10/03/04 - a note from Grandma

Hello Everyone,
The leaves are turning in Almaty, many are yellow. It started yesterday and today we have seen quite a few more beginning to fall. It seems appropriate that the season is turning from Summer to Fall as our trip is coming to an end. We have been playing the “next week at this time” game for so very long, and we are finally able to say, “next week at this time we will be home.” Jeff and I have mixed feelings about this. I feel as if I could stay here longer, he needed to be home weeks ago. I guess I should have broken a few things here so that he could have kept a little more busy. Changing the never ending burned out light bulbs just isn’t cutting it anymore.

Now that Mom is here, it seems like the time is hitting warp speed. Her help is greatly appreciated and the extra hands allow one of us (me so far) to get some more sleep. I’m very glad that we will have her help to bring the kids home, it takes a lot of pressure off. Her timing of arrival was perfect, we were able to get accustomed to the kids and understand their needs, now she can pitch in and they are remaining right in rhythm.

We had a nice day today, poor Jeff, home again watching kids. Mom and I went to the Chocolate factory, Green Market, the Tsum and Barahoulka again. It was a lot of walking and a fair amount of spending. We bumped into Emil in the Tsum about an hour before our planned meeting time. We are not sure if it was coincidence or if he was following behind to make sure we were ok. It worked out great because as we were buying souvenirs he did our negotiating for us. He also exchanged money for Mom while she and I continued to browse. As always he refused to let us carry our own bags, (as women should have their hands free while shopping to pick up and touch). We found a few small treasures to bring home. We are trying to go easy on the spending, but find a balance of special items to keep for the children’s future. We both found some ornaments that we will use annually and add a nice tradition for the holidays.

We had a leisurely lunch at a place suggested by Emil. He said there were great shish kebobs, but when we tried to order them, we didn’t have much luck. The server was using her best English/sign language to help us, and as far as we can tell they were not ready yet. We managed to point at another table and order a salad that someone else was eating. I think my body went into shock from the vegetables. (what no carbs!!?) It was wonderful and really hit the spot. The salad had diced chicken, cheese, cucumber, tomato, and egg with a cucumber dressing in the center and of course dill.
When we found that the kabobs were not ready the server was trying to help us find something else. We eventually found a picture of a cucumber in the menu and she understood that we wanted another salad. She made the international beef sign to us (pointer fingers extended above each eye brow) and mooo’d. We nodded and smiled and a little while later another salad showed up. This salad with wedges of egg, tomato, cucumber and very thin slices of what looked a lot like tongue. The garnish was the same, cucumber dressing/dill. Mom was brave and tried the tongue/mystery slice of meat, she said it didn’t have much taste, she then had another. I passed on this. Finally, we were wondering if or what else we ordered while pointing at things on the menu when two large plates came our way with beer battered something and deep fried nuggets of something else, and cucumber w/ tomato, amazingly there was no dill on our entrée. We dug into the platters cautiously and interested. Meals here are not just for nutrition they are also an adventure. We ended up with tempura chicken and fried potato. Ahh…now there is the carb fix with a nice side of oil. We ate a few and became full almost immediately. The rest found themselves in a plastic sack on their way back to Jeff. Emil was carrying this bag eventually for us and we kept joking with him that he smelled like a chicken. How would he meet women smelling this way? He laughed and played along. I’m really going to miss that guy.

When we got back a very sleepy Jeff met us at the door. Thank goodness we had deep fried goodness for him to scare away the crankies. The kids were just getting ready to get up so Mom and I warmed the bottles and showed him our treasures. I was feeling really bad for him and then he told us he had watched The Matrix today, something I think he enjoyed and I know he liked the peace and quiet.

Tomorrow we will be heading to the mountains, a trip we have been anticipating for weeks. It is supposed to be in the upper 70’s and mostly sunny, so we are hoping for some nice pictures. We will keep you posted.

Take care everyone. XO Colene and Jeff

Maryanne S. did you notice the crooked grin that Karleigh shows every so often looks like grandma Hazels?

Here is a note from Mom…..

I have had the pleasure of seeing Karleigh crawl, a fully coordinated knees alternating arms pulling crawl. I can’t get over how good these kids are with all of the teeth that are coming in. Karleigh is working on number seven and McCale has the first bottom tooth about to come in. Yesterday we took them for a long walk up and down hills in their strollers and everyone saw them said how cute they were or something complimentary in Russian, they behaved very well.

On our shopping excursion I picked up a fur hat, several gifts for taking home and of course for those who know me, earrings.

I’m Having a great time, more tomorrow!!! Gramma Marilyn