We are outta here!!!!

Can you believe it? 8 hours from now, we are to be picked up by our driver to head to the airport!!!! 24 hours from now we'll be somewhere over Europe or the Atlantic on the way to Chicago. We can't wait to be home, we miss everyone so much and we miss America. It will be good to get back to a place where everyone speaks English. We miss Mighty Taco, American Chinese food, I miss Tim Horton's coffee. I plan to get several cups Saturday morning. I can't wait to go out and get a steak. I know most everyone doesn't give a hoot about seeing us, but I know Megan will have lots of visitors over the next week or two.

We can't say goodbye to wonderful country of Kazakhstan without saying thank you to all those who helped us while we were here. Thanks to Kiril and Dima our drivers here in Almaty who put up with our lack of Russian and struggled to communicate with us in English. Both speak English better than they let on. Thanks to the sisters at the adoption agency office here in Almaty, they were very helpful and everything went more smoothly than we could have imagined. A very special thanks to Inna and Oleg in Kokshetau, they were more than our interpreter and driver for 4+ weeks in Kokshetau, they were tour guides, couriers, chefs, they worried about us like they were our parents, and most of all they became our friends. It was like having family with us. We will never forget them.

Thanks also to the other families we've gone through this journey with, Kelly, Lee and Grace although we never met Lee. Kelly was incredibly helpful in helping us to prepare for the trip. Patty, Teresa and Michael who became our friends as well.

We also have to thank our agency coordinator back home, Lisa, she was very helpful in preparing us for this incredible journey. Thanks also to Jim and Cindy Harding at World Partners Adoption. We also have to thank my Mom and Dad for dog sitting for 6 weeks and for all the phone calls and emails. Thanks to Andy and Linda for keeping an eye on the house and keeping Amy's plants alive, if they still are! Lastly a huge thank you to everyone who has emailed and posted comments or called us. It really helped us get through missing Christmas and helped us pass the time. Lastly, thanks to everyone who loaned us DVDs although I'm not so sure about Ahmad. You've gotten us hooked on The Sopranos, we're going to have to go home and get HBO now.

Lastly, we have to thank Megan's birthmother who made the difficult decision to give Megan up for adoption. We are forever grateful to her and hope she knows that Megan will be loved and well taken care of for the rest of her life. We already can't imagine life without Megan. She has completed our family.

Well that's about it, today was relatively quiet, we have been packing, we went out and did a little shopping. Megan is taking a nice long nap, hopefully she will sleep this well on the planes. When she gets up we are going to run to the grocery store and then up to a pizza place around the corner and get a pizza. We had one the other day and although it isn't the same as our pizza it was quite good. It will be a good final meal in Kazakhstan.

This will be our last post until we get home, I don't know how much we will update this blog from this point forward. I hope everyone has enjoyed following along.

Here are a couple of pictures of Almaty.






Check out this architecture.