Snow!!!!!!

Hi all! I (Teresa) am again venturing out of the apartment. It was really hard being stuck in for two days and not getting to see the kids. We were still unable to visit Jackson this morning, but are told he no longer has a fever and might be able to do the afternoon visit. Our visits are a lot more subdued without him! It was good to spend time just concentrating on Madden, and we were able to get some good pictures of her.

We finally got some snow! So far just enough to powder the ground and swirl around on the street, but more is predicted so hopefully we'll have some serious snow before we leave. We walked about 4-5 blocks to have lunch at a local hotel and use the high-speed internet connection, and I learned that snow is very slippery- or maybe it's the frozen ground- either way, I almost fell on my rear several times and will now have to break out the boots. Eventually we'll post some pics of us in our snow get ups-- I had a hat and furry hood today and was wishing I had also put on a scarf! Boy are we spoiled with the CA weather! I am continuing to have a difficult time seeing all the stray dogs and cats looking miserable in the snow. I can't imagine our spoiled animals spending one minute in snow. I also understand that Bounder and Willie spent Thanksgiving with the McCartney/Livingston/Smith family, which I can only imagine added a little chaos to their holiday!

Thankfully my rash seems to be going away at last. Apparently my skin does not agree with something in Old Navy jeans! I bought a bunch of stuff for Kevin and I to take here right before we left and didn't have time to wash it first. I was thrilled that everything was so cheap, since we very realistically might be abandoning some of our clothing and other things to lessen the luggage that we have to move through the airports over here while carrying the babies. However, perhaps there is a reason the jeans were $25! We do have a washing mashine here, but as we understand it, pretty much all it does is swirl the clothes around- you still have to wring them out and dry them on a clothes line in our hallway. Definitely a slow process! Luckily our interpreter was able to find a dry cleaner/laundry, so now hopefully I can put on my pants without fear!

I don't think we've posted anything about the driving here. Honestly, traffic lanes mean nothing at all. It's nothing to go into oncoming traffic- you just honk and go! The only time I have been seriously concerned was at an intersection where there were maybe 10 cars stopped in front of us going our direction and 10 coming toward us. Our driver just went past all the cars stopped ahead of us. So, there we are stopped at the light in the path of the oncoming traffic. When the light changed, he just pushed his way infront of the car that had been in the front of the line of traffic in our direction. It was a little concerning. Our driver Phillipich doesn't speak English, so we really haven't been able to get to know him too much. He did let us know that we were insulting his driving by wanting to put on seat belts. His car is I would guess a late 80's Mercedes, so not too bad at all. There are definitely some very small european models that I wouldn't want to be in. The other thing that is hard to get used to is the interaction between cars and pedestrians. They definitely share the road. People just walk across the road wherever, it seems without even looking. They don't seem to have any fear of being hit. The drivers also don't seem to be particularly concerned with watching out for them. There have been a few times where I swear we must have actually brushed by a pedestrian, but no one seems disturbed by this at all. However, with all this, we haven't yet seen an accident so I guess their system works.

Not a whole lot more to report at this point. We have loaded some of our past pictures since accessing the high-speed connection, which are in this and the next post.

We really do enjoy receiving "comments" from everyone. It's very easy to feel disconnected here.



While in Almaty we basically had a free day before catching the flight to Uralsk, so we took a tour to the mountains. I can't remember the name-- Taechwan is what I want to say, but I'm sure that is not it. However I believe that our driver said these mountains also go into China. Since Almaty is in eastern Kazakhstan, that would make sense. There is a large ice arena (below) and ski resort in the mountains. We understand that Kazakhstan is in the running to host an upcoming winter Olympics at this park.


















These were some of our previous photos that we were having troubles downloading. I will probably be red in the face for all of the pics from the babyhouse. Even in a T-shirt it is HOT!! They really believe in keeping babies warm!









Amy & Sherry- can you believe I still have the cows??












For reasons unknown Kevin wanted to post a picture of the cereal we are currently eating for breakfast. This cereal is a bit of a mystery. While of course "big champs" is in english, the little blurb of whatever the mouse? is saying is in German on one side and French on the other. Fancy imported stuff I guess?

The other thing that is very hard to get used to is that mik is sold in a small box and is not refrigerated. It is very odd to buy unrefrigerated milk, and I can only imagine how many preservatives must be in there. It tastes just fine though, so no worries!