Getting Closer

Things are continuing to move along in Kazakhstan. We had pre-court yesterday which was 50 minutes of waiting in a small lobby and 10 minutes sitting in a big, hot office while the Chairman (I'm not sure of what) read through our paperwork and asked us a few questions ... "How much do you have left on your mortgage?", "Will this interfere with the adoption?", "Do you understand his medical issues?", "Why do you want to adopt a child with problems?", "How long have your ancestors been in America?", "How often do you see Cearra?", "How big is your family?", etc., then he said ok, we'll accept your application to adopt and move your paperwork along, and then he actually smiled while Bob tried to say hi in Kazakh - which is about 20 letters long and sound a little like "sell met sezs beer".Court is next up and we are waiting on word as to the date - it should be either Monday or Tuesday. We'll start working on our speeches now and trying not to be too nervous!

The other couples on the same time line as us had similarly good results and last night we hosted a party at our place to celebrate. It was pretty crowded but a good time was had by all. Oleg and his wife Vera and youngest daughter joined us as did Rada and Inna. There's also a new couple here - Joey and Gary from Phoenix - who are adopting a little boy from a town near us, and it was great to welcome them to town and introduce them to the unofficial cocktail of Kaz - yes, cherry juice and vodka.

Today's visit with Owen was wonderful, especially since yesterday he was totally cranky. Of course it was the day they were going to take his passport photo so we might end up with a crying baby picture for that - which is ok considering my passport photo is no beauty shot either. We think he was just hungry and his teeth were bothering him, but today he was back to his happy self. And good thing too as the judge we'll have for court stopped by to see us with him and ask us a few questions about our visits, his medical diagnosis, etc.

At the end of the visit he fell asleep in Bob's arms and I asked him what he thought babies dreamed of. And Bob said "mommies and daddies". Hopefully Owen is having very sweet dreams these days - we certainly are.