Pavel was born on June 30, 2006 (my brother and Gary Mefford’s b-day and one day after Grove’s bday) and weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces at birth. He now weighs almost 20 pounds. He will be 9 months old on Friday, March 30th. He is a chunker.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Pavel Eliot Young Burnett
Pavel was born on June 30, 2006 (my brother and Gary Mefford’s b-day and one day after Grove’s bday) and weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces at birth. He now weighs almost 20 pounds. He will be 9 months old on Friday, March 30th. He is a chunker.
We had a wonderful experience this afternoon. Igor, whom we met in the yurt on the Kazakh New Year, took us to the studio of an artist that we also met in the yurt. Well, it was AMAZING. This guy has been painting for 50 years and is actually quite famous in this part of the world. He has been in shows and museums all over Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgistan, etc, etc. His studio had almost 100 paintings in it, and he gave one to us…. of the Irtysh River that runs through Pavlodar…. and we bought one! They are beautiful. Our little souvenirs from Kazakhstan. Here is Grove in the studio playing the dombre (national instrument of the Kazakhs) with the artist, Anuar Igembayev. Grove is getting really in touch with his inner- Kazakh. Also, here is a picture of us with the artist and his friend, who is apparently a poet. We have become so bohemian.
A little about our first week in Pavlodar!
I will post more photos tomorrow, but mean while I am going to back up a little about our experience here so far…Pavlodar is an industrial city but has a beautiful river flowing through it- the Irtysh River- that is about the width of the Potomac and flows from China into Russia. It is spring here- very, very cold one day, windy and warmer the next- lots of snow and mud on the ground.
The second day we got here was the beginning of a three day holiday for the Kazak people- their new year and celebration of the equinox. Tatiana (one of our translators) took us down to the celebration and there were dozens of yurts set up, lots of music and traditional dancing. It turns out that each yurt was sponsored by a company and “our yurt” was sponsored by a very large building company – they insisted we eat with them so about 40 people crammed into these little tables in the yurt for a feast. Igor, the son of one of the employees, was our interpreter. He is 21 and speaks great English. There were lots of vodka shots and toasts- very jovial and festive. Many of these guys had worked together for over 30 years! They asked Grove to give a few toasts and then they asked me to sing an American hymn. So, I sang Amazing Grace (it was all I could think of) to about 40 drunk Kazakhs! The food was traditional kazakh cuisine….a big platter was served with lots of different meat: pork, lamb and mostly horse….and then they had this disgusting white drink that was fermented horse milk. It was so sour and gross we had to wash it down with lots of vodka. We were treated like guests of honor and each toast blessed the “americains.” Before the end, the master of ceremony made an announcement that he wanted to give Grove a gift, and that is when he took off his traditional Kazakh robe and gave it to Grove, complete with big hat….pictures are posted. There was an artist there who wants to give us one of his paintings….we are going to his studio this afternoon.
The people here have all been so generous and kind and warm to us. Its been incredible.
As for the adoption, our attorney here is Svetlana and she is fantastic. Our first day here, she got two official requirements done (including an interview we had to do with the Ofiice of Guardianship and Care) and cleared the way for us to go to the baby house (the day after the national kazakh holiday celebration. The only child we met at the baby house the first day we went was Pavel. The director had chosen him for us to see. We liked him immediately. He was so cute and sweet, very strong and very healthy and active, and yet calm. We were pretty sure that first day that he was the one for us. We visited with him again the next day and decided definitely for sure that he was the one for us. On the third day, we finally met with the Director, who asked us if we wanted to see anymore kids. They have about 9 kids at the baby house under a year right now. We said no way- we wanted Pavel. We visit with him every morning for about an hour. He seems to be attaching to us a little more each day. He loves to be held. He can stand and roll over and crawl and sit up by himself. Every day we are with him he gets more and more smiley and giggly. It will be interesting to see how his personality unfolds as we all get to know each other better. We have to do the bonding thing through April 4th and then we will get a court date. After court, if approved, we have a 2 week waiting period ...after the 2 week waiting period, we can break Pavel out of the orphanage and then we will have about a week of paper work and going to the US embassy in Almaty before we can head home to the US. We are in a nice and warm one bedroom apt in the middle of town. We have a gym we've joined that is 2 blocks away from here. Its a gym/hair salon- but actually quite nice. So, we are very comfortable. The team we are working with are fabulous and attend to our every single need. We have a driver and a translator (Tatiana) who take us wherever we want to go. So- we actually have it quite good. Sorry for the long entry….more to come soon! I will post more photos tomorrow.
The second day we got here was the beginning of a three day holiday for the Kazak people- their new year and celebration of the equinox. Tatiana (one of our translators) took us down to the celebration and there were dozens of yurts set up, lots of music and traditional dancing. It turns out that each yurt was sponsored by a company and “our yurt” was sponsored by a very large building company – they insisted we eat with them so about 40 people crammed into these little tables in the yurt for a feast. Igor, the son of one of the employees, was our interpreter. He is 21 and speaks great English. There were lots of vodka shots and toasts- very jovial and festive. Many of these guys had worked together for over 30 years! They asked Grove to give a few toasts and then they asked me to sing an American hymn. So, I sang Amazing Grace (it was all I could think of) to about 40 drunk Kazakhs! The food was traditional kazakh cuisine….a big platter was served with lots of different meat: pork, lamb and mostly horse….and then they had this disgusting white drink that was fermented horse milk. It was so sour and gross we had to wash it down with lots of vodka. We were treated like guests of honor and each toast blessed the “americains.” Before the end, the master of ceremony made an announcement that he wanted to give Grove a gift, and that is when he took off his traditional Kazakh robe and gave it to Grove, complete with big hat….pictures are posted. There was an artist there who wants to give us one of his paintings….we are going to his studio this afternoon.
The people here have all been so generous and kind and warm to us. Its been incredible.
As for the adoption, our attorney here is Svetlana and she is fantastic. Our first day here, she got two official requirements done (including an interview we had to do with the Ofiice of Guardianship and Care) and cleared the way for us to go to the baby house (the day after the national kazakh holiday celebration. The only child we met at the baby house the first day we went was Pavel. The director had chosen him for us to see. We liked him immediately. He was so cute and sweet, very strong and very healthy and active, and yet calm. We were pretty sure that first day that he was the one for us. We visited with him again the next day and decided definitely for sure that he was the one for us. On the third day, we finally met with the Director, who asked us if we wanted to see anymore kids. They have about 9 kids at the baby house under a year right now. We said no way- we wanted Pavel. We visit with him every morning for about an hour. He seems to be attaching to us a little more each day. He loves to be held. He can stand and roll over and crawl and sit up by himself. Every day we are with him he gets more and more smiley and giggly. It will be interesting to see how his personality unfolds as we all get to know each other better. We have to do the bonding thing through April 4th and then we will get a court date. After court, if approved, we have a 2 week waiting period ...after the 2 week waiting period, we can break Pavel out of the orphanage and then we will have about a week of paper work and going to the US embassy in Almaty before we can head home to the US. We are in a nice and warm one bedroom apt in the middle of town. We have a gym we've joined that is 2 blocks away from here. Its a gym/hair salon- but actually quite nice. So, we are very comfortable. The team we are working with are fabulous and attend to our every single need. We have a driver and a translator (Tatiana) who take us wherever we want to go. So- we actually have it quite good. Sorry for the long entry….more to come soon! I will post more photos tomorrow.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Here we are celebrating Nauriz- the Kazakh New Year and equinox
Here we are in the yurt feasting on traditional Kazakh cuisine! We were the guests of honor and Grove was presented with the traditional robe of Kazakh men....a big honor. We had a great time. 
Sunday, March 25, 2007
We finally have internet access.....
Hi all! Sorry we have been so out of touch. We haven't had internet access until today. So much has happened in this one short week since we left, but the biggest news, of course, is that we have chosen our baby- little Pavel- and we love him already. He is a sweet, wonderful, healthy little boy and we feel lucky to have gotten him. Thank you for all the wonderful emails....we will answer them in the next couple of days while we get caught up on the internet. We love hearing from you! We are literally on the other side of the planet (its 12 hours later here than in Santa Fe and we are still wide awake all night and very tired in the afternoons!) Here are some photos of the baby and us on our second visitation day. We go everyday for an hour and a half for another 9 days...Everything is going great here and we have a wonderful team helping us. They are extremely professional and are attending to all of our needs. I will write more tomorrow, but wanted to get these pictures of Pavel posted. He is truly a sweet little guy and just precious.OK-unable to post photos.....we only have dial up here and its problematic- arrggghhhh...will try again tomorrow- sorry! Love, Jenny
Monday, March 19, 2007
Bon Voyage Jenny and Grove!
Off they went yesterday morning. Alexandra and Theodore taxied them to the Sunport! Lots of luggage. We can't wait to hear more of the trip as it transpires. Godspeed! And comments can now be left by just about anyone. I hope there isn't too much spam, if so, I will add a filter. Tschuss! Leroy
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Happy Bday Grove - June 29,2006
Experimenting with uploading photos. Here we are on Groves 2006 bday. More on the way!
Day Before we leave for Kazakhstan
Scrambling to get ready to go tomorrow to start our adventure in K. Leroy is here helping me to set up blog. Wish I had time to say more... Come back for adventure updates periodically. xxoo JandG
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