May 7, 2008

Shopping and Movie Day

Mariya and Sasha picked us up this morning so we could go out and do some shopping.  We were looking for gifts to give Alyona, Victor, and Kristina’s group at the orphanage.  We were able to get that taken care of and were back to the apartment by lunch time.

Mariya and Sasha picked us up again at 2:00 and we were on our way to pick up Alyona.  We had thought about taking a walk around town since yesterday was such a beautiful day, but the weather had turned windy with some rain today, so we had to come up with another plan.  We decided to go to a store and pick up some ice cream and pastries to enjoy while we watched a movie at our apartment.  We had picked up the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” starring Julia Roberts on an earlier shopping trip.  The movie can be played in several languages and then you can choose another language for the subtitle.  We watched the movie in English with Russian subtitles.  We are trying to expose Alyona to English more so she can start learning some words and phrases.  I am not sure she learned any today, but the more she is exposed I think the more she will pick up.  As always time passed quickly and before we knew it we needed to take Alyona back to the boarding school.

After Alyona was safely back at the boarding school Nick and I walked to the grocery store and the market to replenish a few items.  We returned to eat dinner and catch up on email and the blog.  Our internet connection has been very poor tonight and I have not been able to send a single email.  (So this blog may be posted late also)  That is probably the most frustrating thing, we are constantly getting kicked out or just not able to access the internet at all.

Every night around 9:00 our next door neighbor begins playing music, in Russian of course.  Many times it is karaoke and they are singing along.  It does not bother us as it is usually not too loud.  A few times it has been quite loud but another neighbor usually yells at them to turn it down.  We have never seen the neighbors so we do not know if they are teenagers or adults.

We did not get any pictures today so I am going to post some pictures of Alex and Ben that we have received from home.

The Hrenko Family

Adoption Journey to Kazakhstan

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