final Semey notes

Folks the time has come to begin closing down the blog. We wrote this Blog for a number of reasons. We wanted to keep our family and friends informed of our adventures in Kazakhstan. Imagine the communications problems we would have without the internet. We also wanted to keep a day to day log so our children will get an idea of our raw thoughts at the time of their early days and as they joined our family. As it turns out, including the comments from all of you, this blog will show how much they have been loved even before their parents came to get them. And how much God has been protecting them for all of their days. Plus, This will help tell them about the interesting heratige they have.
We also wrote as an educational book about the adoption process in general. We wanted to write to people who are in the adoption process or are thinking about joining the ranks of parenthood through adoption. We wanted to show that adoption is hard work and that the rewards are great. (As we all know ”Hard work is never easy”). We know they are reading and we are glad to help. Be prepared for an adventure of your children's life.
Since Monday 11/28 our title has changed from adoptive parents to just parents. And the children have changed from ‘children to be adopted’ to the Curran kids. When we first started this process we were told that there is a term that people in the adoption process hear inappropriately all of the time. The kids are often asked “where are your real parents” Or the parents are asked “imagine if you had real children”. And these are adults who ask these questions. Of course they are really talking about “birth” parents and “birth” children. Our kids will know that they are adopted. We will discuss it at different stages of their lives. There probably won't be opportunies for the readers of the blog to mention adoption. We are real parents and they are our real kids. We think the only evidence that people outside the family will know that our kids are adopted, is that they will have straight hair, and their parents have naturally curly hair.
We will celebrate our “Family Day” on the day everything became official on Nov. 28th . It could be the 1st day in Semey of the Nov 13th also. We will see when the anniversary comes in 1 year. Many people call that day “Gotcha Day” We think ‘Family Day’ is a more fitting day to celebrate. Our children will know they are from Kazakhstan. We will celebrate that heritage as much as we do our Lithuanian, German/English/Native American and Irish heritage. Of course on all college applications they will be listed as Native Americans(joke). They will be US citizens on the day they land in New York and we hand in our immigration papers. They will be proud to be Americans. They will know that a kid from the Steppes of Southern Siberia can grow to be anything they put their mind to be. Thank you for being here for us and our children. We love all of you. God Bless!

PS We have booked our flight to Almaty for Monday morning. We may be out of communications during our travels from Semey to Almaty to home. We will post agina when we can. We will definitely post an epilogue when we get home.

It is time to leave Semey

There are certain signs that it is time for us to go home.
The street light on the corner seen in the picture of Semey has been broken since our second day here. Today it was fixed.
The resturant in the hotel that we have eaten in at least once per day just started construction. We now have to eat in a different part of resturant.
The people in the internet cafe have a reserved seat for us. They are starting to speak English.
The caregivers have the kids ready before we get to the orphanage.
We started signing papers on Friday.
We met with our coordinator on Saturday. Only the second time since we have been here. She gave us the completed documents and we have them to bring to the embassy.
We booked a Flight to Almaty - Hooray. We fly on Monday. We still have work to do in Almaty but at least we will be moving.
A couple of more prayers that the paperwork is not delayed.
It looks like it is time to move on to our next adventure - Traveling with kids. We will carry a new sign - HELP!

The paperwork is starting to move.

Today, Friday, we signed a bunch of papers. We know the passports are created. We still don't know when we are going to Almaty. The earliest will be on Monday. Once there we can expect a communications blackout until we can find a new cafe.
We will let you know on Saturday or Sunday if we booked the flight for Monday.
It is so close we can taste it.
Well at least still have time to see the couple of museums that we haven't seen, plus the Steppes and ski area in the forest.
Signed: Still having fun in Beautiful Semey.

What we will miss

Our time is winding down here in Semey. We still don’t know when. Here are some things we will miss:
Our time together – 3 weeks without Chris or Barbara leaving for work. With the language problem we pretty much have been in-separatable during this whole time, shopping eating and visiting. We have enjoyed this time.
We will miss the city life. It has been great being able to walk to a store or a park or even the internet café. We will miss writing our life story to the world. This will be a good kick start to our journaling days.
We will miss our buddies at the café. They will miss us.
We will miss our movie night. 8:00 every night we set up the theater in our room and enjoy our wine and Pringles and our quiet time together. We will see if maybe we can keep this in the future…Something tells me this is not reality.
We will miss going to the orphanage. Picking up Michael with his big smile for a greeting; Picking Grace as she bops/hops down the hall leading to her big greeting for her little brother.
We will miss our little family room, although we know the kids are ready to bust out of that room. When the time comes for us to reminisce about the quiet and simple times with the kids, we will fondly remember our time in the family room.
We will miss Raushan, our friend and protector. It is nice to know there is someone in town worrying about us. We will miss our great conversations.
We will miss our driver Almas. How great is it to have a driver take you around the city every day. Almas was more then that, it was fun hearing about his tests for his law degree and stories about his girlfriend. We will miss his big smile.
We will miss our daily tea.
We will miss our dinner in the same restarant in the hotel every night. Those people know us well and we enjoy eating in their company.
We will miss the few times where were heard people in town speaking English. At the same time we will miss trying to speak Russian or trying to communicate to Russian speaking people. It is always a great achievement to get what you want without using words.
We will is our daily snow. So far we are up to a total 3 inches after some snow-globe type snow every day. There is not much at a time but it is slowly accumulating. I predict a white Christmas.
We will miss talking to the video camera every day. I hope 21 days of looking out the same window giving a morning commentary is not too monotonous. (My sister Tara you will kill me if when see these videos, bad technique)
We will miss trying to be creative for you, our reading public. Trying to figure out what you would be interested in and what you would think is humorous. We have really enjoyed talking to you. I must admit the pictures of the kids really helped.
We still have a couple of more segments for your reading pleasure, but we are running out of material. We can see by your comments and emails that you have enjoyed this as much as we have. God Bless.

Investors needed.

This is a picture of a rightside view of Semey from our hotel window. That 2nd tiny looking smokestack in the upper center of photo, is accross the street from the orphanage. The closest building used to be a bread factory plus other semi used and abandoned apartment buildings. We had Thanksgiving in the tallest building in the picture. 16 stories is as tall as they get here.
I promised you I would talk about the economics of Semey and Kazakhstan. Have you heard of the pioneers? Kazakhstan became a country in 1993 since then there has been a tremendous amount of people moving. In Semey the Russian military, Russian nationals, Germans and Ukrainians have gone back to their respective countries. This has left a city of about 500,000 people with a current reading up to about 300,000. There is investment opportunity if you are willing to take the risk. What can you get cheap? Food, drink and cigarettes. We eat dinner of two small salads, 2soups, 2 small entrées and 2 beers for 1300 tenge (ten-gay). That is $10. We went to one place for the same price we fed 4 people. You can get 2 beers for $1. A pack of cigarettes cost .35 cents. We would fill our suitcases with cigarettes if we thought we could get past customs. What does the city need? Steel, road repair works, fleece sweatshirts, postcards and cash and much. Semey was a major producer in Soviet times. They had the biggest meat packing plant in the Empire they had bread factories, shoes and clothing factories. All of that is gone. Now all anyone wants to do is import cheap clothes and shoes and sell them in small crowded booths. Everyone sells the same stuff. Every 3rd booth is for kids clothes or toys. Then there are women’s cloths and bags. There are some electronics booths and cell phone booths. The all look the same. What they are missing is manufacturing. In our hotel we see the bread factory that used to employ about 500 people. Now the roof is collapsed. People work a number of jobs, like teach English and then interpret for adopting families. During the transition from the Soviet times there was a time of land grabbing. The people in power took everything. But they didn’t know how to run it. Every time there was a conflict the owners just shut the factories down. Now there are empty buildings every where. The people of the city are very proud of what they have and things are improving. That is why it is time to act. You can get an apartment building for a song. You can get workers to maintain it. You just need renters. If you are willing to lose some rent money early you will make it back in the long run. If you can restart a factory that will hire workers that rent in your buildings things will move faster…It’s a whole economic theory. You need to be in an MBA program to understand it. My brother Michael can explain it if you need helpJ(sorry, inside joke to half of the readers.) Anyway, the city is growing again and they are looking for investors.

Day 4 of parenthood - thursday

On Tuesday we told the kids that they had parents. They weren't impressed. Grace smiled and asked for her juice. Michael asked for his cereal treat. Maybe they didn't understand us. We thought it was good news. We will we tell then again in the future. We are trying to prepare the kids for travel. We have pictures of the house and their rooms so they will recognize it when they see it. We are also starting to walk through the halls with little commands like "walk' and "stop" so they know them when they hear them. Whoever said that our skills we learned while working with the dogs will used for kids, was right. 'Walk' and 'stop' are universal.
Still no word on leaving. It seems that with new laws come new paper work. Our interpreter and coordinator or working overtime with new forms and additional copies. We will keep you informed.

Thank You for Caring

Here is Grace with one of her caregivers. She is not in her normal uniform today. We think she was putting on some type of play for the kids. Today the caregivers were scrambling to have their picture with Grace and Michael. The word must have spread that they are heading home soon. We can see how much our children have been loved in this place. Each time we go to the room the caregivers give special hugs to welcome the kids back. We know they have taught them well. Grace speaks clearly and knows how to hold a pen. Grace even teaches Papa every time she breaks out the writing book. These are special people and we will not forget them.

Raushan and Her Little Buddy, Michael

To start with, you all are brining tears to our eyes with all of your comments. We just love reading them. Thank you.
This is picture of our translator, Raushan, with our little man. Michael became very special to Raushan when she would visit the orphanage in the past. Michael would cry a lot back then and he would hold his arms up to her as to ask to be picked up, whenever she was in his room . Raushan said to us that she always wondered what kind of family Michael would have. We believe that she is very pleased with his selection. Raushan has been a tremendous help to us not only with her job of translating for us, but also as a wonderful friend. In addition, she is the local historian who provided the historical information you've read on our Blog. Raushan was born here and her family has been in this area for generations. Thank you so very much Raushan, we know you read this!!!

What a Great and Glorious Day!!!!

Success. We are the proud parents of healthy little girl and little boy. She speaks Russian and is 100cm and about 30;bs. She has all of her fingers and toes. We call her Grace Tayna. He is 80cm and is about 20lbs. He has all of his fingers and toes. We call him Michael Joseph. Both are vey happy. Both parents are very happy and feeling good. We would join in a shot of Vodka if we were with you. Join us, we already had ours.
The court proceeding went very smoothly. We knew we were in good shape when all of the women of the court; the Judge, the prosecutor and the child advocate oogled at the required pictures of the family. Most of these picures were the same ones you saw already. Our coordinator was extreamly happy. She gave Barbara a big Russian bear hug. Our translator was eaqually happy. We have enjoyed our time here in Semey, it looks like we will be here a few more days to get the paper work done. We will travel to Almaty soon, we don't have an exact date yet. In Almaty we will present the kids to the US Embassey. Then we will head home. We will know a better time frame later in the week. Thank you for all of your prayers. It looks like they have been answered. Later.

Day 15

Significant milestones were hit today. Grace said her first English word without prompting. The word was BOOK. Later on she was pointing to the ceiling and said the word UP. Michael, our little man, finally drank from the sippy cup after two weeks of putting the thing infront of him in attempts to get him to use it. When he finished the juice he cried because he wanted more. Go figure!! Today was our last official visitation day before court. Now we will not see our little munchkins until Tuesday. Tomorrow we will sit tight and wait for our coordinator to take us to court. Then our next round of paperwork will begin. We are getting nervous...It will be a relief when it is all over.

What we are thankful for!

Chris&Barbara: We Thank God for all that we have
We are thankful for our parents for teaching what it is to Love. With Love there is happiness and sorrow involved and that it so overwhelming that it guides you to do the right thing. Love helps you live in peace. We are thankful that they taught us the gift of Faith in God. Without it we would have ended our journey a long time ago. We thank them for so much more. We are thankful to the new aunts and uncles and people in our lives who have kids. As we struggle to be contributing member for the "parents club" you have given us so much useful advice, not only with words but by actions. We will work on emulating the good and avoiding the bad. We are thankful to the nieces and nephews who will invite our children into their world. We are thankful that our family and our dogs are enjoying relatively good health. We are thankful that people have jobs that they like. We are thankful that our family is still expanding and that the kids of the clan are healthy. We are thankful that Donna and Tom are on the way to Russia to reunite with their son. We have a lot to be thankful for on this Great and Glorious day!

Grace and Michael: We are thankful to our birth parents who love us. We will pray everyday that they have peace in their heart and mind and that they know that they are loved. We are thankful for our caregivers who are extraordinary people. They have taken such good care of us. It will be tough for our parents to match their high standards. We look forward to torturing our parents as they try for perfection. Our caregivers will also be in our prayers everyday. We are thankful for our parents. They don't even speak our language and they are able to communicate with us. They are very nice and they bring us toys and make us laugh. We can't wait to get home to continue to learn and grow into loving people just like our parents. We are thankful to our grandparents. We can feel the love and excitement that they have for us already. We can't wait to meet them and be spoiled by them! Most of all we can't wait to get home and join the cousins. We love to play and share and we love to be around other kids. We thank God for the opportunity to expand our horizons. We Thank God for our Forever Family.

Here we light a candle in the 120 year old Russian Orthodox Church in thanksgiving and prayer for Grace and Michael's birthparents.

You are the best!

Thank you all for your comments and prayers. We are enjoying reading your comments as much as you are enjoying our Blog. We can't wait to get to the Internet Cafe to see if we got any new comments. And like all parents we enjoy hearing good things about our kids. Thank you for your support.

Pictured are Raushan our interpreter on the right and Almas our driver on the lft of Barbara. They are in front of the regional museum.

Thanksgiving in KAZ

What a Great and Glorious day Thanksgiving was. Of course we miss being home with the families. We were able to meet up with a few Americans and enjoy a great meal and great fellowship. Christine was our host, in her apartment. We met Christine on the flight from Alamaty kz to Semey. She helped us with a communications problem. She recognized us as adoptive parents from miles away. We sat with her on the plane and were invited to Thanksgiving. Christine is from Atlanta and originally from Liberia. she is physician. The other Americans were from Arkansas. Tara and Rusty. Also there was Donata(sp?) who works on missionary work with Christine in the villages 1-2 hours outside Semey. She goes to the University here and teaches English. They work with the Vlad who is a Russian Baptist minister. With Vlad at the celebration was his wife Svetlana(?) their daughter Eve. Eve is 6 years old. Chris had fun teaching her little games like “high-5 in the middle, down low …too slow” It was the only game he could think of.
The food was incredible, 4 different salads, beet, carrot, Garden and corn/peas. We had tons of chicken and rice. Then we had 3 different cakes and a variety of cookies and pastries. We all met at 12:30. Vlad said grace, being a minister and all. Then we ate to our fill. Tara and Rusty left for a while. The rest of us stayed and talked and sang spiritual and Christmas songs, some in Russian some in English. Tara and Rusty returned at 5:00pm and we repeated a number of stories and had a second portion of salads and chicken and sang more songs. We left at about 8:30 pm. It was full and enjoyable Thanksgiving. Wish you were here.

Follow up pictures.

This is the Nuclear test memorial that I described earlier. It is very moving, especially with the mother protecting the child. This was opened in 1999; 50 years after the 1st test explosion.

Day 14

Grace planned this picture; she even got Michael to look at the camera.
Grace: I love hugging my little brother
Michael: Yikes!! I hope she doesn't kiss me.
Grace: Listen to me I am the big sister!!!
Michael: Actually, it is nice to have a big sister to take care of me.

Big News!!!!

We are on schedule. Friday we were told that the court day is on Monday(Nov 28) at 2:30pm our EKT. That is 3:30 am your time. This is just as we had hoped for. We will not see the children that day. We will have a morning dry run for court. We have our suits and our pictures and we are ready. The pictures need to show if we are bonding with the children and if the children are bonding with each other. We still have dangers ahead. The judge can deny our request. We may be staying in Semey for a few more days post court as we wait for paperwork to be completed. It will make life easier on the kids. This way they are not stuck in a cramped hotel with their parents for longer then needed. We will keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Reading is fundamental...

Papa is reading to me but I'm looking at the camera!!
I love books. Today I said the word "book" and my mama and papa got very excited...it's the little things that keep them happy. Love Grace

Modern city

There are about 250,000 people in this town. What does the city look like, you ask? Imagine a city built during the Soviet era sixties and seventies. Did you imagine gray cement? You are correct. Most of the buildings are flat gray buildings on the initial look. We live in the Semey Hotel a 5 story gray building. There are no more then a handful of buildings taller. I would say 10-12 stories is as tall as you get. It is funny when we first got here we saw nothing but flat gray buildings but the more we get around we see some pink and orange color. We see blue and gold colors. We see some buildings with architectural interest with columns or window frames. We also see many very old wooden structures that have great craftsmanship in the doilies on the eves and over doors. Many of these structures look run down but you can tell that in is heyday this down was quite beautiful and it still is. Many of the apartments in the center of town are named after the Soviet leader who was there at the time of Kennedy. They are very nice looking on the outside. On the inside they were built to accommodate as many families as possible so they are quite small. It looks like every one lives in apartments here, except for the few newly rich, those who acquired wealth by being in the position of power when the soviet wall came down. According to one local’s theory. They city is littered with little parks and big parks. Our hotel is at the eastern end of victory park. Dedicated to the locals who fought in World War Two. They still light a flame on May 9th the day after the war was over for the Soviets. It is a very nice memorial It is interesting that they shoveled the center of the park where there is a square and the place for the flame. But they did not shovel the paths leading to the center. In an other park in the city center they did the same thing. The whole square is shoveled. Both parks have trees and grass on the edges but the center is all cement block. I am sure it looks beautiful during the summer. Maybe we will come back then. One other statue we saw was dedicated to the locals who fought in Afghanistan 1979-1989. One was a boy that was taught by our interpreter when she was part of 5th grade class. It is sad to see the name of a person you know on a memorial monument.
Overall the city has grown on us. We are able to communicate better and better every day. We see the buaty that surrounds us. We also see the potential and wish we could buy and renovate every empty building in town. I am looking few a few partners with plenty of cash…we’ll make a killing… more on economics of the city later.

City tour

On Sunday we went on a tour of the city of Semey. The city was founded by the army of Peter the great in 1718 as a fortress. The army that defended the fort were the Cossacks from west Russia. Semey was a walled in city with a gate facing the river. The river is the Irtish, it flows from China in the east to Russia to the north. A replica gate has been built to show where the original city wall was. Near the gate the Semey people had a magnificent bridge built connecting the industrial West or left bank to the residential/business right bank. It is the only suspension bridge in the former soviet union countries. The called it the Golden Gate Bridge of the Steppes. I looks like it might be as big as the Golden Gate. Tricia I let you know if I get to walk over it.
We are told that the Japanese built the bridge. People are very proud of the bridge.
The river itself is pretty big. We were told it was much wider and deeper in the past. It has a park along the right bank. It looks like a great place to be in the summer. There are gazebos and paths and trees. It is nice. At one point we went to the Semey University right along the river and in the court yard they have these statues. About 20-25 of them. All dominated by a 4 story tall statue of Lenin. All of the other statues are people from the Soviet times. Plus one of Marx. At the time of the fall of Russia the Mayor of Semey decided to gather all of the Soviet era Statues. He did not want to destroy them just keep them for historical purposes in one area. Many older people were not happy about this. They wanted them to remain in the center of the city. The older folks are still not thrilled that the Soviets life is gone. I’ll talk economics at another time.
Another park we went to was a memorial to the local victims of nuclear testing done by the Soviets. It was dedicated in 1999; 50 years after the 1st test explosion. The soviets did all of there testing right outside of Semey. The above ground testing were stopped after the people of the area held “Nevada” rallies to protest the tests. From 1963 to 1987 the tests were under ground. The monument is 20 stories tall with black marble shell representing the belief that the testing was justified to protect the soviet union. The inner part is rough stone in the shape of a mushroom cloud. At the base within the hollow cloud is a statue of a mother protecting her child. It is a very moving memorial. Next to it is a Traditional Kazakh wish tree. Where you place a piece of cloth on the tree and make a wish. There are 100s of thousands pieces of cloth on the tree. We added ours and gave the wish to our kids.
The last stop was to the Abay (sp?) statue. He is the Shakespeare of the Kazakh people. He died in 1904. He wrote great wisdom and tolerance at a time when there was cultural unrest. He is recognized by UNESCO as an important world literary figure. More if we have time.