Our Journey to Liam: Action packed day

Today was realllly cold. It was probably around 20 but with the wind chill, it was really freezing. Also, I forgot to mention this previously, the sun does not rise here very early. We get up and it is usually dark. It rises around 8:30 am. Weird.

We had another good visit, with Liam. It was the first time, when he was brought into the room that he came to me. Very exciting. He also loved the new binks. Yeah!!! no more hand sucking, I hope. I think our visit is right after feeding, because he has been spitting up alot lately. We will have to check on that. Today, he just wanted to be held and rocked. With his new bink in and a little rocking he was practically asleep when our visit was up. Love that child. He is busting out of his 6 mos old clothes. Thank goodness, we also brought some 9 mos old clothing as well. In January, he weighed 15 pounds, so I 'm thinking he is around 16 pounds now. He is also 25 inches long.

We did some site seeing today after our visit with Liam. We started by going to the local train station. This train station acts as transportation locally, as well as, to Almaty & Moscow. Right across the street from the train station is a nice park dedicated to a war hero from the Russian civil war.( The reds against the whites). In the same area was the post office. Pretty big for a place that gets no mail. During our drive around town, we passed through an area that is a little depressed. It is unbelievable that in today's day and age, there is still housing with no running water. Here it is freezing cold outside and we saw people pulling their water jugs over to the area where they can get water. Truly amazing. Next, we went into a Mosque. Not what we expected. We thought it would be more ornate. It was actually very plain with a big room on the bottom floor for the men to worship and then a balcony for the women to worship, again unbelievable. An interesting thing happened at our next stop. When we went into a Russian orthodox church, a service was going on. I think we got blessed but I am not sure. Just as we walked in, there were three Priests walking around chanting and blessing people with incense, we were motioned to get in line and bow. Very cool. We then went to see a little museum. A replica of what housing was like in the old days. It was filled with a lot of historical items. Very Interesting. I wish they had souvenir books for the museums with all the information and history in english. Olga said they don't even have them in Russian or Kazkh. It would have been nice to have for Liam when he gets older. We also went to get the famous Kazakhstan Chocolate. Delicious. Next, we passed the local Fire house. The tower was formally the tallest structure in this area. Not anymore. Our last stop was the WW2 war memorial. This memorial is dedicated to all the soliders that died in this area(Uralsk) during WW2. Very similar to the Vietnam Memorial; all the soldier's names are listed around the outside walls along with an eternal flame in the middle. Also, there are headstones for the unknown soliders killed in the holocaust when Stalin was in charge. Very interesting. Made me realize how little I know about Russian history. Was I paying attention in school?

Had dinner at home tonight, pasta and sauce. We are a little afraid of the beef here. I like to call it mystery meat. Does not taste like our beef. Hope it's not horse.

I wrote this at 4 am as we fell asleep at 9pm, guess we are not as adjusted as we thought.

Our visits will go to two a day on Saturday. Yeah!!!!!