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Hi there! It's now Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. here in Kazakhstan and we have a bit more time for updating. I'm not sure what's up with our laptop but it's still not working from the apartment. We have a new plan . . . . we hope!

The apartment is nice, as I've said earlier, but there's a few things we left out because there wasn't much time to update. It's old, clean and comfortable -- no hot water for the last 3 days because they are cleaning out the system. It has been a lot like camping - heating water for everything. Interesting to picture us in a tub with about 2 inches of water washing our hair -- disgusting thought possibly, but true right now. Hailee wishes she had short hair right now! Tomorrow they should have the hot water back on --- a good warm shower sounds wonderful.

We've been to the market and shopping is interesting . . . . we're guessing on a lot of things. Do you know that 6% milk is absolutely gross???? So Hailee has had to settle for 2.5% which isn't quite so bad. It's kind of an adventure to find things. Hailee was looking for spaghetti sauce -- they don't have it so we're going to try a ketchup type sauce with some spices -- anyone want to join us for dinner? Truly though we are doing well -- learning lots about the culture. It's very different living in the apartment vs. the hotel last time. Ask me later which I like better because right now it's HOTEL all the way!!!

As for the orphanage visit -- we received the call about 11 this morning -- we were going at 11:40. YEAH! We finished getting ready and took the elevator (ask me about that too) from the 5th floor to wait for our driver. He's always right on time! All of us were nervous, even Yulia! It was us, the social worker, a teacher and the director. They asked us all kinds of questions and again, were more interested in Hailee than us. Finally we met the young girl -- she was so shy and scared. Never looking at us, whispering her answers and very reluctant. She added nothing. We brought a photo album and Yulia went through it with her, she was interested, but not smiling. It's going to be difficult we think.

After a bit she went back to class and we were told that the social worker approves of us and will allow us to continue to visit. We could come back at 2. We did -- we walked around the orphanage with the child and her caretaker -- she didn't interact at all. The caretaker suggested we go to her classroom and see it -- we spent over an hour there and found most of the kids to be very interested in everything, anything we had to say or do -- except our child. She sat off to the side playing games with another young girl. We are hoping that this will change -- tomorrow we will go and bring some games to play and see what happens.

The hard part of this is . . . if she does not want to come or we do not feel a connection we can start over, but with each child they show us it will be 14 days of bonding, not counting Sundays, before they will schedule a court date. It's a pressure situation right now. Please keep us in your prayers ............