Court is thursday

Hello everyone :-)  Well another week has passed and we are doing well.  Elizabeth was almost deported as the result of a visa issue, but Marina saved the day and now she gets to stay!  Yipee!!  Court will be next Thursday so we will probably come home next weekend, so we are hurrying to get lots in this week.  Hannah is amazing, wonderful, sweet, brilliant and, if you can't tell, I am head over heals in love with my baby girl :-)  She is getting very active, rolling over, sitting up almost on her own, and yesterday she pulled a poster off the wall..lol...I may have a long road ahead with this child....  She likes bubbles, looking in the mirror, and any toy that makes sounds. Yesterday I put her in her Reds outfit and we sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game.  We took her for her final check-up before court, they did blood work, which she did not enjoy but everything came out perfectly.  She fell asleep in the car on the way back.  She really is a good baby, she only cries when she is tired or hungry and once you feed her or rock her she stops.  She is teething for sure, as she tried to eat a book today.  She is very patient with me and lets me put on a fashion show with her every day. 

We have been hanging out with the other families a lot, there are 3 here now and other coming next week.  It's interesting to hear all the different experiences they have had throughout the process.  If (not if, WHEN), I adopt again, I would definitely try to come back to Shymkent.  It is SUCH a cool city.  First, it's huge.  500,000 plus people. It's really South, so it's pretty warm here.  We swam outside the other day.  There are lots of cool malls and parks and some great restaurants.  My favorites are El Dorado, which is a really good pizza place, Mozzarella, which is Italian, and Address, which is Turkish. There is also a place called Istanbul, which is supposed to be good but smokey, and we are going to try a BBQ place next week.  We tried Logmon at this Wieger Chinese place the other day after English Club, and on valentine's day we ate at a yummy and fancy Uzbek restaurant. We ate Plov, which was very good.  Sorry to talk so much about food.  Tomorrow we are hitting up the Bazaar and going to a new coffee shop, then having a wine and cheese party for our friends.  We were asked to speak at Miras College Women's group this week on the subject of adoption. It was fun, they were super nice and asked a lot of questions.  We brought the other family to English Club the other day, and they really enjoyed it. One of the guys there is head of the Kazakh baseball league, and he talked our arm off and gave us cards.  We met a bunch of other ex-pats living in the city as well.  I am sad our time in Shymey is coming to an end.  I wish we could stay the whole time, but unfortunately, the real world awaits back home.  Oh well, hopefully soon enough Hannah will be home and we can start our time together. It really is a wonderful life! Love, Erin 

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