Happy Easter! Somebunny loves you!

So Max had his first visit to the beach on Saturday. His nice new bucket and shovel lay unused on the blanket as he was more interested at looking at seagulls and trying to eat the sand! It was a rainy day and we only stayed a bit. Tim took Max down by the waves but Max wasn't sure what to think yet. That's ok, we will have many visits in the future.

Sunday Mom & Dad helped Max find some Easter eggs after church at his Aunt and Uncle's house. Of course Mom & Dad got to eat all the yummy candy treats. Next year Max will get to do all the searching himself!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patty's day! Here is an update since we have been back:

It's been over a week and things are going well. Max is starting to sleep 7:30pm to 7:00am like his old schedule that week in Kaz, so Mom & Dad are thrilled! Dad works during the week so Mom gets lot's of play time with Max during the day. Daddy gets dinner time, bath time and putting Max to bed at night. Special Dad & Son time. Max and I go on daily walks with his new jogging stroller. At first I was against this stroller, but now I love it! It is so smooth and even works well on a dirt road near the house. It's nice for Max and Mommy to get some fresh air each day. (I do keep a watchful eye on the bushes and storm drains for a lurking gator though).

Max had two welcome home parties from his Aunt and Uncle and Grandpa & Grandma. Thanks you guys! Max got more neat toys, clothes and diapers. Bath time has been going better. (that photo of him was one of the rougher nights but he looks so adorable with his big eyes) We are now using an inflatable type tub so he doesn't slip around so much and the bath tub doesn't seem so big and scary to him.

Max seems to be adjusting just fine overall and it's cute seeing him with other people. He still goes to anyone and you can usually get a smile out of him pretty easily. Grandpa & Grandma Esparza are making a special trip to Florida on Father's day weekend in June to see our sweet pea, I can't wait for them to meet him.

I can't believe he will be 1-years old next month. Still no teeth but he is close to walking. He is also learning to feed himself cheerios and hold his own bottle. Eating is of course his favorite time of day! That one photo above is him eating mash potatoes, his favorite, just like his Mom.
Next weekend we will probaby take Max to his first visit of the beach!

The LONG ride home...

We arrived at the airport in good spirits, so far so good. We were happy to see Patty, the other single mom who was adopting Taylor. She was in Astana the same time we were, but she decided to stay the full 8 weeks. We had a feeling we would run into her at some point. We also met another single Mom and a nice couple from France, all adopting girls. Our flight was delayed an hour and we were waiting around pushing Max in the stroller. Over there, you can't check in until 2 hours before your flight, so we were hanging out in the middle of the entrance area to the airport. Next thing we know we see two Lufthansa agents running out the door. Turns out they canceled our flight all together and we wouldn't know anything until 12pm, 10 hours later! (no wonder those agents were running, they didn't want to deal with some angry people) All our translators had left and we were stranded! We all started to panic. There was no one to talk with at the airport but this nice French man who spoke Russian, was on our flight and had overheard that we needed to drag ourselves over to some hotel to talk to a rep. One of us went and the rest stayed waiting for info. Shortly after, cabs began taking us to another hotel where Lufthansa would pay for and we would hang out to wait for news. The scary thing about being in another country is there is no one to talk with from the airlines until hours later, no one at the airport and our travel agents are asleep as it's midnight US time. All of us were very tired and feeling very stressed. At about 5:00am we were all checked in and we shuffled to our rooms and decided to meet up later that morning to figure out what to do. Max slept about an hour and we were all up again with red eyes. The nice thing was that the airlines took care of breakfast, lunch and dinner so we would all meet up to discuss what was happening and have a nice meal. We all decided to stick together as there is strength in numbers. Tim would also help the single Mom's with their luggage. This made me proud of him as I hope someone would help me out if I was traveling with a baby alone.
By noon we find out there was to be another flight opening up at 1:40am for all those stranded earlier that morning. We put the babies to sleep a few hours before getting up again to do the same thing all over again. (the good news is the hotel was beautiful and we had some nice meals such as breakfast potatoes for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and tomato soup and chicken cordon blue for dinner. They gave us a crib in our room as well. It could have been worse, we could have spent the day at the airport!) We all ended getting onto the flight with no problems. By now Max was wearing thin. Poor kid is tired and his cough sounds worse after two days of being awakened in the night. It is tough traveling with a baby! The airlines gave us a row of 4 because we couldn't get bulkhead seats and Max was stretched out between us and slept the entire flight! We were very proud of him. It is so neat watching him sleep. He is so precious. I can't help but think about our long journey to get here. It was exactly 1 year ago when we turned in our adoption paperwork. I spent the flight reflecting and just being really grateful and happy and excited for the future!!!

Once in Frankfurt we got our connection to Miami and only had a 4 hour layover. We said our goodbyes to everyone else and got ready to board. (Another thing about different countries is that they shove and push and don't care if you have a child. In the US they let people with special needs and children board first, not the case over here and we were getting pretty frustrated and tired at this point and so was Max). Our flight was packed and very noisy. We got a bulkhead with a bassinet that attaches in front of you. It was so bright and loud that Max slept maybe an hour total. The flight attendants I must say are very good with babies. They got us hot water for his bottles and help out any way they can. This 10 hour flight was by far one of the hardest things we have ever done! We were so tired and Max was twisting and turning and wanted to stretch his legs so we went for many walks to the back of the plane so Max could do that. We finally landed in Miami a little shell shocked, but still intact. One day of travel had stretched into two, but we were glad to be home. We had heard rumors of people who adopt get whisked away to the front of the passport line, but this was not the case with us. Max was done with sitting in his stroller for so long for the past two days that we held him and waited and waited. Once we got through we discovered that somewhere along the line the walker we bought in Almaty never made it. That's ok though, he has plenty of toys in Florida. Tim's Mom and Dad met us with a banner and balloons. I can't tell you how good it was to see familiar faces, even though we were only gone a week. Max fell asleep on the way back to West Palm Beach in his brand new car seat. Grandma and I just watching him in the back seat and marveling at how cute he is! Max just loves his Grandparents, already smiling and laughing with them. (I can't wait for him to meet his other Grandparents and rest of the family)

It is so nice to feed him in his highchair instead of his stroller and to put him down in a crib! It felt like Christmas time getting to use all his new stuff. It is 1:00am in the morning and Max just woke up and it took me awhile to get him back to sleep. I suspect his little body it still on Kaz time. This has been the first chance to update the blog so I took it!

Is it so good to finally be home with our son!!!!

SOS clinic

On Monday we bundled up Max in a blue snow suit, courtesy of another couple, parents of Berik. (thanks Jamie & Gena!) The weather is a big difference from Astana. Instead of ice everywhere, its about 50 degrees, very nice indeed but we still are using the snow suit for our little one, who is getting over a cold. There is a little park near our apartment so we can take Max for a walk each day or walk inside the Mall with the Ram store. So, with Max all covered up we head to the SOS clinic where he gets a poke in his finger so they can take blood. Max didn't cry once, our little brave boy. (it also helped the Tim was making more funny faces at Max to distract him)
After that, Max went upstairs to meet with a really nice Russian doctor. She would sing little Russian songs to him and he would just smile and smile. Everything went OK so it was back to the apartment. Tim searched some stores and found a walker to put Max in. A nice orange and green interesting looking walker that Max loves! We found this at the 'Green Market' for only $20.00. This is also a great place for families to buy souvenirs, as we wasted a lot of time in Astana trying to find the best deals. Max raced around the apartment in his new walker. We didn't bring any shoes for him and his socks would be black by the end of the day!

The next couple of days we waited for our Embassy appointment that took place on Wednesday. We walked across the street and went through all kinds of security and inspections. Once upstairs we waited for our name to be called and really it was one or two quick questions and we were on our way. We decided to treat ourselves to a scoop of Baskin-robbins at the mall and then off for a nice walk. On Thursday we woke up to rain, it was such a nice surprise as we hardly get any rain in Colorado. The only thing is the power went out about 7:30am until 4:00pm which meant cold food for Max. He didn't seem to mind and play time went without a hitch, despite the rain. We could have left on Thursday instead of Friday, but for some reason that day was sold out for flights and just about impossible to switch. We spent the day packing up everything as it takes longer now that our family is bigger with the 3 of us! Then it was bed time and up at 1:00am for our ride to the airport. All in all, the week flew by really quickly as we were busy getting schedules down for Max and learning about each other and being new parents.
Our take on Almaty is that the buildings are not as nice as Astana, but it is much warmer weather and the people seem to be more friendly. It is more Americanized and the stores have more of a selection of items. (well, maybe not the baby food!) I did ask our translator how long the process is to adopt once you are in Almaty, versus Astana and she said it takes a month just to get a court date so your looking at about 12 weeks versus 8 weeks! Whew, so glad we are almost home.

Almaty

The next few days were quite a blur. Our translator found us an apartment the very next day one block up the street across from the US Embassy and a Ram store! In a whirlwind we packed up and moved to our new home away from home. This apartment, although smaller and not as fancy, was much better then the one in Astana. We had a real shower, 4 English channels, a soft bed, kitchen, big living room for Max to play in and we are close to a major grocery store. We were set! Saturday and Sunday we spent in the apartment with lot's of play time with Max. He is clapping now and standing for brief moments by himself. He is just so adorable, growing each day. The doors have glass windows and Max would love to stand up to the door and Tim would hide around the corner, doing funny faces making Max laugh! He is very active and pulls himself up on anything, cruising around the room. He is a very good eater and eats everything we put in front of him. Some of the baby foods have such strange concoctions, like veal and pumpkin or cauliflower and rice. Yumm.....! Bath time still isn't happening, Max just cries each time his feet hit the water so we wash him really quickly and then it's bottle time and bed. He sleeps through the night really well. He doesn't have a crib so Tim barricaded some furniture in a corner and we put blankets and pillows for a makeshift bed. Nap times are usually tough and doesn't last long as he is used to a crib. It is such a joy to be able to take care of him full time. When it's bedtime for Max, it's bed time for his parents as we are new at this and also are facing jet lag still!

"Gotcha Day"

We arrived at about 11:30pm in Astana and our translator and coordinator took us to a hotel. The first thing they said was that we looked so confident this time! They picked us up around 9:00am to go to the baby house to pick up Max. At this point we were very excited and were dying to see him but first we handed out all the gifts to the caretakers and also Dr. Alma, the baby house director. We finally get to Max's room and he was eating but he looked over at us with a huge smile! We said our goodbyes and got some photos with his caretakers, the doctors and Dr. Alma. His main caretaker had tears in her eyes when we left, this only confirms how much they love Max and also how great they have taken care of our son up until this point.
Next stop was to the Ram store for baby food and formula for Max. After that we went to eat at a Russian restaurant and Max got some mash potatoes. He was doing so good! Then we went to the airport and flew to Almaty to finish out our last week. Max handled the plane ride like a pro! He fell asleep in my arms and also on the car ride to the hotel. That is the first time he has done that and it is such a nice feeling.
Our new translator took us to a hotel with a crib and Max went to bed shortly after. We tried a bath but he screamed and screamed. Seems they are not used to tub baths. We told our translator we wanted an apartment with a microwave and more space. (the cost of hotels went up on Feb. 1st and it is quite pricey, and the rooms are very small for a child) After a long day, we turned in. Max woke up once at 4:00am but quickly went back to sleep. Our first day as a family!