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