Steve's Back

I know everyone missed me so much yesterday so here I am doing the posting today. Just a little touch of food poisoning, I'm a couple pounds lighter today, that's probably more than enough detail for anyone out there. Anyway, Groundhog day part 12. Today was our 12th visit with Megan. I guess I shouldn't say Groundhog day because there are changes in Megan everyday. I think she really expects us to be there everyday. Today was even more exciting in that we, ok Amy, got to change the first dirty diaper. It was a doozy too, I'm not sure my stomach could have handled it. Hmmm...I may have to remember that touchy stomach excuse for the next couple of years. Anyway, Megan was her normal curious, busy self, we tried to give her some vitamins in her bottle today but I guess she caught on, she got 3/4 of the way through the bottle and decided she didn't want anymore, that is definitely not normal so the vitamins must affect the taste. She has never clamped her lips shut tight when the bottle comes near her mouth. I think we will try it again tomorrow without the entire dose of vitamins, and try to work it in that way.

Then we went out to lunch with the group again, had a nice time as usual, stopped at the grocery store after to get some supplies and here we are back at the apartment.

For our Kazakhstan lesson of the day, the money here is is called tenge, they don't have dollars and cents, it's all tenge. $1 is about 135 tenge. We typically spend about 1500-2000 tenge that's $11-$15 for a nice lunch at a restaurant for both of us, that usually includes soup, a couple beers and a full meal. We bought a couple big bottles of beer, probably 1/2 liter each, at the store for either 65 or 85 tenge each, that's about 75 cents each. A box of corn flakes cost 360 tenge which is about $2.50. For the most part our dollars go a long way here. It seems the foods here have no preservatives, thusly the food poisoning, but all the bread is fresh bread and it is excellent!

Another thing is tipping, every restaurant has a coat check but you don't tip them, yet the tip for the waiter or waitress is usually included in the bill. Another thing they do here is at restaurants there is a buzzer at each table and you can push the button and your waitress will come right over to see what you need. We were commenting today that those things probably wouldn't be real popular with waiters and waitresses in the US.

Anyway, as we come across other interesting tidbits here we will post them, now here are today's pictures:


Here we are practicing our standing.


Now working on sitting up, she can hold herself up but it's like her butt is egg-shaped, she just rolls from one side to the other if you don't hold her up.


Looking at her picture book.


Sitting with mom playing with her kleenex package.