A year since the decision that would change our lives for the better :)
07 Sep 2010 3 Comments
Wow!! It’s been exactly one year ago today that we made it through that nerve racking day in court to officially become Coopers’ parents.
The time has flown by. Being thrust into the position of being a dad has been very rewarding for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better son. The adjustment for Cooper has also gone well. Tanya and I would like to thank all of our family and friends for making the transition go so smoothly. Going from just a little dog to having an energetic toddler with endless energy is quite a makeover.
Cooper has had an exciting year. He has grown a lot and experienced a lot. Physically in the last six months alone he’s grown 8.9 centimeters and gained 4 lbs. His vocabulary is also increasing daily. We are still however working on getting him to say his name properly. When he says Cooper it sounds like poo poo, Which can be pretty interesting/funny in front of strangers.
He, like his dad, is a boy who loves to have fun and can have fun in many different ways whether it be spending time with his cousins and extended family or just spending time by himself or following mom around. He has a great sense of humor but can be mischievous at times. The days seem to never be long enough for him. Or short enough for his parents 
The pics below are just some of the highlights of the past year. (Click on the picture to get a larger view)
My first bowling experience
Eating Yum!
Feeding the dog (Scully)
Fun at Kazapalooza 2010
Go-karting. Dad use the brakes!!
Hiking
Rides at the Corn and Apple Festival
Splashing with daddy
Tubing with my Uncle and Aunty
8 Months
08 Jun 2010 6 Comments
Today it’s been exactly 8 months since we arrived home with Cooper. 8 months ago when we started our plane journey home, and Cooper had the worst plane ride ever, I didn’t think I’d survive the 23-hour flight. There were a couple times when I seriously considered the possibility of using a parachute. LOL But it’s amazing at what 8 months can do. Now I can look back at that time and smile and – almost – even laugh about it.
We’ve had some adventures these past few months, and like a good book, I’ll tell you about today and where we’re at, and then I’ll spend the next several blog posts filling you in on where we’ve been.
My favorite part about this whole journey is seeing how much Cooper loves his family. And I’m not really trying to brag about ourselves here, but really our entire extended family. Cooper lives for family gatherings, birthday parties, really any family event. He talks about his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. constantly. He is beside himself when I tell him that we are going to visit family. Or when a family member’s vehicle pulls in our driveway, there’s no way to contain the jumping up and down and shrieks of excitement.
If any of you out there are considering adoption, I can’t tell you enough how amazing it is. I still have such a hard time wrapping my brain around the thought that less than a year ago, we hadn’t met Cooper and he hadn’t even met his forever family yet. I can’t even fathom how different his life and ours could have been. So today, I just wanted to take a little trip down memory lane. Many of you probably haven’t seen any of these pics yet, since we didn’t post pics of Cooper until Gothca Day. So allow me to reminisce a bit…
Our very first meeting with Cooper on August 4th, 2009:
(Doesn’t he look so excited to see his Mama & Dada? )
First picture with Dada – and no Ken was not posing, that was his natural reaction. That’s why I love this picture so much.
First picture with Mama (I’m just pretending I’m calmer than Ken).
And here’s Cooper and Dada just last week. I’m not sure why they both have such serious expressions, but it was the most recent photo I could find and I found it interesting to compare it with the photo of the two of them above.
And here they are swimming at the hotel we stayed at last week.
Like I said, so much has happened in the past 8 months. It’s been a really great time of bonding and an awesome journey…
Is it 2010 already?
10 Jan 2010 4 Comments
Life with Cooper seems to have flown right on by – and here we are right into the deep freeze of January already! Obviously I haven’t been blogging myself much recently. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading everyone else’s Kaz adoption blogs. In fact, reading them (and emailing some of the awesome Kaz families we’ve met through this whole journey) has made me ‘homesick’ for Kaz. Ken thinks I’m a bit crazy, but I really miss some of our experiences there. And the time we had to focus on family life without the regular, mundane day-to-day distractions was, well…priceless!
Cooper has had a lot of adventures in the past few weeks and we already have quite a few adventures planned for 2010. I won’t name all the coming adventures right now (I have to save something to write about in future blogs 
) but I will let you know that we are signed up to go to Kazapalooza in June and we’re REALLY looking forward to it!
Some of you might be wondering, what exactly is Kazapalooza – well here’s an explanation taken right from the Kazapalooza blog:
The first Kazapalooza was held in Chicago in June of 2008. Over 40 families participated in the weekend events. The second Kazapalooza was held in Nashville in June of 2009 and over 6o families attended. The goals of Kazapalooza are as follows:
1. To give families who adopted from Kazakhstan a friendly inviting weekend to get together and celebrate adoption.
2. To give our adopted children the yearly experience of being around friends who are also adopted from Kazakhstan and have a shared history and culture.
3. To raise money for a charity (which will be chosen yearly by the planners) which solely helps the orphans left behind in Kazakhstan.
4. To have fun!
So, you can expect to hear a lot more about that in the coming months.
In the meantime Cooper had a most excellent Christmas and New Year’s. He started off with a family sleepover at Nana and Papa’s house on Christmas Eve. Then after a big Christmas dinner on the 25th, it was home for a good night’s sleep and then we were off to the cabin for the weekend. Then we came home for a few days, re-packed our suitcases and went to Minneapolis for the New Year’s weekend (along with Marla, Tracy & the boys). Cooper had a great time swimming, shopping, going to the Rainforest Cafe, goofing around with his cousins, having Uncle Tracy take him and all his cousins (yes, you can fit 4 boys into one cart!) to get all the samples at Sam’s Club, and running across the hall every morning to see if his cousins were up yet.
Well, I might as well stop boring you with all my yammering and instead I’ll show you some of the other highlights.
Here he is all dressed up for church on Christmas Eve:
And here he is with Mom & Dad (and a half-hidden Scully) too:
He got SO many gifts – too many to name, although he loves them all!
He became an official Calgary Flames fan (along with all his cousins):
And then he had some help opening this big box:
Which turned out to be a sled (he even tried it out under the stars on a balmy Christmas Eve):
Then it was off to bed and before long it was Christmas morning! Here he is waiting patiently with Tate to start opening his big haul of presents:
Then it was off to the cabin where he enjoyed playing hockey with his cousins (now he just needs to learn the right way to hold the stick )
He was very busy reading with Nana:
And getting Papa to lift him up so he could touch the ceiling:
His cousin generously let him borrow his hat to cheer for Canada’s hockey team:
Some mornings we had some really crazy bed-head (I guess we still needed that hat!):
But we didn’t really care because soon it was time to bundle up and go outside:
We hope your year is off to a great start as well. Bye, bye for now!
Finally, an update on Cooper G!
09 Nov 2009 4 Comments
Well, I have to admit that being back and trying to settle into our new ‘normal’ life has been a bit more hectic than I imagined. Here I was hoping to blog 2-3 times a week and now I realize that it’s been weeks since our last blog entry! Now that things are settling down a bit I hope to get into a bit more of a blogging routine. But in the meantime, we have been busy, so here’s some photos to let you know what Mr. Cooper G (or Mini Cooper as some people have been apt to call him) has been up to.
We were at some costume parties and of course we went Trick or Treating so Cooper got to have a few costume changes. Here is the happy tiger:
And here’s the little-less-thrilled dinosaur:
We’ve also been busy raking leaves:
And exploring around in the closet while Mommy was busy in the kitchen:
And then this past weekend was Cooper’s very first journey to the lake. Cooper & I were fortunate that we got to go early on Friday morning with Nana & Papa (Daddy had to wait to join us once he was done work for the day). Since there are now four little boys who will be spending lots of time at the cabin (Cooper & his 3 cousins Bentley, Ethan & Tate), Papa decided that the smaller bedroom with just one bunkbed and a toddler bed crammed in the corner just wouldn’t do any more. So, sorry to tell all the visitors that are used to sleeping in the “Blue Bedroom” but you’ve now been moved to the smaller room and the little boys have been promoted. We’re thinking of calling the room “Camp Betula” or maybe the “Army Barracks”. But anyways, now there is a bedroom filled with two bunkbeds and a ton of toys. Cooper can’t wait ’til his first official cabin sleepover with his cousins. Ken’s wondering if there is a way we can soundproof the room so the adults are oblivious to all the commotion that’s bound to go on in there.
Anyways, Cooper was very eager to help Papa set up the new bunk bed. He observed for a while:
And then he was ready to try it himself:
After that Papa had a hard time getting the drill back so he could finish up the project:
It was a gorgeous fall weekend so were able to sit outside and enjoy the weather:
And we had lots of opportunities to go on walks:
We definitely want to say a big THANK YOU for all the showers that were thrown for us and for all the extremely generous gifts that we’ve received. We so appreciate each and every one of them. Also, this Sunday (November 15th) we’ll be having Cooper’s child dedication at our church service. It’s going to be at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre at 10:30 on Sunday morning and you’re more than welcome to come join us. Bye for now…
Back to normal plus 1
19 Oct 2009 6 Comments
It has been great catching up with family and friends. It’s hard to believe that we have already been home for a little more than a week. Time has flown by so fast.
It was so great to see so many people at the airport as we groggily made our way down the escalators upon our arrival. It was even nice to be able to spend time with family right after at our place even as we were so physically and emotionally exhausted from the agonizing 24 hour day of flying over 11 time zones .
Last week was a huge adjustment for all of us starting with me going back to work and Tanya staying home with Cooper and trying to get everything in order and back to some normalcy.
It’s been fun to watch Curious Cooper as he takes in all the new people and things around him. He has already met many of our nice neighbors and he has already had many new firsts. Here are just some of them.
His first meal at home
And very first Thanksgiving at Great Grandma & Grandpas with yummy pumpkin pie
And we can’t forget joining the bigger boys to watch a little football
He’s already had many fun times with cousins
And even a chilly trip to the local playground
This week/month/year has given us a lot to be thankful for. This past week has reminded me of that often. We can’t wait to see what’s next as we experience many more firsts with Cooper. Stay tuned
Home Sweet Home
10 Oct 2009 15 Comments
in Adoption
Hello everyone. Sorry it’s taken us a while to post. Yes, we made it home (just barely, but we did it! ) Let’s just say the flights were stressful at the best of times. LOL I think Jila is exactly right when she says 18 months is probably one of the toughest ages to fly at. Cooper had the hardest time getting comfortable and every time he drifted off to sleep he squirmed and writhed around and didn’t sleep very long at all. It made it hard too because he was too big for the baby beds and too small to have his own seat. So after about 30 minutes on the plane we were all tired, uncomfortable and irritable. And we tried not to think that we had 23 more hours of that feeling. Ha ha.
But eventually we made it home and we all felt so good to be home at last! We had a great welcome at the airport – thanks to everyone that came down to see us. I know we were probably quite smelly and our brains were quite fried so I don’t think we were making much sense, but it was nice to see you all nonetheless. Then Cooper got to go for a car ride with his new cousins Bentley, Ethan & Tate (& his Auntie Marla) and soon we were home at Cooper’s new digs.
We got in the house and everyone said that I should take a look around. Part of me barely remembered the house since we moved in December and then we were off in July – but once I took a look around I was so overwhelmed by what everyone had done (& I know I speak for Ken here too).
Before we left I didn’t have much time to do up the baby room. I had some ideas that I wanted to do a Dr. Seuss theme because I love reading, I love Dr. Seuss and it seemed like a good theme for either a boy or a girl. But when it comes to home decor, I have ideas but I have no idea how to execute them. When we were in Kaz, I once thought to myself “Wouldn’t that be nice if someone came and did up the baby room as a surprise” but I really didn’t expect it and the outcome was beyond my wildest dreams. Well, I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this, am I? I’ll try to show you some pictures just to give you a little idea of what my family did for us. If I understand correctly, the main leads on this project were my two sisters Marla & Trisha and my cousin Jocelyne. Also my mom Nana took care of a lot of the details (& cleaned the whole place for us, bought us lots of groceries and fed us when we got home). And the supporting cast were my nephews (Bentley, Ethan & Tate) who gave Cooper a TON of their toys (& a whole play structure) and I’m sure my dad and my two bro-in-laws. And if there is anyone else I’m missing, we are very, very grateful for all your work too!
This really did play out like an episode of ‘While You Were Out’. Now I understand why everyone cries (with happiness of course, except for some really silly people) when they see the final reveal. I know walking into Cooper’s room and seeing how much he liked it and how cozy it felt, made my eyes get really misty.
This is what Cooper’s room looked like before we left. (Actually it looked worse than that but I think my family made it look a little better when they staged it to take a picture. )
And this is what it looks like now:
(Just the wall decals aren’t up in this photo yet.)
And Nana also made sure all Cooper’s clothes were ready in his closet and dresser:
I keep going around the house and finding little things everywhere – like shoes in the closet, new winter hats for Cooper, new socks, etc. etc. It’s so awesome and we are so fortunate that everyone has looked out for every little detail for us. When we got home on Thursday we were standing in Cooper’s room, I was so tired and I realized we had used the last diaper. So I said to my sisters that I had to go out and get more diapers and they said “Maybe you should look under the change table” and there were tons of diapers there. That made me feel SO grateful!
To top it all off, they went even further and did up some other rooms in our house for us. I still hadn’t had time to put any artwork on our walls in our living room:
So they blew up pictures of Cooper and us and put them on the wall:
And then they even transformed the area downstairs (that I had always envisioned as a play area) into a safari theme play area. Here’s what it looked like before (lots of random furniture and mainly unused, dead space):
And here’s what it looks like now:
It seems so appropriate that this is Thanksgiving weekend, because we have SO much to be thankful for!
Well, I could go on and tell more stories, but I’d better sign off for now and I’ll continue on Monday. I’ve hidden in the computer room to get this written, but I can tell Daddy is getting a little antsy to be relieved as the play partner. Who knew getting up at 6AM on a Saturday morning and having to play, play, play could be so exhausting?!
Hello Everyone – It’s Scully Here!
08 Oct 2009 12 Comments
in Adoption
Well, since I finally made it home, I thought I’d rush around and get a few things ready. It seems that there were so many preparations for the overseas trip, that very little in the way of preparing for life at home was accomplished. So, with only a few hours until the big arrival…
I started with my favorite place…..
(keep scrolling down)
The backyard of course!
Then I put some necessities out… I personally think that these two go together….
There were a few things I’m not sure where they came from….. Africa???
So hey, Cooper! I think I’m ready for you!
Just remember one thing…
Even though you got your own room…
I’m the princess around here!
Just joking…
I had you a little scared, didn’t I?
Really…..
WELCOME HOME COOPER!
I love you so much already
and I don’t even know you yet!
(See yesterday’s blog for arrival info.)
Homeward Bound
07 Oct 2009 21 Comments
in Adoption
Thanks for all your prayers, positive thoughts and well wishes.
Yesterday we were down to 3 options: a kindhearted stranger to bring our paperwork along on the plane with them, our Moscow contact buying a very expensive plane ticket at our expense to fly the docs to us, or having the docs sent by train and rescheduling our flights to Monday.
Obviously the first option was the most preferable albeit the least likely to happen. Well, I’m happy to say that miracles really do happen! We got the call at midnight last night that some kindhearted soul was bringing our paperwork and at 6:30AM our coordinator in Astana phoned to say she had the docs in her hands. So now we are madly packing and we should be in the air by 5:50PM Winnipeg time today (Wednesday). And after a 24 hour journey we should be arriving in Winnipeg at 5:30PM on Thursday. You are more than welcome to come to the airport if you would like to. We will be arriving from Toronto on Air Canada flight #267 at 5:33PM on Thursday, October 8th.
What a year it’s been for us. We went into 2009 thinking that we would get a call to go to Kaz most likely in the winter of 2010. So while we were waiting we decided to go along with our church on a life-changing trip to Africa in February. Then in May we got the call that our letter of invitation had arrived. Surprise! A few other families from our agency got their invites around the same time, although they were invited into Kaz within a couple weeks. I began to worry a little bit when it turned out we were only invited to arrive in August. I’ve heard of other families whose departure day was close and then their agency phoned to tell them their invitation had been postponed. But we decided to just trust the process and have some faith so when July 21st rolled around we got on the plane to Germany and prayed that there wouldn’t be any last minute changes. We had an awesome time in Salzburg, Munich, Heidelberg, the Rhine Valley & Frankfurt and before we knew it we were on a plane to Astana. I kept telling Ken “I hope they know we’re coming.” I was totally envisioning being stranded in Astana but within about 10 seconds of clearing customs I heard someone call my name and there was our coordinator Bayan. At this point it was midnight so we had a short sleep at an airport hotel and in the morning we were whisked off to Borovoe and then finally to the baby house in the afternoon. And then we finally met our Cooper – once he finally awoke from his nap. To think that he was very quiet, shy and unsure of us that day. Sometimes when it’s a little wild around here I wonder where that calm, quiet boy is.
I won’t bore you with all the details right now but after some waiting, some hurdles, some more waiting, completion of some major steps, some more waiting, a few more hurdles…here we are 2 months &
3 days later getting ready to come home.
There are so, so, so many people to thank I’m sure that we’ll forget someone so please know that we appreciate the support of each and every one of you.
Mom & Dad Neumann – Thank you for your support in every way imaginable. Without you this whole process never would have happened – literally. Cooper is very excited to come home and meet his Nana & Papa.
Jeff & Trisha – Thank you for taking care of (& loving) our dear Scully. We loved hearing all her updates and it makes us happy to know she has a second home where she is so comfortable.
Greg & Marcie – Thanks for taking care of our house for over two months. That is a huge job and we so appreciate all the time and energy you’ve taken to do that.
Marla, Trac & the boys – Thank you for calling so regularly, for giving good advice and even for posting our blog and forwarding the comments to us. Thanks also for all the hand-me-downs. Cooper is already putting them to good use. We are looking forward to him having some new cousin playmates.
Chris – Thanks for always, always being such a reliable (& willing) on- call dog sitter.
All the Kaz adoptive parents (particularly Jila and Julian & Sara) – Thanks for all the support and advice. When you’re halfway around the world and you’re confused or bewildered about what’s going on it’s very reassuring to hear from people who’ve been there & done that.
Our adoption agency in Canada, our social worker and all the people who worked for us here in Kaz – without you there is NO way we would have been able to navigate this complex process on our own. A big HUGE thanks!
To anyone who gave us a phone call – Thanks for lifting our spirits and letting us hear a familiar voice from home.
To all our regular faithful blog commenters – Thanks for being so loyal. We looked forward to your comments to brighten every one of our days.
To anyone who left a comment – Thanks for giving us a pick-me-up on days that at times were monotonous or stressful.
To our anonymous readers – Thanks for taking the time to read about our journey. We hope you enjoyed it even a small fraction as much as we did.
To all our family & friends who kept us in your prayers – Thank you, it made a HUGE difference.
To all the strangers who kept phoning us and keeping us on the line babbling something in Russian even when we told you we couldn’t speak Russian – Thanks for keeping us such good company
To Cooper – Thanks for letting us be your Mom & Dad. We’ll try very, very hard to do a good job.
As for the future of this blog, we are probably going to keep blogging at least a few times a week. Hopefully we’ll have some interesting stories to tell you. Well we hope to see most of you in person very, very soon. Paka for the final time from Kazakhstan!
More bus adventures In Kazakhstan
06 Oct 2009 6 Comments
in Adoption
Yesterday afternoon with Cooper in the Ergo and city map in hand, we decided to test our luck with the transit system in Astana.
We had planned on doing a little souvenier shopping in the old part of Astana since we hadn’t had much luck finding keepsakes in the new part of the city.
In Astana the buses all seem to be numbered so after asking around in our limited Russian, we were able to decipher that #10 would get us to where we wanted to go. We boarded the bus to find out that we should have instead taken the #10 bus in the opposite direction.
After some time we were able to finally make it to this cute little souvenier shop called Talisman. For the most part we have found it very hard to find any stores that sell a lot of traditional Kazak items. We’ve asked many locals and the best that we got from them was that the Talisman store was our best bet, and it didn’t dissapoint. We saw many of the traditional clothing and items that we had seen in Kaz pictures as well as worn by some people in public.
We decided to fill our stomachs before we purchased the whole store and were very happy to discover that just across the street was TGI Fridays.
How many people back home can say they ate at a TGI Fridays in Kazakhstan. Well we can now The food was pricey but good. We did have one funny moment though. I asked if refils on coke were free and they said no, so I went back to our table. They must have understood it as I wanted one anyways because they delivered one to me some time later even though I was just asking. It reminded me of the time a similar thing like that happened back at Cafe Alina while in Lake Burabay.
Anyways, a little later the manager dropped by and in her very limited English asked, “Who gives free refils” to which we replied, “In America”. She then mentioned that today they would give a free refil for us. When the bill arrived we discovered that we had been charged for the refil. No big deal, but after paying for the bill the manager approached us with two free Cokes in cups to go. Of course at this point we didn’t really want them but graciously took them anyways. We later laughed it off as another moment of misscommunication as what had happened with the bus earlier.
We did manage to get some shopping done (mostly Tanya) because it was starting to get a little late and Cooper seemed a little tired of waiting around on dad’s back (translation: he was getting a little wrangy).
It was time to go so we managed to ask around and this time pick the
#117 bus. This turned out to be a big mistake but only because we were packed like sardines in it and I just happened to have a less then happy kid on my back.
After what seemed like an eternity we were able to get off at our stop and then calm was finally restored after arriving to our flat, having a quick snack and then bedtime for liitle exhausted Cooper.
We both then had a moment to ponder that today’s bus rides had most likely been another first for Cooper
Today’s post is hopefully our second last before our trip home. We should know within the next 24 hours whether or not our final paperwork will be able to be in our hands in time to make Thursday’s flight so we can be home in time for Thanksgiving.
We will be praying very hard for that to happen.
Patience & Preserverence
05 Oct 2009 3 Comments
in Adoption
First of all my apologies that there will be no more blog photos until we return home. Alas we don’t have the proper resources to upload photos to our ipod.
I think yesterday was intended to be a lesson in patience & preserverence. Let’s hope the next few days are more along the lines of yesterday’s message topic in Morris: peace. Now those of you that have had one year olds around the house are probably wondering ‘what was she thinking having coffee AND a laptop so close within kiddo’s reach?’ Yes I realize now that in my groggy early morning state I probably wasn’t thinking too much at all. I was trying to do some quick research on ways to get our docs back from Moscow and Cooper was happily feasting on some Cheerios watching cartoons so I figured I had a window of opportunity. But as I looked up and saw Cooper dashing towards me I realized the error of my ways.
I had about 3 seconds to try to move my coffee to higher ground, shield the computer, and reason with a 1 year old why pushing, pulling or touching the computer was a VERY bad idea. Well you all know how it turned out!
I didn’t think that much coffee had sloshed on it but apparently it doesn’t take very much. Once I cleaned the coffee off the couch I went to restart the computer and that’s when I realized we had a problem and I ran to wake up Ken. “Ken wake up, I think the computer is wrecked.” “Did you turn the computer over as soon as it happened?”
“Ummmm, ooops no.” I think Ken may have been more upset if he really liked the laptop but he’s never been a fan of it and it was something we had to buy out from a previous job (long story). Anyways Ken has it all in pieces and he’s trying to dry it out but he’s pretty much written it off. The good news is that he thinks we’ll likely be able to get all our pics off the hard drive – plus good thing we have about 70% of our pics & video backed up to an external harddrive. So that leaves us with our trusty iPod and now here I sit using a teeny tiny keyboard typing with one finger. It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re determined. LOL Yesterday we headed to the Mega Center mall to try out their Internet cafe there. That’s the mall with the best indoor play structure and yesterday Cooper and I were pleased to discover there were 3 more play areas we had not yet discovered. Sidenote: why don’t the malls in Winnipeg (besides the small one in St. Vital) have play structures?
Cooper spent over an hour playing near the Internet cafe. The area was packed with kids – most who were a lot bigger and older than him – and even though some of them were being bullies he held his own and had a great time. We had to drag him away from the play structure and on the way home he fell asleep in the Ergo riding on Daddy’s back.
We’ve had a few awkward moments at the play areas. Sometimes Moms will try to talk to me and I just smile and say that I’m sorry I don’t understand. It also feels strange because I have no idea what the kids or moms are saying to Cooper although he seems to understand them.
Also there’s been a few times where he’s run up to people because I think they remind him of people from the baby house. I totally understand but I’m looking forward to being home so that I can understand what’s going on and so things will hopefully not be so confusing for Cooper.
Like we’ve mentioned before they are constantly working on all sorts of construction in this part of Astana. Outside there are cranes all over and in our building we can often hear drilling and hammering. At times it can be quite loud like as if you are sitting in your living room and someone is working away in the kitchen. Cooper doesn’t seem to mind the drilling but he seems to be a little uncertain of the hammering. I’m ashamed to admit that I sometimes use this fact to my advantage and if Cooper is a little squirmy getting into his PJ’s or in the bathroom, I get Daddy to make a little hammering noise and suddenly the squirming stops. And finally the latest news on our paperwork…after weighing our options we’ve basically whittled it down to two. Thanks for all the advice you gave – especially Julian & Sara – to help us figure out which options were viable and which were not. Basically it boils down to hoping and praying that our contact in Moscow can convince some kindhearted passenger to take the docs on the plane on Tuesday night.
If not then the docs will have to come by train and we will scramble to try to rebook our tickets for Monday and hope that Ken makes it back in time to get to work on Tuesday. So that’s the latest. We REALLY appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. We’ll keep you posted on any developments. Paka for now!
Editor’s Note: Because of the issues above and the necessity of updating through their IPOD, Ken and Tanya are having difficulty accessing WordPress to update their blog. Each day they have been emailing their blog post to me and I have been posting for them. On days (such as today) when I don’t receive their blog entry before I leave for work, I may have to post later in the day. Sorry! – Tanya’s sister Marla
