Daily fix. :) A "toot" to remember.

To all of our addicts... :)

I think that Alia has a bit of reaction to her food. She is pretty gassy and she spits up quite a bit. :) Yesterday I had just given her a bottle. I had her propped up on my legs and she was looking at Brad. She let out the longest "toot" I've ever heard out of a baby! It was stinky too! I laughed so hard that I cried! Brad got a picture of her looking up at me like, "what?" :) Too funny!

Well, we are off to see Alia... I just signed on to dial up at the hotel for a bit (ahhh! It's so slow!)
Gotta go!
Steph

downtown!!

So, Brad and I woke up on Sunday feeling adventurous (well, I did... I had to convince Brad that he did too). :) We went to the front desk and asked what bus #'s would take us downtown. Tina, Marilyn, Brad and I hopped on one! After 2 stops... they made us get off because it was the end of the road... so, we hopped on another one! :) This one took us where we wanted to go.

We went to the "Big Green Bazaar"! Yes, shopping! All I bought was a pair of socks, sunglasses (because Brad broke his), some little washcloths (very hard to find here), and M&M's! Yum! We also found a good place to eat. I got Cheese Pizza... it almost tasted like Sbarros! :) Brad got some spicy pasta stuff. He liked it.

So, now that we know how to get there.... we will be spending many afternoons downtown. It's so much better than the norm here. :) Napping... one can only take so many naps... and we are on our way to figuring out just how many that is...

Today Alia and Lily (Tina's baby) had their first experiences with bubbles! Alia didn't know what to think at first... but she really liked them. She started reaching out to grab them and would eat them if she could.

Who knows what we'll do tonight. Rumor has it... we might be able to play outside again. :) Bring on the layers!

By the way... Pat, Brad thanks you for the sports updates. He's been wondering. Oh, and Ryan... Brad says you could go ahead and send that Meximelt this direction... an interesting science experiment... like the milk in college. :)

Oh, and Winston... no Magnums yet... I still have lots of time though. :)

Love ya all! Keep the comments coming... we're getting VERY homesick!
Steph and Brad

One more... (save the date)...

I know... I've got lots to say today... :)



Brad and I were hoping that the internet situation would be such here that we could send out an invitation by email, but... no such luck.



We are hosting a benefit dinner on October 25th at Oakridge Baptist Church. There will be food, entertainment (including Brad and I), and we have special speakers coming to share with you. The speakers are our friends who 's baby just came home from the same region (and room) as Alia.

We are very excited and hope that all of you will be able to attend. More news to follow soon! If we do get internet in our hotel, we'll be sending invites, if not... this will probably have all the info. The dinner will be donation based and all the money that is raised will go to the "Bring Alia Home" fund. :) Stay tuned... and save the date. :)

Love you all!
Steph and Brad

An opportunity...

So, each day when we pick up Alia... there are 10 other beautiful babies (that are not coming home with us...). We have the coolest opportunity to be able to play with them each day also. Brad and I have decided that we will bring as much as possible back on our next trip (which will actually be Anita and I). We can take as much as we can carry/pack with us. These babies share pacifiers, toys, clothes (mainly sleepers and jogging pants), etc... The babies are between 6-18 months (mostly wear 3-12 month clothes).

The items will have to be small and light. I know that the Dollar Tree and Burlington (in the .99 section) are great places to buy toys for cheap. Please let us know if you'd like to take an opportunity to help us bring a little extra back for them. Space will be an issue, but I have some ideas... I'll bring as much back as I can for these little babies. I wish you could see them... they are all beautiful, fun, and sweet babies.

Ha! I sure do wish the pizza here tasted like pizza there! :)

So, the lock costed us $10! Not a huge amount... just annoying...

Today is hard...I am tired, hungry and ready to go home... just not without my baby. I am SO torn, because I can't wait to get home but then I will want to come back because part of me will be here... :(

We decided to be adverturous today and went to a little food place with our Russian for Dummies Book. We basically pointed and ate... so, how did that work out? Well. Brad's tummy is happy (at least for right now).. the rest of us??? Well... not so much. Oh well... worth a try.

Ok, I have a lot on my mind today... so I'm going to do another post...
Steph

Anyone know a good locksmith... here?

Ok, so this morning was WONDERFUL! Alia is SO happy in the mornings! I love it when we get there and she is just waking up and she sees us and smiles. :) Anyway, we were able to attend a little birthday party there, complete with cake, music, dancing and a puppet show! Too fun! We also had passport pictures taken today. Yippe! :) One step closer...

AND... as if that wasn't great enough, we got to take her outside. Today has been the warmest day since we have been here. Funny story though... When we said we were taking her outside, they took our little girl who was already wrapped in about 4 layers... put a snowsuit on her, an extra hat with 2 pointy tops and a scarf. The poor baby couldn't even move. :) She just kept a smile on her face though... the whole time. After being outside for about 20 minutes, I looked down at her and she was completely asleep! I guess we wore her out. More great pictures.

We did go to town today... made some animal noises and ended up with cheese pizza~ oh well... actually, as picky as I am... that's probably good. The thing about "town" is that there are lots of places. It is wonderful... we just don't get there very often. Now that we have figured out the taxi thing... we'll probably go more. :)

Ok, so the title... tonight we went back for our second bond time... when we got there, the door to our room was locked. We found the key and tried to open it, but the keys weren't working. A really nice lady came by and tried to help, she got the key to turn, but then... nothing! It was stuck! She quickly took off... leaving all of us to explain...

Apparently we had the wrong key... whoops! So, needless to say, we didn't get to go to that room. When we left a couple of hours later... the key was still hanging there... I bet we get the bill for that one! Funny thing is... like the lady who actually got the key stuck, we could have run... but you know... we didn't. Oh well... hopefully new locks aren't too expensive.

So, hope you don't mind... but since we can't blog as often... looks like we blog longer. :)

What a great time reading all your comments! Thanks for keeping up with us...
By the way... Winston, I heard they have Magnum Ice Cream Bars here and I've been searching and searching... with no success, but... I WILL NOT give up! I desperately need one. We did find a Baskin Robbins here. :) That's pretty fun.

Ok, well... we bought some cereal today, so dinner is sounding wonderful... better get going.
Lots of love to you all!
Steph, Brad, and Alia :)

shopping...

Ok, so... I am having shopping w/d BIG TIME! I don't really need to buy, just look. ;)

I can't believe how much of nothing we are surrounded by here. In our last city, we had so much and now... a whole lot of nothing. We did walk a little further today than usual and found a couple of places that we might be able to come back and visit. I think the worst thing is the food. So far we have the hotel and ... well, that's about it. We found a little place today, but no one spoke English, there was no English menu and ... no pictures! It's a nightmare! They try to help, but how can they? So, we did meet a really nice girl yesterday who knows some English. She wants to meet us sometime to practice. We thought we might take her to lunch... that way she could help us out some too. :)

Brad thinks there are lots of hidden gems around here... we just have to walk more. Of course, he is willing to eat anything. The rest of us girls that are here (including our 2 new friends, Tina and Marilyn, her mom)... we don't like to just point at some crazy symbols and try whatever they bring out for us. :) Call us picky... but the stomach aches are not worth it.

So, tomorrow we may get to go into town. We are really looking forward to it! We get to develop some pictures of our babies... I know, that makes you jealous... sorry. Can't send any yet. :) She is amazingly cute though! Just wait... time will fly and soon she will be home with us. I can't wait!
Yesterday she turned over by herself for the first time. We were so excited! The people who are in there with us couldn't figure out what the big deal was, but even Tina's little baby clapped with us. :)

Ok. gotta go! Love you all.
Brad and Steph and Alia:)

And the winner is....

Well, I have so many little girl clothes, shoes, hats, etc...
I have premade scrapbooks that can't be boyified... no matter how hard I try.
Each outfit that I bought and scrapbook page I made...
I tried to envision what my little girl would look like.
Of course, in my mind... she was perfect!

As we've been packing for this trip... I've been preparing to meet a little boy... just in case... I was fine with that and knew that I would love him just as much (but have to do some big time shopping).

Let me introduce to you.... our baby...
our little GIRL! Alia Lynn

She is exactly the little girl that fits in the clothes that I have picked out, the asian bedding (and the animal bedding that was just in case of a little boy), and in our hearts. You should see her daddy! He can't stop asking to hold her... which if you know Brad... is quite surprising. :)

This little girl threw up on my jeans... didn't bother me... weird.

This little girl grins each time she sees either of us (my mom says it must be gas). ;)
Amazing! Worth every thing that we have had to go through... more than I can even say!
A whole new meaning to the trust thing... not that I didn't have doubts... because I did, but... I knew we were called to be here and that God would have something amazing for us here.

So, really all I can tell you is that she is 7 months old and is too big for size 3-6 month which is what she is always wearing... :)

More soon.
We love you all! Thanks for waiting while we told our families! Brad and Steph

p.s. Alea, Sophie, and Alia will need to get together ASAP... we can take lots of pictures! :)

Typos!

Ok, sorry about the "mal" typo... I obviously know how to spell that word. :) It was MALL of America. :) I was so excited about it... I didn't care how it was spelled... it was awesome!

So, unfortunately... I still can't give details and sorry we aren't able to update the blog in the middle of the night here... the internet cafe is closed. :) We have a plan for tomorrow morning to hopefully be able to talk to our families and then .... all will know!

So, you know how we were complaining about the 122 degree weather last time... well, I'd take it back... it's freezing here! Ok, well... maybe not freezing, but it is cold. I guess I'm never really happy with the temp... unless its holding steady at 75-80. Brad is loving it...

Ok, so Brad says that he likes the "mal" spelling of mall because it means bad in Spanish... I don't think that's funny! Brian is probably laughing at that one!

Ok, we love you all and are about out of time... stay tuned because our NEWS is on its way!

Brad and Steph and ...... :)

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you"... He sure does! So, due to internet difficulties, we haven't been able to talk to our families yet, so we can't post any details yet... but, things are going VERY well this time! Totally different and amazing... Hopefully we can share more soon.

So far, we haven't had time to do much exploring, so ... we'll hopefully get some pics and funny stories for you soon.

Stay tuned... sorry we havn't been able to post too much... we just found the internet cafe and weren't able to bring our computers. Hopefully we'll find another option soon though.

Signing out for now,
Steph and Brad

Here's some Mal of America videos!! I hope they load for you all!

And… we’re back!

Here we are again, back in good ole Kaz! For some reason, I had to buy a bag of m&m’s and some pear juice. … I was so happy when I found them! Talk about comfort food. I think that tomorrow morning we begin the process in our region (that made me need some chocolate!). We have one more flight tonight and then we should be settled in our “new home” for the next month or so.
So, we spent most of Friday at the Mall of America (since we had a 23 hour layover in Minneapolis). That was fun! If you know me, you know that shopping is my favorite hobby! If you know Brad, you know that he walked around for quite a while, but then noticed a huge Madden 2008 tournament going on in the middle of the mall… needless to say… we parted ways for a bit. We did ride one of the roller coasters at the theme park in the middle of the mall. I got some fun pics and videos, but don’t have time to load them on here yet… pictures to come…. Hopefully soon.
Please remember to pray for us as you go to bed tonight…
Hang tight… hopefully we’ll figure out internet pretty soon and can put lots of updates out there. Until then, we love you all… more to come!
Steph and Brad