Monday, March 30, 2009

Thoughts from Our Journey So Far !!

I decided that I would put together our experiences for the past week as we traveled from home to Karaganda.


Flights- To Sleep or Not To Sleep
The flights were uneventful really. They were long and boring. We did not sleep very much. We hoped for some good movies but they were nothing exciting. At least they had good orange juice that seemed to appear just when we needed it. The first flight took us to Frankfurt, Germany. We had a short layover there. We even ate a McDonald’s at the airport. The menu was a little different from normal. They had ham and cheese croissants, country McGriddles (which was a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle), McToast with Bacon (except it was not toast but rather some sort of pita bread) and there is no such thing as diet Coke.. it is Coca- Cola Light. We did meet our traveling companions in Frankfurt, the Duncans. They flew into Frankfurt from New York. They are traveling with their seven year old daughter.


Second flight was just about the same as the first. It was long and boring with at least one good movie ( Australia).That was pretty much the only thing that was exciting. The flight was very boring put it got us and our luggage there safely. We did see several snow covered mountains from the window of the plane. We guessed that it was Russia that we were seeing. Wherever it was, there was totally snow and ice on the ground.


Almaty
We landed in Almaty at around midnight. We were greeted by Kaz soldiers as we got off the plane. I should not say greeted as they do not speak or smile or anything. We made it into the concourse and ready to go through passport control. There was a great sign that said “Welcome to Almaty” so I decided to take a picture. Well, I guess that I was not supposed to take pictures. I quickly was told by a female soldier “No Pictures”. I quickly put up my camera. I didn’t want to land in a Kaz jail. We made it through passport control with no issues. We then picked up our baggage. It all made it….Yeah !!


We were not sure on how to find our driver, Adil but we were pleasantly surprised that he actually had a sign with our name on it. We all secretly wanted a sign to greet us. Since there were two families, they brought two small cars. Since we had so many bags, we had to put one suitcase in the back seat with Madalyn and myself.


It turns out that the day before we arrived was Kaz New Year so the city was still decorated very similar to how we decorate for Christmas with colored lights and so on. The city was very big and modern from what we could see at night. We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Kazakhstan. It was beautiful outside and the lobby was gorgeous. We thought that we would be staying in a great room with fancy accommodations. Well………………..we were sorely mistaken. They took us to a room which was had a hole in the door near the lock. The walls had cracks and crevices in it. We were only given one small full size bed for all three of us. The bathroom was small, old and dirty looking. I am not sure if it was actually dirty or just old. It was also very hot in the room but luckily we had a stand up fan that we could turn on to make us cooler. We tried to get a little sleep laying on top of the covers. I could not sleep due to excitement, worry, and lack of adequate accommodations. The highlight of this leg of the journey was that we were able to Skype with my mom. It was midnight her time but we just happened to find her online. It was good for both of us to hear each other’s voice. When we awoke to light in Almaty, we were greeted with beautiful snow capped mountains out our window. I have posted a picture for you to see what we saw. We took a walk around a nearby park as we waited for our driver to come back to take us to the airport for our final trip to Karaganda. We decided that we would try to eat some food. Brian and I had a steak which was served with some type of potato fritter. It was very good.


Then we were off to the airport. This time we did not have to go through passport control. The other family traveling with us got a little detained as they could not find the little white pieces of paper that they gave us when we arrived at passport control. For those of you who are planning to travel, that piece of paper is extremely important. Keep it in your passport. They found theirs and all was well.
The dreaded overweight charges that we were prepared to pay…..nothing at all. I am not sure if the flight was not full so they did not charge us or if they have made changes. Nevertheless, no overage charges. We waited in the holding area until they called our gate. Being the kind of person that I am, I of course, had to ask to make sure that we did not need to proceed to where it said our gate. Of course I didn’t want to be late (I am my Father’s child)I was told to wait.
Then we proceeded to our gate which took us to a little bus that took us to our plane. The plane ride was short and nothing compared to other fights that we had previously taken. The flight was quick.
Stay tuned for more later as I bring you up to date on Karaganda and meeting Logan for the first time.


Thursday, March 26, 2009

Finally wireless is working at the hotel.

Today is a good day. We have wireless at the hotel. We can now update the blog. Check back later for information on how days 1-3 have went; we have more important things to add to the blog..............pictures of Logan.



Now presenting our son,



Logan Yuri Wright


More pictures to come later but I wanted to get these out there. He is 7 months old. He is very small as he was a preemie at birth. We are still verifying all of the medical information. He is a sweet little boy who loves to laugh at his new family especially his big sister, Madalyn. She had him laughing by the first afternoon.

Lots to tell but we need to go now.

Love from Kaz,

Cynthia, Brian and Madalyn

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Hello from Kaz !!

We have finally gotten to the internet cafe so we can post something. We are still working at the access from the room so we do not have pictures to post yet.

We are doing great and travel has been good.

So, I bet you are wondering.........what about the baby ???

IT IS A BOY !!! His name is Logan Yuri Wright. We are still verifying some medical information on him but he is a happy cute little boy. We will post pictures later and much more details.


Monday, March 23, 2009

We made it to Almaty !!

We just wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know that we made it Almaty. It was a safe flight. We are just resting in our hotel room at Hotel Kazakhstan. Out of our window is the most beautiful snow capped mountains. I wish we could send you the pictures but that is not working for us at the moment.

We will be flying to Karaganda this evening. More information to come.

Tomorrow is the day that we meet our new member of the family so keep us in your prayers.

Love from Kaz,

Cynthia, Brian and Madalyn

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Ready to Go !!!

We are packed and almost ready to go. I tried to make it all fit in three bags but it obviously did not work. Oh well, we will just pay the overage charges.

We still have a few more things to do before we leave this evening. Next time that we post, we will be overseas. I am not sure if we will be able to post along the way or not. We are very excited but also very nervous. It still does not seem real.

Please pray for safe and healthy travel for us.

-Brian, Cynthia and Madalyn-

Friday, March 20, 2009

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!!!

THERE IS ONLY
1
DAY UNTIL WE LEAVE FOR KAZ !!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!!!

There are only 2 more days yeah!!! Today was my last day of school for a month!!





There are.....


2

day's 'til we leave for Kaz!!!!!!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!

There are .......
3
days 'til we leave for Kaz !!!!!

Monday, March 16, 2009

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!

Time truly flies by....



There are ....
5
days 'til we leave for Kaz!!!
-Madalyn-

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Hard to Imagine

First of all, I would like to welcome all of our new followers to the blog. We will be updating the blog as often as possible while we are away depending upon the internet access. Thank you all for your prayers and support. It is nice to feel so loved and to know that we have lots of people back home who are thinking of us and wanting to know what is happening to us. Please cover us with your prayers while we are gone. Specifically, pray for favor and for smooth travels. Also, please pray that we will know the child that God has set aside to become the 4th member of the Wright Household (not counting Greta the cat of course).

Now, to give everyone an update. It is hard to imagine but by this time next week, we will be either in the air or in Germany. It is a little hard to keep track of the time difference. I think that we have finally determined that Karaganda is 11 hours ahead of us. So for example, it is 1pm here now and that would be midnight in Karaganda.

I have been packing and unpacking and repacking. I am determined to fit as much as possible into three suitcases and two duffel bags. We will see how it goes. We also all got cute backpacks to use as our carry ons. For those of you that know me, I am preparing for every possible situation. I even have a flashlight packed. My dad will be proud. Hey, don't laugh. I have seen too many episodes of Lost to be not prepared. Anyway, I still have a week to keep tweaking the luggage. If anyone can get it all into those bags, it will be me. I take pride in my packing skills.

Other news... we found out that we will be traveling with another family of three with a 7 year old daughter. So Madalyn will have another young person in country with her. We are very glad that we will have another family to share our journey.

I guess that is all for now.

-Cynthia-

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ

I am soooooo excited I can't even think.It is hard to believe that there are only six days until we leave!!!!!!

There are .........
6
days 'til we leave for Kaz!!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry!!! I forgot to add 8 days to my countdown.I will continue to post the updated countdowns!!!



There are .....
7
days 'til we leave for Kaz!!!
-Madalyn-

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!!!!!

Hi!!!! Right now we are starting my countdown to Kazakhstan!!!!!!! I am very excited!!!! 

There is ...............

9

Days 'til we leave for Kaz!!!! 

 

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Is it Real Yet??



Everyone is always asking "Is it real yet?". Well, today it got a whole lot more real. We received our letters of invitation to travel in March. We will leave Atlanta on Saturday, March 21st. We will arrive in Karaganda and the home of our future child on the 23rd. We are super excited. When I told Madalyn, she screamed with joy. We even had to go out to eat to celebrate.


We have been so blessed along the way thus far. God has granted us favor. Continue to pray for the next portion of our journey and for continued favor.


So, now the REAL countdown begins. We will be leaving 10 days from today. Yes, I said 10 days. Madalyn is ready to start her countdown so stay tune for
MADALYN'S COUNTDOWN TO KAZ!!!!!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

You Need How Many $100 Bills????

Brian and I went to the bank today to order our money. I guess that there are not many people who come into a bank and request fresh crisp unmarked new $100 bills. We got some interesting looks. The Customer Service Rep at the front of the bank looked up at us with a very questionable look. He quickly said that we needed to talk to a teller. The teller was very nice but when I asked for greater than ten thousand dollars in one hunderd dollar bills, the teller thought that I wanted 10's of thousands of $1 bills. Brian said that we would need a truck to carry all of that money. I tried to explain again. This time she thought that I needed tens of thousands of $100 bills. That would be over a million dollars. So we tried again.... I need around 100 or so $100 bills that equals around $10k. All of that said, she finally understood and said that they would order the brand new money.

Wow, the things that we have to go through. Hey at least, we will have some good stories to tell.

Since we are talking about money, Brian is laughing at me because I have bought a few clothes and things for the baby. Well.....maybe more than a few but he will need them. If they will not work for him, think about all of those children over in Kaz that can use the clothes and things. Besides we have a list of things to buy and that is more than enough stimulus for me to go shopping (and it does not take much to get me ready to shop).

With all of my purchases, I have packed one bag and who knows how many more that I have to go. There is so much to do and and so much to buy and so little time......I guess I need to go shopping.