Back to Almaty - Then HOME with Daniel!

On Wednesday evening, we left the hotel and headed for the Karaganda airport to catch our flight back to Almaty! Wow!! The weather was incredibly bad; cold, snow and wind made for near zero visibility and I was concerned that they would cancel our flight! Those fears were heightened as we approached the military checkpoint on the road to the airport. It looked as if there was a traffic jam on this ghost town of a road! The road was CLOSED due to the weather! Our driver (Max) weaved his way around dozens of cars, buses and trucks to get up to the gate. We were required to show the guards our plane tickets to be able to pass the gate and drive the few more miles to the airport! I was very surprised that our plane departed as scheduled. Daniel slept the whole time and didn't make a peep! I'm sure we are going to pay for it somewhere down the road!

We checked into our hotel a little after midnight and were instructed to be ready to go to the International Medical Clinic at 11AM the next morning. We all had a good nights sleep (in fact, it turned out to be even better than I thought)! I was just getting ready to get in the shower as the phone rang. It was our coordinator (Sonya); she said "I'm down stairs in the lobby". It turns out that our clock stopped working during the night and even though our clock said 9:30, it was 11:15!
Well, anyway, we did get into the SOS clinic and Daniel did very well. They stuck his fingers for the blood test and Daniel didn't even flinch! It wasn't until the doctor tried to listen to his heart that he started crying!

Sonya told us that we had our interview at the Embassy on Friday afternoon. She also said that there was a possibility that we could go home early if she received paperwork from Astana (Capital of Kazakhstan) on Friday! Well, the paperwork came in (Daniel's passport and USA visa) and we completed our appointment at the Embassy and all we are doing now is waiting to come home!! Unfortunately, there are no available flights on Saturday or Sunday so we have to wait until Monday to come home!

The three of us will make the best of this weekend. From the weather on our blog, it appears as if will be warming up. We hope to get out and enjoy a few days in Almaty. This will also give me an opportunity to take a few pictures. I'll try to post a few pics before we come home!

Daniel is doing great!! His personality is shinning through! He is really a wonderful little boy; we have definitely been blessed! He can't wait to meet all his new family and friends!!

I figured out why my spell checker isn't working! I'm using one of the hotels computers in the business center and I have no idea how to change the spell checker to English!