US Embassy Interview? Yes!

29 July 2009


It is just before 7am on Wednesday morning. Lukas actually put himself to sleep last night and only a little bit past his bedtime. He saw Mama and Papa reading in bed and decided he was going to do the same thing so he grabbed his little toy truck and his book and climbed in bed between us. He eventually fell asleep. No waking up in the middle of the night; however, he was up at 5am asking to eat something. I gave in and he picked a cup of yogurt and a cookie out of the fridge. He sat at his table quietly eating and amazingly when he was done he got back in bed with his toy and book and went back to sleep.

Once everyone was up we headed downstairs for what we hope is our last breakfast at Kazzhol. Lukas is now use to the elevator and likes pushing the buttons. He ran ahead of us to the restaurant and by the time I caught up with him he was sitting at our regular table waiting in his chair. I brought him some breakfast but other than juice he didn’t seem too interested. He had already had 2 yogurts and part of a cookie so I didn’t concern myself about it.

I took Lukas back to the room while Papa headed to the store for some Pepsi light and more yogurt. We awoke to overcast skies and rain so we planned to spend the morning in the room waiting to here if his passport arrived and we would have our interview at the US Embassy. The housekeeper was making up our room so we visited with the Docter family while she finished. It appears they were unable to get two seats on the flight out with us so they will be staying another day regardless of whether we have our appointments this afternoon.

Lukas is very in to copying whatever Mama and Papa are doing. He seems to be taking better to including Papa or doing things with Papa now instead of being overly attached to Mama. We have had several short baths this morning to pass the time. Nothing else to do cooped up in a hotel room so why not. Papa played with the balloons with him until lunch time and then we put him down for an early nap in hopes that we would go to the Embassy this afternoon. He fought me a little and shed some tears but not nearly as long as other times.

We have not heard that we are not having our appointment so we will get ready and head down to the lobby to meet with Nikoli.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Nicoli arrived about 30 minutes late to get us because we discovered that the US embassy would not accept one of Lukas' documents in it's existing condition for some reason and Nicoli was waiting for Janette to fax an acceptable version before we headed to the Embassy for our appointment.

All in all the embassy interview and process took about 10 minutes. They handed us hes Kaz passport with his US visa in it and his sealed envelope with instructions on what to do when clearing immigration in Almaty and Dulles and how to get his social security card and US passport.

Upon arriving back at the hotel Nicoli presented both families with an invoice for the services provided in Almaty. What a novel business approach. It is the first invoice we have actually been given during this whole process in Kazakhstan. We headed to our room to pack, had an early dinner and managed to get Lukas to sleep some before heading to the airport. He is an official world traveler now. He was quite excited to get on the plane.

See you state side,
Lynda