15 DAYS AND COUNTING

Nothing of major importance to share today but thought I would post some interesting tidbits of news that were included in the Kazakhstan Embassy News bulletin today.

'Oldest woman in the world' about to turn 130

Daily Telegraph

Officials in Kazakhstan claim to have found the world's oldest person - a woman who will this week celebrate her 130th birthday.

If their records are correct, Sakhan Dosova is 16 years older than the oldest known human currently living.

The mother of ten, whose birth date is said to be March 27 1879, attributes her longevity to staying away from sweets, and the doctor. However, she is a fan of cheese and yoghurt, and says her sense of humour has kept her young at heart.

Her record-breaking and remarkable age came to light during a census in Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan. Demographers were astonished to find that she was also on Stalin's first census of the region in 1926 when her age was given as 47.

However, her fame did not extend far beyond the far flung city until the census, although some officials have raised doubts about her claims.

"I don't have any special secret," she said. "I've never taken pills and if I was ill, I used granny's remedies to cure me.

"I have never eaten sweets, I don't like them. But I love kurt (a salty dried cottage cheese) and talkan (ground wheat)."

Gaukhar Kanieva, 42, her grand-daughter, said: "She is a very cheerful woman. We think laughter and her good mood helped her live so long."

Nailya Dosayeva, head of social and demographical department of Karaganga regional statistics bureau, said there is no doubt that her claim is authentic.

"Sakhan Dosova was found during our census held in February and March. She has an old passport and documents which are genuine, and based on these we can judge her age as being correct."

If Sakhan's year of birth is accurate, it means she was born when Queen Victoria still had 22 more years to rule in Britain and Benjamin Disraeli was prime minister.

It was the year that Stalin and Einstein were born, the Anglo-Zulu war started, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his first story.

The year 1879 also saw Edison present his new invention - the light bulb - while the ill-fated last tsar of Russia was just 11 years old.

Here is a link to a video clip by the AP:
http://cosmos. bcst.yahoo. com/up/player/ popup/index. php?cl=12694739


Kazakhstan alpinists to conquer Everest

Trend News

An expedition of Kazakh climbers team Lhotse-Everest-2009 will set off on March 28 as part of the program "Kazakhstan on the Highest Peaks of the World", Kazakhstan Mountaineering and Climbing Federation executive secretary Tatiana Salamakhina told Trend News.

"The goal is to climb two peaks - planet's highest peak Everest (8,848 meters) and fourth highest mountain - Lhotse (8,516 meters)," she said.

Conquering the Lhotse will be the final stage of the project "Kazakhstan on the Highest Peaks of the World". The objective of this project is to conquer all the 14 peaks at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters above sea level without supplementary oxygen, Salamakhina said.

The team was composed of the strongest professional climbers: Maksut Zhumaev, Vassily Pivtsov, Sergei Samoilov, Artem Skopin, Aleksandr Rudakov, Yevgeny Shutov and Aleksandr Sofrygin.

There are 14 peaks at an altitude of over 8,000 meters above sea level on the Earth. They are located in the Himalayas and the Karakoram. The peaks are Chomolungma (Everest) - 8,848 meters, K2 (Chogori) - 8,611 meters, Kangchenjunga - 8,585 meters, Lhotse - 8,516 meters, Makalu - 8,515 meters, Dhaulagiri - 8,172 meters, Cho Oyyu - 8,158 meters, Manaslu - 8,156 meters, Nanga Parbat - 8,125 meters, Annapurna I - 8,072 meters, Hidden Peak (?5) - 8,068 meters, Broad Peak - 8,047 meters, Gasherbrum II - 8,035 meters, and Shisha Pangma - 8,013 meters.

The climbing was organized by the Kazakhstan Mountaineering and Climbing Federation.

16 DAYS TILL TRAVEL

Well today was quite a productive day. I downloaded all the children's songs to baby Kaz's ipod, added a bunch to my ipod, signed up for skype, got our travel insurance, ordered our rental phone for while we are in Kaz, registered our trip with the US Embassy in Kaz, got all our documents ready for notarization, organized our papers we need to take with us, moved some money around, made our final payment to our IA agency (at least I think it is our last payment), paid our taxes and started our checklists. I'm exhausted and Wayne's the one who was doing all the manual labor in the yard!

This weekend wasn't all work, we did get some social time in as well. Last night we went to the 2nd gathering of class of 1973 from Calvery Lutheran Elementary School. Wayne is quite the good sport to go with me since the first one back in September he knew no one. The group is gradually expanding as we locate more classmates. We had 4 additional classmates (and family)and our 5th grade teacher with us this time. Alot of memories and old photos were shared. I am amazed at how we have picked right back up inspite of most of us not having seen each other for 30+ years. The commoradory and genuine interest is quite something. I guess there is something to be said for small, parochial schools. I look forward to the next get together and wish my four former classmates who are running as a relay team in an upcoming marathon well.

That's all for now,
Lynda

ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE

That was a quick answer to a trivial prayer...the ipod shuffle I was waiting for just arrived in today's mail, yeah! Time to load some kiddie tunes!

Hope the rest of our prayers in the next few months get this kind of response!

GETTING THINGS TOGETHER

17 DAYS AND COUNTING...we spent part of today finishing up the photo albums we will be taking with us. We did two small 4x6 albums that has pictures of us, our house, and our families and one empty spot for the three of us together. We will leave one at the baby house for the staff to reveiw with our child in between trips. Thanks to our friend Elena for translating label titles into Russian for us so the staff will be able to know what the picture is and who is in it. The other album will stay at home as a keepsake for our child in case the one we take doesn't make it home. The third album is to show the Ministry of Education, Guardianship Council and Judge. It contains all the photos in the personal albums and also pictures of us at the Asian Festival in DC and the DC Embassy. Thought it might be nice to include photos showing us taking an interest in our child's culture. Since the child's bedroom photo doesn't have furniture we have left a spot for a photo with furniture that we will take between trip 1 and 2 and add to the album. We have some room left for photos during bonding as well and will do a 2nd album strictly of the bonding period. We have been told we should have a picture, date stamped, of each day of the bonding period for court.



We have all our new documents needed for our trip except the medical reports. I will get them on Monday. Since they are only good for 3 months at a time we wanted to wait till the last possible moment to get them. So we will be headed to the notary (Merideth we will be contacting you soon)sometime next week and then head to Annapolis to get them apostilled.

Giving me plenty of time to do something is never a good idea! I always end up getting involved with other things to pass the time and then get in fast pass mode because I suddenly realize I don't have much time. That is the state of mind I am currently in right now. With just over 2 weeks until we leave I suddenly feel like I have a million things to do and not enough time to do it even though we have been doing things along the way.

Time to make out the checklist of everything that needs to be done and start checking things off. I think most of the major things are done:

Arrange for money for trip...check
Get tickets....check
Visas...check
House sitter (THANKS SHAWNA)...check
Dog sitter (THANKS MOM AND DAD COWELL)...check
Paperwork...almost check
Photos...check
Paint room...check
Transportation to airport (THANKS MOM AND DAD ROBEY)...check
Arrange payment of bills while gone...check

Things still to do:
1)notarize,authenticate,photocopy,apostille,and photocopy updated documents
2)Figure out what we need to take
3)Figure out what we already have and what we still need to get
4)Pack
5)Figure out what we will take to use for bonding
6)Figure out what we already have and what we still want to get
7)Put together copy of paperwork and items for our US go to person in case we need something processed and sent
8)copy electronic files to thumb drive to take
9)pray that the ipod shuffle I ordered arrives on time so I can load the children's music I downloaded to take with us. I put together a montage of music to play during our bonding time. Wayne gave me a small speaker set to use with my ipod and I thought it would be nice to use it to play music at the baby house. So, yes, our child will have their own ipod before we even have our child!

I'm sure I missed something! Looking at the list I guess we really don't have a whole lot to do once we organize what we already have. We will be comparing what we have gathered with lists of what to take and what not to take from other families who have "been there done that".

Better get back to practising my Russian...

Paka (translation: bye bye...pardon the transliteration Elena)

Action Alert: Help make the adoption tax credit permanent!

News that the 2001 tax credit legislation is due to expire at the end of 2010 was on the message boards today. I have emailed some of you this information but decided to post this on the blog as well. Please spread the word.

Below is a link to information regarding new legislation to make the adoption tax credit bill of 2001 permanent. The info on the link is out dated as this has been in process since 2005. I have supplied the current 111th congressional information below the link. If you feel so moved please write to your congressional representatives and ask them to support this legislation so families completing adoptions after 2010 can continue to benefit from the tax credit to help alleviate some of the finacial burden of adoption.

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1113

H.R.213
Title: To repeal the sunset of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 with respect to the expansion of the adoption credit and adoption assistance programs.
Sponsor: Rep Wilson, Joe [SC-2] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (76)
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

S.561
Title: A bill to authorize a supplemental funding source for catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression activities on Department of the Interior and National Forest System lands, to require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a cohesive wildland fire management strategy, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Bingaman, Jeff [NM] (introduced 3/10/2009)

A weekend of painting....and the color scheme is?

Well we finally decided on paint colors for our future childs room. I guess buying the plane tickets on Friday got us moving to at least paint the room. We went with somewhat gender neutral colors since we aren't 100% sure it will be a boy or what the exact age will be. The walls are Christopher Robin Swingin' and the trim is Baby Bee Yellow. We will wait and pick out window treatments and bedding when we get back and know what our child likes.



Here is the father to be in action: course every job needs a supervisor! Mikaela was making sure we didn't miss any spots and that it was to her satisfaction. She stayed right in this spot pretty much the whole time.


Only time she moved was when Gracie would come barging in. We have the nosiest 2 dogs! Here's Gracie on a break.

With the constant supervision the task got done and we think it looks pretty good. The kid will have what is probably the best view in the house. It over looks the backyard and the woods. We always have plenty of deer just on the other side of the fence.

It's hard to believe that just under 4 weeks from now we will be on the plane headed to see our child for the first time.

The long awaited updated USCIS form finally arrives!

After 2 months of waiting and 2 weeks of hounding and 6 emails we finally received our renewed fingerprint clearance for the US side of things. They promised me a week ago they were sending the updated form in the mail. I had to laugh when it arrived because they obviously print them in the office in Baltimore. They didn't even let the ink dry before folding it up and stuffing it in the envelope. The ink from the bottom which has their contact information in big bold letters was smeared on the fine print in the upper part of the form which has all the important information. Never a dull moment. Next step is to send off for our updated FBI fingerprint card clearance that we have to take with us. I'm glad we thought ahead and had more than one set of cards made the last time back over the summer.

We now have firm travel dates, if there is such a thing in the international adoption world. We leave on Tuesday, April 14th and for now are scheduled to return on Wednesday, May 13th. Our caseworker had us pad the return trip by a week just in case we don't get our guardianship council appointment on May 4th. If all goes well we will change our tickets and be back on Wednesday May 6th instead.

When we first received our LOI and were told we would be traveling in Mid April it seemed like it was an eternity away. Now it is rapidly approaching and we feel like we have a million things to do to get ready. Guess we'll be spending Easter weekend packing and shipping the pooches off to grandma and grandpa's for an extended holiday at the shore.

Visas arrive!

After a very frustrating 2 weeks of not being able to get a hold of people and issues with FedEx things finally seem to be progressing again. Our Visas arrived yesterday. We were surprised at the quick turn around, it took less than 1 week from our doorstep to theirs and back. Par for the course in the adoption world, they were not done the way we requested them though. We applied for and paid for double entry visas and we received single entry visas. These get us the first trip and that is what counts right now. We'll worry about the second trip when the time comes. No refund for the difference in the fees though! At least we know the turn around time was quick and we live close enough to hand carry the next one if necessary.

The fingerprint issue was finally resovled today. It only took 3 more emails to get a final answer. Our revised paper work should arrive soon according to their email. We'll see how quickly they actually send it out.

For now it looks like we will be leaving the evening of April 14th and flying through Frankfurt, Germany. The trip is suppose to take around 21-22 hours. We will do bonding and guardianship council and then head back on May 6th if all goes as planned.