June 22 and 23- Gate Crashing

June 22nd

Today on the way to the orphanage I realized that there was a problem with the adoption certificate, which meant one last trip to the notary in Astana, or so I thought. I was supposed to buy flowers on the way, but there was not enough time with the unplanned notary visit. Needless to say we were running extra late, so I flew through the orphange tossing gifts at people left and right, picked up Andrew and we crashed the gates of the orphange one last time. He's now under my care 24x7....and Rob's in a week or so.

We jumped on the plane to Almaty, and Andrew did pretty good. He played with the barf bag for a while before take off and kept throwing it in the aisle which made quite a few passengers worrisome. Then he assisted the Pre-Flight demonstration by waving the information card in the aisle for everyone to see. The guy seated next to me looked quite worried, but 5 minutes after take off Andrew fell asleep until about 2 minuts before landing.

Almaty is is much greener than Astana. We got to the hotel fed them and went to sleep by midnight. But not before Natalie realized they gave us too small of a room.....we were bored one night at the internet cafe last week and printed out the Deluxe King description, which was not what we got. The room is livable, but kinda small. The reponse from Hyatt was "oh , so sorry.....we will correct the internet because the description is wrong." After 2 months in Kazakhstan, you better believe their mistake will not be my loss. Unfortunately there is a summit in town, and all the big rooms are booked by politicians. So halfway through our stay we will be upgraded to a Club Deluxe which has 2 rooms and a fancy bathroom, and free breakfast (full instead of continental) and 2 hours a day of free internet access (a $100 value with the hotel prices). So we are happy now. If I knew negotiating would have been so easy I would have asked for more, but they met all my demands on the first attempt!

All in all, the day was quite unmomentous given the importance of it.

June 23
Toway we had our medical visit at te International SOS clinic. Andrew was well behaved until he saw someone from the medical profession. They he screamed bloody murder. There was no question as to is his lungs were healthy. But he did not bite or scratch any of the nice people. Oe of mympapers fro the embassy is missing but they said it shodl be here by Monday so I can still hae my Embassy interview on Monday, then travel as soon as I get a flight....or June 29th at teh latest is United has not boogered up my flights again.

Andrew was pretty well behaved today....He had 3 poops on the pottie.....and 2 in the diaper. I think the Rabbit (no kidding) I fed him for lunch might not have agreed with him, but he ate it up. The only food he didn't like was the Potatoes and Squash. I tried to give him a bath in about 1/8" of water tonight and he freaked out, so I hosed him down, wrapped him in a towel and dressed him for bed. Natalie is watching the sleeping beauties while I consume one of our 2 free hours of internet use. I know have a headache from an hour of screaming....whcih Rob got to experience when he called this morning at feeding time.