Almost Home!!

Today is August 17th at 12:31 in the afternoon. We leave Koksheteau tomorrow at 2:50 in the afternoon. We get to load all of our own luggage on this flight and it is completely acceptable for the pilot to smoke while flying the plane. The plane seats about 40 people I'd say, and luggage can be placed in the aisle and pretty much anywhere you can fit it. I have to say, I'm glad this will be our last trip on the Yak plane!!!

We picked up Mason from the baby house about 5:30 in the evening on the 15th. And, we got his birth certificate at the same time. As of August 16th, 2006 he is legally and forever, Mason Randall Lanser born on February 21, 2005. Mother is Rachel Nicole Lanser and father is Ryan Roger Lanser. Yes!!!!

And, let's just say the first night was a bit trying, but we made it through just fine. He was perfect in the car and had no problems in the apartment. But, we found out through tears and screams of sheer terror, that he DOES NOT LIKE THE SHOWER. So, we bathe him with a bowl of water with a washcloth. Works fine for now until we can put him in a tub. Also, we found out he does not like noodles, chicken, peas, apples, bananas, or jar baby food of turkey and vegetables. He does like...french toast, baby cereal, baby food fruits, and as of last night, rice with smushed up peas! He ate two plates of that stuff. I'm glad we found something he liked. We can push more for the "eat what you're given" at home, but he has really only eaten baby cereal, bread, and different types of stews. So, the consistency of the foods we tried were not familiar to him and he did not like it at all. He does sleep really well though and goes to sleep without crying (knock on wood). And of course, he loves to play and follow mommy and daddy around the apartment. Ryan and I are adjusting well. A little tired, cause Mason moves around A LOT in the bed, but in Almaty we'll have a crib for him.

Yesterday we took him bowling with the other couples here and he was fantastic. He was very shy and timid when he met the other couples and clung on tight to Ryan or myself. But, after about 30 minutes or so he was playing with everyone and talking away. (baby talk that is) Except for the mama and dada. He does say that and each time he does, my heart melts. And he's always looking for dada when Ryan leaves the room. He will surely be a stick tight when we get home which is fine by me!!! He has Ryans shyness at first, but opens up and is more like me when he's comfortable. God truly knows what he's doing!! He was not born of our bodies, but he was surely born of our souls!!

Today will be our last post to the blog and our last contact before heading home next Wednesday. Woo Hoo. With that, I would like to end with this...as I was lying in bed with Mason last night, waiting for him to go to sleep, I was thinking about all we've gone through to be here with him and for him to be our son and I was still in shock that this beautiful little child was lying next to me and falling asleep on my arm. I cannot believe how time has flown. When we started this process, it seemed as though we would never get here and the paperwork would never stop. But, low and behold, we're days away from being home with our son!! We are truly blessed people and we are forever grateful to all of you who bought a cheesecake, came to the auction or the benefit, or kept us in your thoughts and prayers. Your support has been wonderful and truly heartfelt. So, to our parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas, grandpas, and many friends, we THANK YOU. You are forever in our hearts!!

Love,
Ryan, Rachel, and Mason

P.S. We would like to say Happy Birthday to Brittany on the 22nd. We love you and hope you have a wonderful birthday. We'll see you on the 23rd.

And, happy birthday to Captain on the 17th (today). Have a good one and enjoy a frosty beer for us!

August 12, 2006

6 days to leave Koksheteau, 10 days to come home. And, yesterday we found out we'll probably get to take Mason home with us on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. That made our day!! So, two more visits and then we bring him home!! We can't wait. He is progressing everyday and mimmics everything we do. He'll stomp his feet really fast like we do when we're chasing him, he'll make blowing noises when we do, and when we read a book to him he'll make noises like he's reading along. It's great to see him make this kind of progress with only spending two hours a day with us.

They have been replacing all the radiators in the rooms at the baby house and as of this past week, they have been working on Mason's room. So, all the children that were in his room have been overflowed into two other rooms. Before there were about 8-9 kids in his room and now there are about 13 kids in the room. And being that he is a pretty quite and go with the flow kid, I'm sure he just hangs out and doesn't get much one on one attention other than us. It will only be a short amount of time after we get home and he'll be growing and developing more and more.

We've heard everything about the flights in England and we're just praying we have no problems on the way home. We expect delays, but we sure everything else will be just fine. We fly out of Almaty to Frankfurt, then to Chicago. Right now, we're more concerned with how to handle an 18 month old with 18-20 hours of travel. We're practicing sitting time now though so he gets an idea of sitting on our laps. It works well for 10 minutes but beyond that, we're not sure.

We have not run out of water in the past couple of days and electric has been on with no problems. Everything else has been good. Ryan and I are surely learning how much we love each other and how much we can truly tolerate of each other. We figured back home we would spend an average of 6-7 hours of awake time with each other during the week and more time on the weekends. But, this trip is the first time we've spent every moment of every day with each other. It has been a test, but we're close to finishing.

Thank you for all of the comments, we love reading them and we hope you are fulfilled with our stories.

Miss you all and love you lots.

Ryan, Rachel, and Mason

August 10, 2006

Hello, it's August 10th here at 12:00 in the afternoon. We leave for our visit at 2:30 and we think today, again, we'll be driving in the Niva. Our driver has now broken his car and his cousins. The Niva is a cross between a Jeep Wrangler, a broncing bull, and a Wisconsin Dells duck. This means, it can fly over huge puddles, drive over pretty much anything, and the passengers feel as though their insides have been rearranged. By the time we get to the baby house, half our bodies are numb. But, it is a bit better than the other two cars which were VW station wagons. At least with the Niva, we get through the road construction faster and there is less of a chance of getting stuck on a boulder. We have water back this morning and yesterday we had a slight amount of water for about two hours. We were told that the city is changing their pipes for winter and that is the cause of the water outage this time around. Surely a different type of life. We found out an interesting fact. According to the people here, they are told that Koksheteaus sister city is Waukesha, WI. That means that Waukesha has the same climate and seasons as Koksheteau. We were told that from our translator and her friends. They all learned this in one of their classes at the university. Interesting, huh??

Mason has been awesome. He has been making all kinds of sounds and yesterday we heard the greatest sound ever!! He said...Dada. He said it quite a few times and he understands when we tell him to take something to Mommy or take something to Daddy. So, we are positive that he did indeed say that. And, it was in English. Woo hoo. We'll try again today and we'll see if we can get him to say Mama as well. But, we are so happy he's at least trying to make sounds and mimmic what we say. And, to answer Brittany's question, we've been trying to get him on the sippie cup since we got here and he's now drank from it everyday. Progress...Progress.

The countdown...we are officially 6 visits away from bringing Mason to our apartment and 13 days away from coming home. We can't believe how fast the time is going. But, we are very happy its almost time to come home.

Love you all lots!!
Ryan, Rachel, and Mason

Eating yummy cookies!!
Then, the milk (actually, Keifer) moustache.
This is one of the two play areas for the kids at the baby house

August 8. 2006

Hello Everyone,
We're on day number two of no water here in Koksheteau. Thank goodness we save huge bottles of water that we can warm up and use to take showers in a bowl. Not bad, just takes a bit longer! We had dinner last night with all of the Americans here at a place called Cafe Classic. It was the best meal we have had here. Ryan had what's called...chicken in a fur coat. It's chicken breast wrapped in hashbrown style potatoes and baked. It was great! And I had a dish that was beef with onions, green and orange peppers, then topped with a chesse sauce. And both came with potato balls that looked a lot like hush puppies. Good meal. And, we had two Brutus (huge) glasses of beer EACH and bottled water. Both meals, the beer, and water cost a total of $25.00. We thought it was quite a steal considering the establishment and the food.

We're counting down the days to coming home and bringing Mason to our apartment. It's 8 more days to bring Mason to our apartment and 15 days to come home! Woo Hoo!! We can't wait.

Mason gets more and more open every visit. He now mimmics a lot that we do and has started to make some sounds which is great. He responds to us calling him Mason (when he wants). I think the kids in the baby house learn to tune out sounds and he seems to do that quite a bit. Or, he's just thinking...you guys are crazy and I still don't understand a word you say. But, all will progress in time. And, we finally got him to drink from the sippie cup. We took him for a long, long walk and then offered it to him. He was so thirsty, he couldn't resist. So, now he takes the pacifier and the sippie cup which will help us with the flights and his ears popping. That's the most of what's happened in the past couple of days. He doesn't like to leave us and we feel the same but soon there will be no more leaving each other.

Miss everyone and love you lots.

Rachel, Ryan, and Mason

August 6, 2006

Well, it's 11:18 in the morning and we took a bus and ran to the internet cafe cause it's pouring rain. It's too bad we can't understand the weather channel here or we would have known it was going to rain today and would have come here yesterday. But, oh well. We're here even though sugar does melt!! =) Everything is coming along great. We're a week and a half away from bringing Mason to our apartment and two weeks and three days from coming home!! Woo Hoo!! Mason actually started to make some sounds yesterday. He was imitating our sounds when we tickle him. It was awesome. He is loving to play the chase me game. He'll start running then look back to see if we're chasing him, then he'll turn around and giggle and run some more. His run is adorable. His shoulders are pulled up high and his legs seem to go a lot faster than he thought they could. We weighed him and he's about 20-22 pounds (if our calculations are right) and he's about 75cm tall. He's a bit under developed, but get him home and in no time he'll be right on track.

Last night we had the best chicken. There's this chicken place (we call it the chicken shack) where you can buy roasted chickens. They are perfect to take home make some potatoes and eat. Yummy!! Our water has not gone out for a couple of days so, that's great. And, neither one of us has been sick for a couple of days. Maybe our bodies are finally getting used to the Kazakh weather. The two couples who got here about two weeks ago have court this Friday and both of the ladies (Jeanine and Mary) have been sick for about a week. So, all couples have gotten sick at least once.

That's about all that's going on around here. We hope everyone is doing well back home and can't wait to see you all. Congrats to Bob and Stacey again, we hope everything went well. And, thank you to everyone we've talked to. It's nice to hear your voices and be able to keep up with what's going on back home.

Love,
Ryan, Rachel, and Mason

August 3, 2006

Hello Everyone,
This new internet cafe is awesome. We can load pictures and post to the blog with no problems. This one is very advanced!! Or, we've gotten smarter. We picked up our tickets from Koksheteau to Almaty for the 18th today. So, as of today we are 12 days from getting Mason and 1 day shy of three weeks before we leave Kazakhstan. Woo Hoo!! Can't wait to come home. We are out of water again today but hopefully we will get it back before too long. Everything else is great. Our driver here broke his car the other day and has been using his cousins for two days. Well, as of yesterday he broke is cousins car as well. Crazy driver!! Today is Brian and Jen's anniversary and we'll go for dinner with them tonight. Hopefully something good!

We appreciate the posts from everyone and we're glad all is going well back home. We think of you often and are anxious to come home. We'll post every other day from now on.

We hope the weather at home becomes more bearable and we'll talk to you later.

PS-Our thoughts are with Bob and Stacey this weekend as they get hitched on the 5th. Love you guys and have a blast.

Love,
Ryan, Rachel, and Mason

Mr. Mozart
Mommy and Daddy after court
1st family picture after court
Walking upstairs...he was quite tired after that
Playing ball
Relaxing with Dad
This is my Cool Dude pose
He says "No Mommy...no more tickle monster"
Not crying, this is the Rrrrr face