He’s Finally Arrived!

Amy did a great job summarizing our ordeal with the airlines (see post below). Needless to say, my version of the story wouldn’t have been as ‘family friendly’, and she’s right that I might have used a few expletives to fully describe the incompetence of our friends at NW airlines. Ahh, but to the fun stuff…

We arrived at Hotel Almaty early this morning, still dazed from our travels. However, we were quickly awakened from our collective stupor after our driver mentioned that Nurshai’s flight was scheduled to arrive in Almaty at 11:00 am, and our son should be in our arms before noon. The day was certainly beginning to look brighter.

Fortunately, his estimates were right on, as we got the call from the lobby (‘you must come to the lobby’… in stoic Russian accent) around 11:45am, at which time we scrambled for the miniaturized elevators and made our way to finally welcome Griffin to our family. I think we were both surprised by how well he looked, as we both felt that he would probably regress a bit during the 5+ weeks since our last visit. Not so – other than a few lingering spots from a rash that we knew about when we left, he looked physically healthy. And he was active, playful, and most important of all; he smiled after a few minutes of seeing us. All is well now.

We enjoyed the rest of the day hanging out over a late lunch, getting in a good afternoon nap (which it took all of my strength to awaken from), and a casual dinner under the stars (outside dinning at the hotel… nothing fancy, but convenient). Tomorrow morning we head to the SOS clinic to get the final medical review and approval, and should have the rest of the day to ourselves. Assuming all goes well there, we are then scheduled to go to the US Embassy on Tuesday for our final interview and paperwork, and Wednesday will be a contingency day in case anything pops up. Then we are back to the airlines Thursday… and homeward bound.

He’s sleeping peacefully in his crib now. Any misery associated with our travels seems pretty insignificant. Goodnight all.

Misery Loves Company (2nd Trip Travel Woes)

I’m going to author this post because if Jesse did it would all look like this %#!%&*. All along we’ve tried to maintain a positive fun blog, but instead I ask you to feel our pain!

We’re so eager to get back to Kazakhstan that we get to the Cincinnati airport early. We ask the ticket counter agent to help us work out our seat assignments on the return flights, the ones with Griff. He’s unable to help so he gives us 800 # to call. Jesse calls the 800# to discuss our situation… we’re traveling with a 17 month old who’s spent 90% of his day in a crib and major “freaking out” is highly possible. He explains that we’re hoping to have seats together and in the 2 seat section of the plane versus the 4 seat section in middle of the plane. The lady on the phone acts like we’re asking to change the orbit of the earth. She says she can’t help unless we’re ‘status members’ – bingo! -- Jesse has Delta Gold Medallion status. Delta and Northwest are both part of SkyTeam Alliance, so his status should work on this airline. The NWA lady says she can’t verify his status and refuses to help any further. A supervisor gets on the phone, calls Delta to verify his status as Gold and then says she can’t really help because the flights are full and then literally hangs up on Jesse. The very frustrating phone calls last almost 45 minutes and we got nowhere!

As we’re sitting at the gate waiting to leave the NWA agent says we’re going to be delayed because the flight before us is delayed going to Minnesota and they have to wait for the pilot to move that plane out of the way so we can began boarding our plane. Moving us to another open gate would have been too easy, right. We start to panic now because we only have one hour in Detroit to catch our next flight to Amsterdam.

RUN FOREST RUN… we get to Detroit at 9:05p.m. and our flight leaves at 9:20. We land in terminal C but have to get to terminal A. We ran, seriously ran, through the airport. I’m sure looking like two big ole dorks; me in my flip flop sandals, pushing an empty baby stroller and Jesse dragging luggage behind him. He gets ahead of me (nice to be wearing running shoes) and I’m yelling … “just goooo, I’lllll catch up” We come running up to the gate, out of breath and red in the face and the airline agent looks scared to death and says, “But where is your baby?” Our only laugh of the day!

We’re the last to board the plane and feel encouraged when the pilot comes on to say there will be a slight delay while we wait for a few additional passengers and late luggage to be loaded. About 20 minutes later, there’s another announcement about a further delay, only this one ended up lasting almost 7 hours. Yes, it happened to us. We sat inside the plane on the tarmac with little or no air conditioning for 7 hours as they did a repair. We were not allowed to leave the plane “for security reasons”. After two hours we got a drink of water and after five hours we got a bag of pretzels. We sat for 7 hours on the tarmac and then had to endure the actual 7 hour flight. We got off the plane in Amsterdam, walked straight to the gate for the Almaty flight that is now boarding and walked directly onto the plane. No time to stop for a bathroom break or a sip of water, directly onto the plane and then sat for another 7 hour flight! For those that are keeping track, including the Cincy to Detroit flight, we had the joy of experiencing ~22 hours of time sitting in our less than 2 feet of coach space… together. You’ve got to be kidding me… I wanted to cry!

So we’re here now, in Almaty at the hotel, amazingly with all of our luggage. We’re laying down with our legs propped up to help reduce the leg pain and swelling. You should see Jesse’s ankles, they look like baseballs. And we’re thrilled to be waiting for Griffin to arrive… very soon the last 24 hour nightmare will be forgotten.

Robeez Shoe Donation

We'd like to send out a huge THANK YOU to Robeez Shoes for their generous donation. Robeez donated 30 pairs of their adorable shoes to the Baby House in Shymkent. Let me tell you...these shoes are so cute! I applied to be a part of their Heart & Soles Program and was accepted. The donation was shipped to our house here in the States and we'll deliver it to our coordinator in Kazakhstan. A special thanks to Robeez employees Stephanie and Kelly for your assistance in making this happen.

You can find out more about Robeez (a division of Stride Rite) at www.robeez.com

Hang on Griff... we'll be there soon!

We're heading back to Kazakhstan very soon to bring our son home.

The time between trips has been very difficult to endure. We've done our best to stay busy and concentrate on preparing for Griffin's arrival. His room is ready: the bed made, the clothes washed, the diapers purchased.

It won't be long until we have one Moore in the house.

The End of Trip One

Home Sweet Home

Our flights home were uneventful: very long and painful for the muscles and joints but well worth it upon seeing the smiling faces of Connor and Lana at the airport.

The only problem... we can't wait to get back to Kazakhstan.

A Day in Almaty

On Tuesday morning we took the quick flight from Shymkent to Almaty.

Arriving in Almaty was like taking in a breath of fresh air. The feel of Almaty is so different from Shymkent. The city sits in the mountains so the view is amazing. The streets are lined with big trees, the sidewalks are even, the drivers follow traffic laws and many young people speak English.

We spent the warm afternoon walking around the city. We walked to the tourist walking street (similar to Arbot Street in Moscow) where many vendors sell souvenirs. There are shops, restaurants and ice cream stands. We met up with the Dickey's and had one last dinner together. A very enjoyable day.

For anyone coming to Almaty soon... Hotel Almaty is clean and has big rooms and is centrally located, but we didn't like it that much. The room was $170 per night. We could hear the street traffic at night and the shower didn't work well.

Last Days in Shymkent

The last couple days in Shymkent...

Sunday we started the day with a brief meeting with Nurshia and Zhenia to discuss our court appointment. Later that day we finally made it to lunch at a place called AN, we can’t get there during the week because they close at 3:00p.m. They serve a dish called ‘plovf’. It’s a rice dish with carrots, raisins, chick peas and mutton / lamb meat. (I have eaten more lamb in the past month than I have my whole life!) Plovf is delicious and get this… a huge bowl of plovf is $1.25. One of the best lunches we’ve had and it only cost $2.50, amazing!

Sunday afternoon we were invited to a picnic. The invitation to the picnic came in the oddest of ways. We were invited by complete strangers. Saturday evening about 9:30 at night there is a knock on our hotel door and I open the door to find two smiling girls. They quickly say “hello”. They tell me they had heard about the American couple staying in the hotel and they wanted us to come to the picnic so they could practice speaking English with us. It goes against all things normal in the States: one the hotel staff gave them our room number, two they don’t know us at all and three they were so nice and sincere with their offer. The picnic time was pushed back so we were unable to attend… much to the disappointment to the girls. They came back to the hotel Monday night to say good-bye. Complete strangers coming to say good-bye. I honestly don’t even know their names.

The reason we were unable to attend the later picnic time was because we had plans with another stranger who wanted to speak English and ask questions about America. I know it’s very odd, but hey what else do we have to do?… might as well take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Kazakhstan. We met this very intriguing young Russian girl while trying to figure out how to add minutes to our KZ cell phone. She over-heard us struggling with the Russian directions on the phone card and nicely asked if she can help us. After a few minutes of conversation and many thanks, she asked if we’d have coffee with her on Sunday.

The coffee conversation on Sunday was fascinating. She is desperate to get to the US or Europe to go to college. She’s trying to find a college that offers scholarships to International Students. She doesn't have the money to fund a US education by herself.

The fascinating part of the conversation revolved around her current education. She has an associate’s degree from a university in Shymkent, but the degree is considered worthless. Most of the college degrees earned in Shymkent have little merit in other cities in Kazakhstan and are not honored in other countries. She will have to start her education over in Russia, Europe or the US. How can that be??? In her words, “Corruption and bribes”. She describes an environment where students can pay professors for good grades. This practice is so common that it degrades the integrity of the entire higher education system. The students who get professional jobs after college get the jobs because of family connections or bribes. She completely understands this system is terrible for Shymkent and for the whole country and she’s wants out. If anyone out there knows of scholarships or internships for international students please let us know.

On Monday, the 28th, morning we prepared for court. We made a quick visit to the Baby House to see Griffin one last time before leaving but he was sleeping so we were told to come back later. We had our court appointment and everything went fine. The judge granted our adoption but it does not become official until the end of the 15 day appeal period. It’s hard to feel true excitement at this point.

After court we went for a quick visit with Griffin. He was in a good mood and didn’t understand the extra hugs and tearful good-bye. It’s so hard to leave him! We just keep telling ourselves it’s only one more month and he’ll be home.

We ended the last day with a quick dinner at Istanbul and an evening of joyful packing.