Professional Sign Maker

We have spent the last couple days helping Comfort in her office.  Today I learned how to be a professional sign maker.  :)  I helped make one giant sign and about eight small metal signs.  I was pretty impressed with my first sign making attempt (shown below).  It was actually a HUGE two-sided sign.  It was fun to learn something new.

We continue to enjoy the scenery here.  Tonight on the way home, we saw a beautiful sunset.  These pictures don't do it justice, but hopefully you can imagine the beauty that we were able to see. 

 

 

Christmas and Star Gazing!

We have been having a great time as a family!  Tonight we celebrated Christmas together - my sister even provided a tree.  It was kind of funny because it was a Christmas Tree in a Box - a paper one that we put together before celebrating.

 It has been very relaxing.  We have been enjoying seeing the beauty around us change each day as weather conditions change (snow, sun, sunrise, clouds, sunset, etc).  We have also been playing games together and enjoying catching up.

 

 

Tonight Steve (Comfort's husband) brought his telescope up to the top of our little mountain.  He took us on a short tour of the night sky.  It was freezing, but amazingly beautiful.  We are going to go out again in a couple hours to see the things that weren't yet visible.

Montana!

We (my parent's and I) woke up at 4am in order to fly to Montana yesterday.  It was a pleasant flight with some great views as we got closer to Bozeman. 

 

We got into Bozeman in the afternoon, were picked up by Comfort and Steve and then grabbed some Wendy's on the way to see my sister's office.  It was really fun to see her office for the first time.  She has done such a nice job of fixing it up.  We were a bit surprised that it was warmer out here in Montana than it was in Ohio.  

We are staying in a really nice cottage up in the mountains.  It has a great view!   Here is shot out our window.  

This morning we woke up to a slight covering of new snow.  Here are two pictures, one from last night and one from this morning.  It has been beautiful so far and I look forward to another 10 days or so here with my family.

A Day of Parties

I am still trying to catch up on posts from our busy New Year's season.  On January 8th we hosted two New Year's parties.  Instead of trying to get these parties in before New Year's we decided to do them while the children had vacations so that we could spend more time with them. 

In the morning we hosted a party for all the children that we sponsor (except the youngest children's groups) at Saramoldaeva Orphanage.  We played games, did crafts, played more games, ate snacks, and gave them small gifts.  We even gave them an opportunity to write a letter to their sponsors.  They had a great time - so did we! 

In the evening we hosted a party for Rakhym.  We played games, shot off some great fireworks, ate grilled hamburgers (a first for these children) and even ended the evening singing happy birthday to the two boys.  The favorite games of the night were spoons and operation.  The evening went by extremely quickly, as 10pm came before we knew it and it was time to get them home so that they could get to sleep for their first day of school. 

This day marked the final day of our New Year's celebrations.  What a fun and busy month it was! 

Cell Phone

Today I got a local cell phone number.  Instead of posting my number online for anyone to see, I figured I'd just let you know that I have a cell phone and you can email me if you want the number.  :)  I have a limited number of minutes each month (with free nights and weekends).  I am also at my parent's house until Thursday so if you want to find me you can always call my parent's house as well.  Even though I am in the States, you can always use my Skype number (the US number I had while in Kazakhstan) to get in touch with me as well.  I will also try to keep my facebook profile updated with my current information, for those on facebook. 

Arrival in the States

I am currently sitting in the airport in Chicago typing away on hi-speed internet (that is actually hi-speed).  I have walked past McDonalds, Starbucks, Cinnabon, and many other really familiar names that I have missed.  It's funny, I never used to eat at McDonalds when I was in the States, but walking by I have this urge to buy french fries.  So far, my only purchase has been a Sports Illustrated magazine for my last flight and some gum. 

Well, I just wanted to let you know I am back in the States.  My trip was uneventful.  I was a bit concerned when I came down with a cold the day before traveling, but thankfully the first day was the worst and traveling hasn't been bad at all.  On the last flight I even got to sit at the bulkhead and had plenty of room for my long legs.  :)  There were also only three of us sitting in five seats, so we had plenty of room to stretch out without having to worry about invading each other's space.  I feel pretty rested considering the long trip and a cold. 

Tonight I will be watching playoff football with my folks and will just enjoy being "home" with them.  Well, I have to get going since my gate has changed and I have to move to a different terminal. 

Ulan New Years

This year we had the privilege of taking most of the children at Ulan Orphanage shopping to choose their own New Year's gifts. On the morning of December 31st our entire office staff went to Ulan Orphanage and delivered gifts. It was really fun to see the children unwrap their gifts. For me it was also exciting to have our entire office involved in the gift giving process. Often, so many of our staff play behind-the-scenes support roles and never get to see what their jobs make possible at the orphanages. We got some great pictures and even video as we went from group to group delivering gifts.

Due to some confusion, as children move regularly between groups at Ulan, some of the children did not receive their gifts when we went to their group. One thing that was fun for me was that when I promises to bring their gift when we found it, the children were willing to believe the promise. So often these children have issues with trust because they have had so many people let them down. It was encouraging for me to see that due to our longstanding relationship with them, they trusted us when we said that we would return and bring their gift. In the end, all the children received gifts and were extremely grateful to those that had donated the funds to allow them to shop for their own gifts.  You can go to the Interlink Blog for more details. 

Savva New Year

We had a chance to celebrate New Year's with Savva Orphanage by attending their New Year's Ball Masquerade. The children and caregivers prepared a 2 1/2 hour presentation, complete with dancing, skits, and singing. It was wonderful.


During the concert I was thinking about the idea of a parent going to their child's concert or recital. I was thinking of how boring the parts have to be when a parent's children are not involved. For example, I don't know how many violin recital's my parents had to sit through. They might have really enjoyed watching me perform, but I don't know that they enjoyed the whole thing.


As I thought about this I realized how thankful I am. During everyone performance one of "my children" was performing. I was so proud of them. They put so much work into it and their work paid off. The morning after the Ball Masquerade, we went from group to group giving out gifts to each child. What a great way to spend two days!

The End of the New Year!

On Thursday we hosted our last New Year's party at the orphanage.  As a result, Kids Connection is finally finished with 2008, only about 8 days late.  :)  I will try to catch up with some stories and pictures from each party over the next week.  I hope you enjoy them.

The big news for me currently is that I will be leaving Taraz in five days.  The last month has flown by!  I packed a lot of my things today.  I have a busy week this week, but it should be fun as I make my last trips to the orphanages and spend time with children.

I will spend two days in Almaty, and then fly out of Almaty on Sunday.  Sunday will be something like a 35 hour day.  I will leave Almaty at 3 am and arrive in Cleveland at 4pm on the same day. 

A few posts earlier, I shared a more specific calendar, but here is a brief summary of my time in the States.  I will spend my first couple weeks with my family (in Ohio and Montana) and then go to Denver for a week.  From there I will be in VA for a week and a half and MD/PA for a week and a half.  I will spend about 3 months in Muncie, IN - with a short trip to Oklahoma for Easter thrown in the middle.  At the end of May I will spend a week with my folks in Ohio and then travel back to Kazakhstan the first week of June.  I am looking forward to seeing so many of you during my time in the States.

Happy New Year!

I wish you all the best in this coming year!  Last night I got to spend the night with my Kazakh family bringing in the New Year.  We celebrate the New Year a bit differently here than we do in the States. 

First of all, it is a chance for families to eat food (lots of it) together.  We sat down for our first meal as 7pm and continued to have more courses (including dessert) until about 1am.  Basically, once we finished cleaning up from one round we would sit down to another.  We ate Pilov (a rice dish), baked chicken, pizza, four salads, bread, two cakes, and candy. 

At 11:50 the President of Kazakhstan comes on TV and gives a speech followed by a toast (at exactly midnight).  Everyone toasts with family and then runs out the door to set off fireworks.  This can be a little scary because everyone (children, adults, and even those that have had a bit too much to drink) have all sorts of different fireworks.  There are no fire department regulations that hold us back here.  Some people have fireworks that can compete with some of the fireworks in 4th of July displays in the States. 

The first year I was here, we went out on the balcony with our sparklers.  Since then, I had not been brave enough (which is saying a lot) to venture outside shortly after midnight.  This year I came to realize that I much prefer being on the ground than being on a balcony for the festivities.  It is better to have rockets shooting over your head rather than whizzing past your year.  We went outside with my two youngest host siblings and shot off some rockets and watched others as well.  There was only one time that I was a bit concerned for my safety and that was when a very short grandmother was holding a firework tube that shot into the air.  The flame seemed to go out, so she brought it down to eye level and it was somewhat pointing in our direction as it shot off.  Thankfully, it remained over our heads (just barely) although the sparks rained down on us.  

It was freezing outside, so we only lasted for about 15 minutes.  Then we came inside, had tea (which means all the food and dessert came out again), and started calling everyone we knew to congratulate them on the New Year.  I don't think I was allowed to go to bed until about 2:30 am.  I had a wonderful time hanging out with my family.  We brought all the food (including the cake) out for breakfast this morning at 12pm.