(Maureen's Post)
It was a fairly warm day in Almaty today - the highs were somewhere in the mid-30's (Fahrenheit). Of course, after spending several days at subzero temps last week in Kokshetau anything over 25 degrees feels warm to us. Our bodies have acclimated to the cold weather here. Wonder what it will be like when we're back in Houston with even milder temperatures? We'll probably be sweating like pigs, I'll bet.

James is still having some trouble adjusting, and it's showing itself in more ways than one. Sleep (or lack of) is the obvious one. He's only been sleeping a couple hours at a time at night. His feeding has changed, too. He has decided that he no longer wants to eat the rice cereal snack with the formula chaser. He got upset yesterday when I tried to feed it to him. I tried again today and got a full blown meltdown. But he has no problem with the formula/rice cereal combo in a bottle, which is good. We'll just have to give him an extra bottle of that to make up for his snack until we get home and into a feeding routine. We were planning to just do bottles for the flights home, anyway.

This afternoon we went to the Tsum store with the Mechems and Jill Sullivan to do a little souvenir shopping on the third floor. We were there for a couple of hours, which was about all that James could take, anyway. I will probably return tomorrow to finish up. Afterwards, we all went to the American Bar & Grill. The setup is very much like a TGI Fridays, with a similar type of menu. The descriptions on the menu are quite interesting, though. Jill ordered a stuffed chicken and got something that looked like chicken cordon bleu. Also, just because something's on the menu does not mean that the dish is available that day. For example, Sean, Bob, and I all ordered cheeseburgers, but then were told that they weren't available today. Sean then ordered a burrito which was alright (it's not Tex-Mex!), and I got a Philly cheese steak sandwich with fries which was delicious. I also got a vanilla milkshake and it was excellent. Not surprising since the ice cream here is so good and creamy. Oh, and we also started out with some mozzarella sticks for an appetizer; they were pretty good. We just took it easy the rest of the evening in the apartment.

Being in a different country with a baby does have its challenges. There are conveniences in the U.S. that are just not available in other places, such as baby changing stations in the restrooms, or even running water that is generally okay to drink from the tap. It does force you to get creative sometimes. Jodi and I were saying that after having our babies for almost a month in a foreign country and with some families even having to deal with mysterious illnesses that we are all going to be pros at taking baby out with us once we're back in the U.S. Not to mention the changes in environment the babies are forced to deal with (from baby hospital to apartment to flying for 3 hours to another apartment to flying for 18 hours to home - all within a few weeks). If we can get through this, we can get through almost anything.

Our plan for tomorrow is to purchase a plane ticket for James and maybe go back to the Tsum. I can't believe that it's almost time to go home!

Paka and love to all!