The Kokshetau Tourists

Steve here today, Amy is taking a little nap. We got up and had our regular visit with Megan today. She seems to be starting to really recognize us now, and today was just our 6th visit with her. It's really interesting to see changes in her already. She seems to be opening up a little more each day, she was really talkative today, making lots of cooing and giggling noises. We were about an hour into our visit before her bottle appeared, she was starting to get a bit cranky and as soon as she saw that bottle there was absolutely no excuse in her mind to not start eating instantly. She started fussing and grabbing at that bottle. She gobbled the entire thing down in record time and then was much more like herself. I've been trying to get her to stand on her feet and put some weight on her legs, she's never had anyone do much of that with her so she can't really support her weight for very long. She loves standing though, she pushes her legs straight and starts laughing and chatting with us, I think she is very proud of herself. It's really cute. When we went to leave after our 2 hour visit she started to cry which is really hard, it's nice that she will miss us but heartbreaking that she is sad. She has had a pacifier in her crib so I gave it to her and she stopped crying but you could still tell she was upset we were leaving.

After our visit Inna and Oleg took us all for a city tour of Kokshetau. It was very interesting to drive around, it is not a huge city, population about 130,000. The best part was the end where they drove us up to an overview that overlooks the city. Very nice to see the city from above. We saw several wedding parties taking pictures from up there, today seemed to be a big wedding day, yesterday was Kazakhstan's Independence Day so we were thinking that maybe a lot of couple are getting married this weekend becasuse it is a long weekend. Then we went to lunch and had a very interesting conversation with Inna and Oleg about life in Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union and their outlook on life today. We also talked about taking a drive out to Lake Burabay this week since the weather has been so nice. It was in the 20s and sunny today, from what I hear that's nicer than back in good ole Orchard Park.

Anyway, that's it for now, keep the comments coming, it's great to read them, it makes us feel a little closer to home. Although I may have to start deleting Jenelle's comments if she keeps it up with the bald cracks!!!

Here are a few pics of Megan. Isn't she the cutest thing, maybe I'm already a little biased though. Here is also one of our city tour.

Also, if anyone is interested, I've added a link on the upper right of the page that shows the weather here.