New Pictures in the 5 McGills Blog

For updates on Hope see our combined family blog, The 5 McGills.

Look Out World - Here I Come!

Obviously, it took a little longer to update than I thought, but a lot has been going on since the last entry. We moved. It was quite an experience. Fortunately my parents came to help us otherwise it would have been a real nightmare. Now we’ll probably be unpacking boxes until the kids go to college. We were a little worried that Hope would have trouble adjusting to the new house and sleeping in her own room. We shouldn’t have been concerned. She slept in her own room (freshly painted yellow by Pop) the first night and never looked back. She was even more thrilled when her “big girl” furniture showed up a few weeks ago and we put up her princess decorations and flower curtains and lights.

She's an amazing little girl. She has met every new opportunity with her “I will do it myself” attitude and her 100 watt smile. In the short amount of time she’s been home she’s gone to the dentist, had her hair cut twice (yes, it’s still long, but not so wild anymore), been to see a few doctors, started preschool, been tested for school, switched to Kindergarten, started swimming lessons and gymnastics and gotten her brace for her right leg. Except for the brace, which has taken a few adjustments to get a comfortable fit, and doctors, who still aren’t her favorite people, she has approached everything with tremendous spirit. I’ve never met anyone who embraces life the way she does.


First visit to the dentist. Thanks to Tim for being such a great example of how fun the dentist can be.


Left - 1st day of preschool, Right - 1st day of Kindergarten

Her English is coming along at light speed and a kid that could only count to 10 in Kazakh and didn’t know her Kazakh alphabet now talks a mile a minute in English, knows the majority of her alphabet, has started to learn letter sounds, counts to 100 with a little help and does some basic math. She also has friends everywhere she goes. She’s gone from being the princess of the baby house to the princess of kindergarten. We switched her from preschool to Kindergarten with quite a bit of trepidation on the advice of a variety of doctors, educators, school psychologists and social workers. We shouldn’t have worried. The kids in her class were overwhelmingly welcoming and have been really wonderful to her as have her teacher and the classroom aide. She absolutely loves school and looks forward to each day. After some initial hesitation about swimming in the big pool at the YMCA she’s swimming with a flotation device to the deep end and jumping in with the instructor catching her and always with a big smile. She goes to gymnastics with her friend Anna and has made amazing strides. When she first started she needed help to jump down the trampoline and had to be pulled up the rope ladder. Now, she jumps down the trampoline while clapping her hands over her head or on her knees all by herself, climbs the rope ladder by herself and can swing from the bars with only a little help holding on.

Our future gymnast


Her biggest challenge so far has been the brace. She got it last Wednesday and it was quite painful the first week and required a few trips back to the orthotics department to try to adjust it correctly. Yesterday was a big day for her. After another adjustment she went from crying hysterically at school over having to wear it to walking all over town and wearing it for 4 hours. Today she wore it all day and dug it out of her backpack to put it back on as soon as she got home from gymnastics. She’s so proud of her straight legs and how quickly she can get in and out of the brace now.

Hope picked the purple and pink butterfly pattern with pink velcro for her brace.

Tim helps Hope walk the first day with the brace. (Now we know, if she needs help it means the brace isn't on correctly or needs to be adjusted.)

That’s about it from here for now. Hopefully now that we are getting settled into a more normal routine I’ll update a little more frequently.


The 100 Watt Smile

Coming Home and the First Week

We spent the morning of December 28 walking around the area near our hotel and taking pictures.

Outside the Hotel Kazzhol

Tim found a snow bunny

Silk Way City - even better than the Ramstore



Matt & Hope riding, Dad pushing and Tim reluctantly walking>/em>

Almaty Technologic University

Roche - just a few blocks from our hotel

We had our appointment at the US Embassy to get Hopes IR3 visa right on schedule that afternoon and were in and out in 40 minutes.

Eating a junk food lunch at the hotel before going to the Embassy

TurinAlem Bank building houses the US Embassy Consular Section


After a quick dinner at Ciao Pizza we headed back to the hotel to bathe the kids and finish packing. Everyone was too excited to sleep so the kids only slept about 30-40 minutes before we had to get them up around 11:30 PM to leave for the airport. After an hour delay we boarded our flight for Frankfurt around 4 AM and were finally on our way home. All the kids did a great job. Tim fell asleep shortly after the flight attendant gave him some toys, but Hope played with the things he gave her and explored the headset and radio on the plane most of the way to Frankfurt.

Hope's first international flight - finally going home!

When we arrived in Frankfurt we discovered that we had to switch terminals for our flight home so finding our gate killed part of the 6 hours left that we had to wait there. It was a nice surprise – there actually is a nice part to the Frankfurt airport. We found a McDonald’s with a play area and spent most of our time there. Mike and I hung out with Matt and Tim and Hope spent most of their time playing with their new-found friends in the play area. It was great for them to be able to expend a little energy and interact with other kids.

The flight to Philly was uneventful, as was our experience at immigration. Of course, the kids all finally fell asleep at the same time a couple of hours before we landed.

We gathered our luggage (no small task with all the stuff we had after 2 months) and met the limo driver. Hope was quite impressed when she saw the huge white stretch limo that was going to take her home.

Riding in style

We arrived home to be greeted by Nana and Pop who I think had been pacing the sidewalk waiting for us to arrive. I was a little worried about how Hope would react to new people, even though she had talked to them on the phone and seen their pictures, but it was no problem. Pop grabbed her out of the car and she’s followed him around ever since.

I like my new house.

We spent the weekend with Nana and Pop, enjoying all the food they had prepared (for anyone who knows my mom you can probably imagine that we can feed several small armies with all the food she brought!) and the house they had decorated for Christmas. The next day was Hope’s birthday so we had a small birthday party with Nana and Pop and our friends Tevis, Bill and Anna. Anna has been Tim’s friend since they were 6 months old and Tevis took care of every imaginable detail that needed tending to while were gone, in addition to stocking up our house with all the necessary items for a little girl while we were gone so it was nice for them to be able to meet Hope. Hope and Anna quickly overcame their shyness and had a great time playing together. I think it was nice for Hope to have a girl to play with again.

Happy 6th Birthday, Hope!

Opening Presents with Anna

Santa made his promised delivery on New Year’s Eve and we had a small family Christmas on New Year’s Day with Nana and Pop, Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle John and Opa. Hope did great meeting everyone. And of course, there were more gifts to be had for all the kids. Christmas/birthday celebrations seemed to go on for the first several days we were home.

Opening our gift from Mom and Dad

Santa came to DE

Hey Tim, can I have this great box you got for Christmas?

On January 2 it was back to a more normal routine with Mike heading back to work and Tim back to school. The rest of the week has been filled with more unpacking, planning our move, Dr. appointments, making appointments and all the other activities of just living.

Tim tries bonding with Hope . . .

. . . The result

Hope has adjusted great. She had a little trouble sleeping the first few nights at home – she finally let herself miss her friends and her old life and just be overwhelmed by the whole experience. After a few days though we’ve all slept through the night and she is really getting into the hang of family life. She survived her encounters with the Dr. at the clinic in Almaty and our pediatrician with only a few tears and has really amazed us with how well she seems to be adapting and how well she’s been able to overcome her fears. She also seems like she really wants to go to school to. Her face lit up when we first walked into Tim’s class and she saw all those kids. Hopefully she’ll still feel that way when she realizes that I’m not going to stay with her there. Her English is coming along quickly. She’s very determined to learn. She seems to pick one topic a day to practice over and over. Yesterday’s words were all the Disney princesses (and yes, she does know most of them now).

Our next update probably won’t be until after we move into the new house in a couple of weeks. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is looking forward to a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year.

Happy New Year from the McGill Kids

Christmas and Boxing Day

Or in our case, baggage day.

Christmas wasn’t very Christmas-sy – no family, no church since it seems like there was only a midnight mass, no nice dinner, no lights – but the kids seemed to enjoy it anyway since Santa was able to find us in Kaz and leave a couple of presents and a note promising another delivery on New Year’s Eve in DE. He even signed it “Mr. C” like in the movie Polar Express so Tim was beside himself with excitement about the note Santa left. This was also the first time that he was able to help write part of the note to Santa when we put out his cookies and apple juice. He was quite proud.

Santa's delivery

Santa found us in Kaz!

Unwrapping


After we played with the new toys that Santa brought Mike and I started the onerous task of laundry, cleaning and packing. Matt had also been sick for the last few days so we had Zhanara call a Dr. for us – turns out the house-call is still alive and well in Kaz so a nice Dr. came to see us, gave us a list of meds for Matt and left without requiring payment. Then we went with Zhanara to take pictures of the microdistrict (neighborhood) that Hope lived in with her birth parents. Her house had been torn down and replaced with a flower shop, but at least we will have something to show her when she gets older.


We were up bright and early on the 26th to finish packing, dismantle the crib and head out to the airport for our flight to Almaty.

Astana International Airport (shaped like a yurt) at 8 AM


We said a final good-bye to Zhanara and Irina (unless they decide to come to the States since we don’t expect to be back to Kazakhstan for many, many years!) and a 2.5 hr. delay in our flight (not uncommon in the winter here) we were on our way to Almaty. Because we arrived so late, Nikolai took us directly to the SOS clinic for Hope’s exam for the US Embassy. After the clinic we checked in at the Hotel Kazzhol. It was nicer than we expected due to recent, and on-going, renovations and it is much more centrally located so we it is easier to walk to shopping and restaurants than the Hyatt – and all for half the price with breakfast included. We have a large room with 2 double beds (no Sealy Posturpedic mattress, but more comfy than the apartment), a sitting/work area with a 2nd TV (which has become the laundry drying/stroller storage area)and plenty of space for Matt's crib. The bathroom is tiny and only has a shower which makes it challenging to bathe 3 small children, but we can manage for a couple of days.





Hope has been a real trooper. She continues to amaze us daily. She was all smiles and full of anticipation for the plane ride and really seemed to enjoy it. She did seem a bit leery of Nikolai, but we told her it was OK since she was with us, not to mention, Nikolai had the luggage cart with Matt and Tim was right beside him (they became buddies on our last trip here) so I think she decided it was probably OK. She did great at the clinic – just a bit of crying with the doctor and her blood test, but even then she managed to calm down – a huge accomplishment for her since we’d been told she would only go kicking and screaming with doctors she didn’t know at the hospital in Astana. She also was a bit weepy when she walked into our hotel room, but again, once we explained that we were all staying and it would still be a few days until we took the plane home, she was fine.

Bedtime at Hotel Kazzhol


She’s really become an old pro at traveling and eating out already! She’s also gotten much better about eating the last few days and today was sure to tell us before we went to lunch/dinner “No soup!” Well, OK then. We had fed her lots of soup in Astana when she wouldn’t eat because we knew she would eat that, but I guess she enjoyed her chicken twisters (not-so-greasy chicken fingers) and fries last night and wanted them again today.

Almaty is several degrees warmer than Astana. It feels like a heat wave to us. Mike and I have even gone out without hats (good thing since mine got lost somewhere between leaving the apartment and arriving in Almaty). We don’t dare take the kids out like that though! As it is, I was reproached by some woman on the street today because Tim’s hat was turned sideways and she didn’t think he could see. She obviously hasn’t had a strong-willed 4 year old boy in quite a while because I was just thankful the hat was on at all since it was relatively warm here. The increased temperature has made it very comfortable to walk around, but the down side is that it is also very messy since everything melts and is all slushy during the day. We discovered a restaurant called the Chicken House Café about half a block from the hotel. We ended up eating there last night and tonight because we couldn’t find the pizzeria. It is a chicken and egg market in the front and a nice café in the back with excellent chicken that can be ordered prepared in several different ways.


It looks like we are still on schedule to come home on Friday. Oleg delivered our paperwork to the Embassy today and our appointment with them is tomorrow afternoon. After that we should have enough time to get a quick bite to eat, bathe the kids, have them sleep a few hours while we re-pack and leave for the airport very early Friday morning. Lufthansa leaves at the ungodly hour of 3:30 AM. The upside is that we should land in Philly around 4:20 PM on Friday afternoon, and, as long as the luggage comes out in a reasonable amount of time (40-60 odds on that at Philly!) and we aren’t held up too long at immigration (have to go through 2 lines because Hope will have paperwork that has to be processed) we should be home around 6:30. We can’t wait – it’s been a loooonnnngggg 57 days so far!

It’s the wind, not the cold . . .

Right! This has become Mike’s mantra on his walks to the Ramstore. Well, let me tell you, sometimes it’s the wind AND the cold, all wrapped up in one miserable icy package.

The reasonably nice weather went as quickly as it came. We had planned to have Zhanara take us back to Duman on Friday for some entertainment for the kids, dinner and to see the ice sculptures again. If we thought it was cold after the circus, we were sadly mistaken. After nearly getting blown away walking up the sidewalk to Duman we all headed inside and went straight to the paddleboats at Tim’s “encouragement”. Hope was reluctant at first, but after giving it a try, we found ourselves back at the boats 3 times that night.

Enjoying the paddleboats



They also rode the little kiddie ride there and went in the climbing/jumping play area. Both the big kids had a ball and went on each thing a couple of times before we went home.

The kiddie ride

The play area




Are you done yet?

While they were in the boats one of Grandfather Frost’s helpers (we decided it must be a helper because Tim thought someone was just pretending to be Grandfather Frost!) came by so we took the kids’ picture with him. Looks like this will be Matt and Hope’s first picture with Santa.


After we finished in the boat/climing play area they also tried out some of the other rides there, including the monster truck, Tim’s favorite from Chuck E. Cheese. Tim and Hope liked it, but as you can see, Matt did not enjoy his first ride experience.


As we found out when we got home, he was getting sick again and probably didn’t feel to great. We all had some dinner there, and not just pizza and burgers this time, because we had Zhanara to help us with the menu. Hope and Matt ate up a storm so I had to wait until we got home to really have much to eat. Tim ate up the fried meat and potatoes that the rest of us thought was pretty bad. In the last couple of days, eating hasn’t been an issue for any of the kids. After dinner it was time to leave because Duman was closing early for a private party.

The tree outside Duman

We headed outside to look at the ice sculptures and get some pictures. As Tim said, it was like the scene from Rudolph where the big storm comes and the trees and animals all get blown away. That’s basically what you get when it’s -8 C (18 F) and then add some strong gusty wind on top of it. (I can’t even imagine, nor do I want to experience, what it was like here last New Year when it was -45 C.) No one wanted to stay out long, least of all Tim who was screaming and whining that it was too cold and windy and his face hurt. Of course, as soon as he saw that they finished the ice sculpture that was also a slide, he had a miraculous recovery and went down the cold ice on his inappropriately clothed bottom 3 times while I tried to get pictures.

The ice slide
Tim coming down the slide

We all decided after 5 or 10 minutes that we couldn’t stand it anymore and I couldn’t get any good pictures anyway because the wind blew the camera too much so we headed home. Poor Matt had a fever again when we got home so we put him to bed and the big kids had their Chupa Chups (a brand of lollipops) and went to bed.

We did get a great bit of good news from Zhanara – all our documents are ready and Irina was picking up the visa while we were at Duman. Now we won’t be sweating out Christmas day wondering if the visa would be ready by the end of the day for us to leave for Almaty the next morning. We considered trying to go to Almaty Christmas Eve and having the SOS clinic appointment on Christmas Day, but decided that it was too hectic to save just a day and that the Almaty team will most likely get us through the Embassy to make our December 29 flight (at least we hope so). So we are going to spend Christmas in Astana and go to Almaty the morning of the 26 as planned.

Tim insisted on a picture with the "Statue of Liverty"