Wednesday, July 29th

Although I still woke up about 4 in the morning, I was determined to be positive today after the bad day we had yesterday. My mantra today was ‘it will be a good day…it will be a good day’…and it was. We had a good visit with Roman this morning. We were told he was asking for us since 9 in the morning and he ran to us this morning when we arrived. Thankfully Galina was with us this morning as she is really great with helping us with Roman especially since she knows some Kazak. Most of our visit went really well. Roman did have a couple of fits of anger over something he wanted or wanted to do, but we managed to get past it and have fun. He is so active that I actually broke out in a sweat trying to keep up with him. The language barrier makes it hard to connect with him but despite this, he gave me several hugs today. He seems to thrive on the love and attention we give him.

When I watch him, sometimes he looks like a 4 or 5 year old in his face, but he is the size of a 2 year old and many times exhibits behavior much like a 2 year old. He also exhibits the independence of a much older child which is due to living in an orphanage, sadly kids are pushed to be on their own much sooner than children in a family. I feel sad he has had to live in an orphanage and learn survival skills to live there.

It gets really boring being in the same play room all the time, especially on days like today where it is raining. Today we brought a mega blocks truck from home and he seemed to really enjoy building a house and playing with the other blocks. It’s so funny that he was so into kicking the ball the last time we were here or rolling the ball on the ground and now he is not as interested. We did a little bowling with some of the plastic bowling pins and balls…well, Roman did anyway. Then he used the bowling pins to bat a little ball back and forth with us.

Roman does laugh a lot when we tickle him or Papa throws a ball from behind his back and head. Roman finds the latter especially funny!

After our visit, we headed to the Green Market to buy a few last souvenirs and some flat bread. We are hoping to make another trip there on Friday to stock up on flat bread to bring home. Afterwards we just had snacks and relaxed in our room. Then around 4 we decided to take the cable car up to Kok Tobe which is up a hill near the large TV tower. It was a really nice excursion; we didn’t realize there was so much up there. There are a few restaurants, snack places, shops, and lots of activities for children even including a mini zoo. There are lots of trees and places to walk and enjoy the view looking down on Almaty. It is also quite peaceful. It ended up being a beautiful afternoon, too, sunny with a slight breeze.