Wednesday - May 7

Good Evening everyone. We've enjoyed another beautiful day in Uralsk. The weather is warm, not very sunny today, but nice. This morning was a lazy day for us, kind of nice since we haven't had many of them lately.

We headed to the market to search for the book we wanted. It is an adventure that's for sure. We tried 3 or 4 bookstores before one finally had the book Yulia had described for us. We were excited to find a souvenier type shop who had some reasonably priced things -- what was marked 400 tenge each he sold us for 200 tenge because we bought 8 of them. (As I've said before they know we're Americans just by looking at us) The gentleman at the store was actually leaving to go to lunch, he saw us and invited us into his store and was so helpful - he knew we were going to buy something!

Our visit went well. Veeka was brought to the visiting room and we played a game with the book we bought. Yulia helped us learn the Russian word for the toy and Veeka said the English word. After we went through them once Yulia decided we needed to be quizzed - first she had Veeka point to a toy and say the English word, we then had to point to a toy and say the Russian word. If anyone has ever tried to learn Russian it's not easy -- they do some funky rolling of the r's and e's have another odd sound to them -- they don't alway open their mouth to form the sound and Yulia would try to show us the sound but it's hard to see what the tongue is doing when the teeth are clamped shut. Oh my -- needless to say Veeka was the overall winner of that game!!

Anyone have ideas of games/activities that we can do in a room? We weren't prepared for someone so young so we're scrambling for ideas. We brought beads, coloring books & crayons, cards and even used some of that precious black yarn to do cats cradle. The visits aren't long but so far we haven't been allowed to take her outside to play -- no idea why -- we do have a nerf football and a frisbie if we can go out. We're doing some struggling with this.

Two wonderful things today -- the psychologist said that Veeka is happier than she was, she was so proud to share the cookies that we bought at the store. She also said that she has approved us for the adoption because of the changes she has seen in Veeka. YAY!!! Next -- at the end of the visit Veeka gave Hailee a big hug and a kiss on the cheek AND I got one too!!! It really warms the heart!!! (I'm sure the psychologist encouraged her a bit but we'll take it!) Jack is still waiting for his turn, but it will come in time ............

Jack was a happy man with dinner tonight -- we found hamburger when we shopped earlier this week (Yulia promised that it was hamburger) and so we made burgers. Couldn't find buns but we did find dinner rolls and they worked fine. Made our last box of macaroni & cheese and the canned corn they have here (which by the way is the sweetest, freshest tasting we've ever had) and it tasted/felt just like hom

Missing everyone, but feeling so much more hopeful and happy! Love to all!

Ending with a few pictures of our trip to the zoo. Quite interesting ........
The zoo is small with just a few animals really. The cages are 2-3 in a short semi-trailer.
There is a metal pan at the bottom of the cage that has a handle -- this is the way they feed the animals.
There was a camel and a monkey in the middle that you could have your picture taken with. There was also a small shetland pony that was available to ride for a few tenge.