stuffed with meat and potatoes and bread stuffed with potatoes. We went outside to the Bazaar which is kind of like an outdoor market/flea market type of place. You can get things really inexpensively and can haggle over prices. We found all sorts of new clothes, shoes, coat etc for D and of course a couple of toys as well! We got some great items for future “GOTCHA DAYS” and had fun with everyone! Big purchase of the afternoon – a fan!!!! After shopping for hours, we quickly took a taxi home and dropped off our bags and freshened up. We then took another taxi over to a fellow American’s apartment to meet her and have dessert. It was fun to meet her and hear all about her travels as well.

It was a long day and by the time we got home, we were beat!
-C&D

2010-04-23T03:41:00.001-05:00

Let me paint you a picture of our nights…

It’s 11:30PM and you are in bed (the small, hard bed) trying to fall asleep, but you can’t. It’s freakishly warm in the apartment and your only hope is a cool breeze, so you open the window. No idea where the wind is blowing, but it’s definitely not in the direction of your window. Opening the window also means letting in the outside air and apparently there is a chain-smoking family on the balcony right above your window. Perfect. Just as you are about to finally drift off, someone’s viper car alarm goes off…again. The sound machine app on your iPhone is up so loud to drown out the noise from outside that it actually becomes a distraction and is no longer part of the solution but is part of the problem.

To all of you sleeping soundly in your air-conditioned houses with ceiling fans and pillow top mattresses – you’d think I’d envy you, but I don’t. There’s no where else in the world that I would rather be. In a few short hours I’ll wake up and have one more night down. I’ll get to go play with my son and be one day closer to having my whole family home with me…in my air-conditioned house with ceiling fans and pillow top mattresses.

-Cort

Bonding Day 6

2010-04-21T06:45:00.000-05:00

Today’s activities included playing with an airplane transformer, painting, snack time, a Spiderman puzzle and playing with some toy guns. Although D loved playing guns, we think his favorite part of the day was snack time! We brought some cookies with chocolate in the middle and what we thought was a juice box. The juice box was actually a strawberry milk shake (strawberry milk) and he really enjoyed it! He wanted every drip of the milkshake and even asked us to cut the top once he could no longer get the last drips with the straw. He kept shaking it and could hear that there was still a little bit left! He shared the cookies with both of us and made sure to polish off every last crumb! He tipped the bag upside down to make sure there was nothing left! He is a great eater! We originally thought he would lose interest in the Spiderman puzzle, but he actually stuck it out and he completed the whole 48 piece puzzle! We brought out the guns and his eyes lit up. Amazingly, he didn’t want to shoot at people and actually said “Don’t worry, I wont shoot you”. We fired at some makeshift targets and bounced off the walls. He loved it; I think mainly because Dust and I were the ball gophers! He shot Dust once in the head and he played dead. D came over and started petting his arm nicely to wake him up; cute! At one point, a ball rolled behind the book case. Dust moved it out a bit and D had no problem going in after it. When it was time to leave, we let him take back both guns and the ammo; one for him and his best friend. We helped him get his shoes back on and told him bye at which point he gave us both a hug and kiss. We told him we’d be back again tomorrow; maybe bring some candy and a movie – which sounds pretty good to us after the exhausting day of ball chasing! ;)

Kitchen inside of D's house @ Kids Village

Dustin on D's bed

Right before date night to Classic Pizza

Bonding Day 5

2010-04-20T05:17:00.001-05:00

Today we brought some new toys to try out; a picture-card memory game and a small Lego race car. The memory game was quickly figured out and became boring. The lego car was fun, we followed the instructions and finally pieced together the car; I think it was a little too tough though because all the pieces were pretty small. We colored and painted for a bit, then gave him another kinder egg. This time he remembered about the egg, took it apart to eat the chocolate and open the toy inside. His memory is very good and surprising!! However, in the end, he wanted to see our cell phone to play some more games on. :) We were having such a good time today that we were moving into his second breakfast time. We could also tell he was getting sleepy from all the playing. Today we asked D if he enjoyed us being with him and if he would want us to be his Mama and Papa! He immediately said yes; what a great thing to hear!! We packed up our toys and got him ready to go eat; putting on his coat and hat. The orphanage staff asked if he wanted to give us a kiss and he said yes and ran over to us right away. We were all kind of suprised because boys his age don't normally like giving kisses - gross! :) We're so happy and excited that we are really bonding and making the best out of our time with him!

Until tomorrow,
Dust & Cort

WANTED: Social Worker

2010-04-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

We are reaching out to our online Kaz community!

Our home study and CIS paperwork states that we are approved for a child 0-36 months. Since our little guy is almost 5, we need to get our home study updated before court and we will also need to get our CIS approval updated. Long story short, since we are no longer working with an agency - the Social Worker that did our paperwork is unable to help us. Do any of you know a Social Worker licensed for International Adoption that could help us? We're really not sure what's entailed and hope that we can work on this with someone remotely.

Has anyone else done this before? Any words of advice?

Thanks in advance!
Cortney

Bonding Day 4

2010-04-19T09:59:00.000-05:00

Dad test #1 and Dustin passed! He fixed the airplane so that the buttons work and make all the necessary sounds! D was very excited to see his airplane again and to see it working right! We colored and drew for awhile and then played with the airplane and transformer. Then it was time to move on to playing with the camera and video camera. After a while, D asked Dustin if he could play with his cell phone. He quickly figured out how to work the iPhone and found some fun apps to play with. He found a racing car game that Dustin had on there and figured out all of the buttons super fast. I was amazed! Dad - he may be able to teach you how to use your new iPhone! He played with that non-stop until it was time for us to leave. On our way out, we were able to stop by his house. It was so cool to meet his caretaker, see his bed and see where he spends his days. We took a bunch of pictures and got to hear all about his schedule, habits, etc. from his house "mom". We found out that he loves to brush his teeth (that's for you Aunt Leah!) as soon as he gets up and then makes his bed immediately! She said that he is a gentleman and that he will help her without being asked if he sees her struggling with something. We are delighted!

Where D lives, at Kids Village, is very unique. It's a "village" of about 9 houses and there are 6-8 children per house. Each house has 3 care-takers that work shifts so that there is a "mom' there for 24 hours a day. The "moms" do all the cleaning and cooking for the children that live in the house. In D's house there is a 5 year old boy and the rest of the children vary from 10-16. It is a very unique living arrangement and we think that it is wonderful for the kids. Also in the village is the main offices, doctor's offices, library, etc.

This evening Dustin and I made our first solo trip to a restaurant!! SUCCESS!! It sure helps when restaurants have an English menu!
It is starting to warm up here and has been very nice for the last couple of days. I should have brought more than my big winter coat!

-Dust & Cort

Bonding Day 3

2010-04-18T08:02:00.000-05:00

Since this is such a new process at this orphanage, we haven’t been able to explain to our little guy what is going on and that we want to be his mom & dad. We’re hoping to do this early this week, but for now we’ll refer to our little guy as D (the first letter of his given name). Today we met with D again on the doctor's floor, but this time we had the back three sitting rooms. When we heard him come inside, I quickly hid behind the table; poking my head out just a little bit so he could make me out. D immediately said hi to Cortney and started strutting around the room. After he caught a glimpse of me, he started giggling and running to get me. Today he skipped being shy and went straight to being D.

The little guy colored in his coloring books we brought last visit at first, then Cortney pulled out the Kinder Egg! For those who don’t know what those are, they are a thin chocolate shell with a plastic egg inside. Inside the plastic egg is a toy that you can put together. He had the chocolate handled in no time (loves chocolate – one of his favorite foods; I know, shocker!), then we put together what we thought to be a space ship. It didn’t quite take flight like it should have so we all quickly lost interest. After a bit more drawing, we brought out a toy fighter plane. D raced over and took it on a ‘test flight’. We played a while with that, racing it on the floor and flying it around the hallway. The plane has some buttons on top that are supposed to make take-off noises and gun sounds… but of course they only worked occasionally, and only if you hold the toy upside down – quality!! Needless to say we were all getting frustrated with this. I told him we’d take it home, try to fix it and bring it back tomorrow… no pressure here! :)

We did find one use of the kinder egg “space ship”; it made an excellent gun! D snatched up his ‘gun’ and started chasing us around. Cortney and I quickly grabbed some guns of our own (markers) and gave in to the chase. We played hide and seek within the three rooms and occasionally the doctor’s office. At first it was all fun, but I’m sure the doctor was starting to get annoyed so we innocently smiled and kept back to the rooms. We took lots of pictures and had our translator take a video clip of us playing. Hopefully we can get high-speed internet installed and start uploading these to share! D was intrigued with the camera and video camera; before long he had all the buttons figured out and was taking his own snapshots – so smart! He really enjoyed looking at the pictures/video afterwards.

With all the drawing and chocolate, his hands started getting real messy. We borrowed a towel and washed his hands in the washroom. As the doctor was telling us that he loves to brush his teeth and eat the toothpaste, D pointed to some soap and asked “toothpaste?” – What funny timing.

With all this fun and excitement, time flew by and it was time to go. He gave us real big hugs and told us he would like for us to visit again tomorrow – we will be there! Perhaps tomorrow, being a work day, we’ll be able to visit his house, meet some of his friends/caretakers, etc. We will see!

Dustin & Cortney

Day 2 of Bonding

2010-04-17T08:21:00.000-05:00

Had a great day today! We met with the doctor first thing this morning to go over his medical history. Afterwards they brought him in and we played in the Doctor’s office for about an hour and a half. We colored and played with a new car today! GOOD NEWS – in our meeting today we discovered the following about our new little guy… 1. He likes dogs and can already say Sadie! 2. He loves to swim! 3. He LOVES chocolate (it’s his favorite food)!

He is so detailed and likes to keep order. He would take the lid off a marker, color with it, put the lid back on it, line the marker up with the others and then select a new color. He puts everything away when he is done playing with something and is very creative. We got him one of those cars that you roll backwards to make it drive forward and he and Dustin created ramps, jumps and roads. As soon as the car would crash into something and put it out of place, he would stop and fix everything before playing with the car again. It’s adorable. While playing, Dust and I just look at each other and smile!

At the end of our meeting today, he gave us both a hug for the first time!! (Awwwww !) He also asked us to bring him another airplane tomorrow for him to play with!

After leaving the Kids Village we went to Svetlana’s office to meet with her again. Since Yakov happened to be in town, he came over to her office so that we could meet him as well. It was great to finally meet him; we are sooooo thankful for all the help that Yakov and Svetlana have given us over the last 2 months! So glad they were still there for us when we had all the issues with our agency.

Just finished dinner (grilled cheese sandwiches & vegetables) and are gearing up for our evening of dial-up internet blog postings, email checking and probably a couple more episodes of Heroes.

Love,
D&C

PS – We can’t post pics of him on our blog until after our court date (since our blog is public), but I am going to try to post on our Facebook pages tonight since they are private. If you’re not on our Facebook and interested, feel free to add me.

Cab ride to Kids Village

Day 1 of Bonding Period

2010-04-16T07:36:00.000-05:00

Today was our first official day of the bonding period. Per Kazakhstan law, we have to visit him everyday for 14 days before we can request a court date to petition to adopt him. On our way home last night we stopped at the market to pick up some toys. We found an airplane and some cars that we brought to him today. He was happy to see us today and LOVED the airplane! We spent about an hour and a half playing with the toys and drawing pictures. This orphanage doesn’t have a doctor on-site like the Baby House, so we will probably meet with the doctor early next week. The Assistant Director at the Kids Village hasn’t done any foreign adoptions from this orphanage before, so we are learning the process and ins/outs just like they are. The good news about this is that we are able to visit him 7 days a week! He is 4 now and will be 5 in July. He speaks Russian & Kazakh but not English – so we have some major communication barriers! We know that we will be able to communicate with him in no time though! We at least know the important Russian words, like airplane and cars!!!

After our visit today our translator, Tanya, took us to the shopping mall and bazaar to pick up some more toys for him and we were able to find some souvenirs and traditional items to take home for him as well!

For many years, Dustin and I have imagined having girls at home – but ever since we met this little boy, nothing seems to make more sense than having him in our lives! The kid’s room that we have ready at home is all decked out for a little girl, so we will have to make some major changes to that when we come home between our trips! Looking forward to that though, bring on the planes, cars and trucks!!

Thank you so much for all of the prayers, thoughts and positive thinking!!! We are so happy that we have finally met our little guy and will have quite the story to tell him about our journey to him someday!!

Love,

The Stone’s

In front of Kids Village

Initial Meet-n-Greet

2010-04-16T07:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we arrived to the Kids Village orphanage and had a brief interview from the Assistant Director (the Director is out of town right now). Everything went well and they wanted to introduce us to a little boy. They wanted the meeting to be in the library where he was being taught a lesson and they wanted us to pretend like we were just in the library reading at first. After awhile, Svetlana started talking to him and drawing pictures with him. She told him that she would like to introduce us to him. He agreed and got up from his chair to shake our hands, it was very cute. He then was drawing pictures and was answering questions about what he liked and what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said that he loves airplanes and that he would like to be a pilot someday. Dustin then helped him draw an airplane, which he liked very much. There were several ladies in the room and it was intimidating for him to answer questions and we could tell that he had a little bit of a shy side. He was quickly engrossed with Dustin and I’m sure it is because there are not many men around the orphanage. After a little while of talking to him they told him that we had to leave. He stood up to say goodbye, nice to meet you and shook our hands again. This time he shook Dustin’s hand with both of his hands, which is tradition for men to do when greeting each other in Russian culture. Again, it was so adorable and made our hearts melt! We left the library and went back to the main room to discuss what our visiting schedule would be like over the next couple of weeks. About 5 minutes after we left the library he came into the Director’s office to give Dustin a paper airplane that he made from the drawing that they were working on together!!! They flew it around for a while and then he said goodbye to all of us again. About 3 minutes later he came back again to give me a paper airplane as well! It was the cutest thing and I cried happy tears. It was very emotional to meet him and interact with him; so special!

2010-04-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Today we met a little boy that stole our hearts! It was a very good day! He is living at the Kids Village which is an orphange in Pavlodar. This was the very last child that we could meet. You know that saying, "saved the best for last"...well it couldn't be more true. We don't want to post too much information until we find out more details tomorrow.

We are going through a whirlwind of emotions, but we are so excited and hopeful!! Can't wait to share more news tomorrow!!

:) :) :) :) :)

--Cortney & Dustin

Tennessee

2010-04-15T00:42:00.000-05:00

Dear Former Mother in Tennessee,

Thank you so much for sending your child back to Russia all alone; what a great idea. Your timing couldn't have been more perfect and we really appreciate all of the extra questioning that we are getting because of your ridiculous actions. Who knew that your actions would reflect badly on all Americans adopting internationally?

Congratulations and Thank You!

2010-04-15T00:35:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting the last couple of days...we've been having a hard time. We got all the paperwork and went to the Baby House. The interviews get harder and harder each time, it is really emotional. The language barrier is hard. It's hard to explain things in an easy way to translate... After spending all day at the Baby House on Tuesday, we came to the conclusion that our child was not there either. This is very hard and taxing on Dust & I. I keep thinking of how to explain this process and I just can't figure out how to put it into words...

Is our child here???

Our paperwork had to go back to the Dept. of Education to get re-signed so that we can go to a different orphange in a village outside of Pavlodar. The paperwork was finally signed off on this morning and we are going out to the orphanage this afternoon. The strange part about today is that we are excited and nervous...more than usual. I sure hope that today brings us peace and good news!

Long day of waiting...

2010-04-12T09:02:00.000-05:00

We spent all day waiting for our paperwork to be signed off on. Finally at 5:00 we got the call that the paperwork had been signed and we had to rush to the Dept. of Education for our second interview. It is amazing that government employees work past 5:00PM here! The interview was interesting – we were asked a lot of questions and had to explain a lot – but it all ended ok. Tomorrow morning we are going to the Baby House!

Super Excited,

Cortney & Dustin

Kaz Traditions/Customs

2010-04-12T09:01:00.000-05:00

During our time in Kazakhstan we have learned about some interesting customsthat we wanted to share. The info below may not be 100% correct, but this is what we understand from our translators. If you know of something not correct – let us know…we’d love to know the true customs!

Name Meanings –In the US, we tend to pick cute, trendy names that we like for first names and typically middle names are family names passed down somehow or in memory of. In Kazakhstan, they choose names based on the name meaning. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cute name or a family name, what matters is what the name means/represents.

First/Middle Names - A person’s second name/middle name in Kazakhstan is always from their father’s name. For example, my name would be Cortney Franklin Stone. In the US, middle names are typically family names or names that represent something special. In Kaz, when addressing someone with respect, it is proper to say their first and second names. If I were a teacher here, the students would call me Cortney Franklin; not Mrs. Stone like we would do in the US.

Weddings/Memorial Park – Here in Pavlodar there is a Memorial Park that was created to remember World War II. On the day of your wedding, you would go to this Memorial Park and lay flowers and pay your respect to all those that sacrificed.

Cemeteries – There is an old cemetery near our apartment and this is what we have learned about it so far. The headstones in it are metal, not stone. Also, on most headstones there is a framed portrait of the person who is laid to rest there; eerie and interesting all at the same time. Also, several of the graves are fenced off individually with small gates. For a few days after people are laid to rest, the gates to these fences are left open so that their souls can still leave the grave. After a few days, it is time for the soul to rest with the body, so the family will close the gate. Also, Kazakh women do not attend funerals but they go to the cemetery the next day. Kazakh funerals are only attended by men.

Dress Code – I’ve always thought this, but I realize it more than ever here. America is casual. Most people here are dressed up when out in public. There are no Juicy velour suits and slippers at the supermarket. Most women wear high heeled boots with skirts, dresses and pants; all the time.

Smaller Portion Sizes – At restaurants, portion size is much smaller than in America. We’ve also noticed that on some menus it gives the price and weight of each item.

Transportation – People walk everywhere and take the stairs everywhere. There are some buildings with elevators, but for the most part everyone takes the stairs. There is public transportation in the cities, buses, trams and trains. Most women do not drive and men constantly complain about those women that do. Need groceries? Walk to the market. Need to go to work? Walk to work. Need to go shopping? Walk to the store. Get the picture??

Credit Cards – Most places take credit cards, but most people do not have them. They pay for everything in cash. If you’d like to get a TV, you save up until you have the money and then go to the store and buy it with cash. This is something that is so foreign to me. I can’t even imagine someone walking into Best Buy trying to buy a $2000 TV with cash. It would look fishy! Our translator told us that she doesn’t even know anyone that has a credit card! On the other hand, if this were the norm in the US, there would be so much less credit card debt…what would happen to the economy then?!?!

Tips – Tips in Kazakhstan are included in the price. This goes for restaurants and taxi rides.