January 22, 2009 (Thursday)

(Pictures of our rooms in Hotel Alma-Aty)

We arrived home Saturday night after a 35 hour trip. We went through Istanbul, and had eggs and sausage along the way. Since Turkey is four hours behind Almaty, we were able to try the eggs a second time on the trip from Istanbul to Munich just in case we weren't sure about them on the first trip. The trip from Germany to the U.S. is the one that always gets to me. It's the last 1 1/2 hours that makes me so antsy. We flew from Munich into Philadelphia, and then home. Oh my gosh, were we tired. We cannot thank Beena enough for taking us to the airport on the way to KZ, and Beth for picking us up.

It was an exhausting trip, but it all melted away the moment we saw Karis. She was so excited to see us, and we were just as excited to see her. She has been such a trooper through all of this.

We are preparing to head back, and have sent Jeff our passports to have the visa updated. We need a couple more passport photos, and need to sign more forms since we've already run through those that we already had with our first two trips.

A tip for those of you yet to pick up your child: you will need ten passport pictures of your child for all of the documentation.

We will go back to KZ somewhere around Feb. 11th. We will take Aidar to the SOS clinic for his medical clearance on 2/13 and then will wrap up his visa, passport and other docs the following week. We have an interview with the U.S. Embassy on 2/17, and should be able to bring him home immediately following the interview.

Aidar has no idea how many wonderful people have waited so long to meet him. I think this journey is virtually all of your's as well as our's, and we thank you for going on it with us. It takes a village to raise a child, and we live in the best village of all.

We'll write more as the next excursion approaches.