Valentine's Day

While we were waiting at court for the judge to come back in with his decision, the director of the baby house said that today is a holiday in Kazakhstan where people celebrate when they are in love. She asked if we had this holiday too. We said yes, Valentine's Day. So, they do celebrate Valentine's Day here, although, there isn't a ton of red and pink hearts everywhere or anything like that! There were some people celebrating a little too much in the lounge right beside our room last night. I think they had a little too much vodka, well a lot too much! Luckily it didn't last too long before someone from the hotel came and told them something, and so they left.
After the judge made his decision, the director congratulated us and hugged us! I don't know if the other director would have been so nice, from what I understand, but this one is great! Families that follow us here should be relieved on that one! Bulat called us from Almaty to congratulate us and to tell us that now is the time to give the gifts we had brought. So, we gathered all the gifts after lunch, and took them in a small suitcase with us to the baby house. Janet took them all and had already distributed them to some of the people at the baby house by the time our afternoon visit with Caleb was over. She will distribute the rest when it is appropriate, I guess. We don't even know which gifts she gave to which person. It's a little strange, but at least we didn't have to worry about them, and our luggage will be lighter for the trip home! This will help since we do have an additional 18 and a half pounds of extra special cargo to hand carry home with us!!

It was another beautiful day, so we had decided we would try to take Caleb outside. The high was about 50 degrees F and nice and sunny. We took his coat, hat, and mittens. We changed his clothes and put on the coat, etc. This was not an easy task, but he looked soooo cute!!! Then we headed outside. The sun was very bright and kept getting in his eyes. So then we'd move to the shade, but it was pretty cold! He wasn't scared or anything, but he kept looking around with a strange look on his face, like "What's going on here?" It should be interesting when we take him in a few days to get his passport pictures made. He's not going to know what to think about riding in a car!



This picture is outside the courthouse. Janet, our representative in Taraz, is on the left. To the right of her is the Baby House Director. It would be nice if we knew her name, but our translator just always calls her "The Director." (That's just like the names of our drivers. We've asked her several times and she just laughs and says she doesn't know. I thought that our second driver was Nicoli, but when I asked her yesterday she said no, she doesn't know where Nicoli is. Bulat always tells us our driver will be Nicoli, but we've never seen Nicoli!)



This is Assira, our translator.




Caleb, all decked-out to keep warm outside.