multiple posts are a comin......

Easter and Spring Break were here and gone before I could ever get a good handle on our activities and pictures a-plenty! So, as not to overwhelm me or my parents who like to print out the posts, I will do multiple posts (hopefully, one per day this week) to get everyone caught up......

First, we had a low-key but great 2nd Easter with Nick....our first state-side Easter but our Almaty Easter brings back good memories also ...... below is Easter in Kaz with our family friend connections who worked with the US Embassy (no, it did not help us get done any faster!) Most of the people at the Easter party were employees of the consulate or usaid.....it was our first encounters with Englishers (not all were American) since we had left Amsterdam 8 weeks earlier ....we had no other families adopting in our town.

Nick's first swing experience......he mostly just wanted to sit there....now it is BIG HIGH!

Nick and the Easter bunny.......a little apprehensive to say the least.....Now, he stalks Chuckie Cheese!

Now on to this Easter.......He was so darn cute I must say! But, pictures were not something he was willing to do on the way to church.....he is sporting his teenager attitude here.....hilarious, kind of..........

I was feeling pretty bad about the lack of candy in the Easter Basket but my fellow Kaz toddler mom, Julie, did raisins and almonds....so I feel justified in continuing my goal to keep him low sugar......no, not completely, not really possible in America, but with his weird reactions to certain types of sweets, I feel completely justified! What he doesn't know yet, definitely won't hurt him and he LOVED his Easter basket with a little something from Mom and Dad, Gma and Gpa and Auntie Tracey who were all present for the weekend. It was a great time!

The Boys were having a night together when mom went out for some girl time and Dad was very proud of his adorable pics of Nick in true form. Our boy will be a singing Engineer, I have no doubt......he wanted mom to rig him some earphones from his walkie talkies (strap them together so they would hang over his head like headphones)....I, being on the way out, decided to go with convenience and offered him an old set of real headphones.....I know, the lazy way out....but for the life of me, I could not think of how to strap them together so that they would stay on his head.....Duct Tape? Here he is jammin below with his toolbox/boombox that he stuck the end of the headphones in.

And, last for this first of many posts to catch up is my beach buddie. Pat said he pulled out the chair, got his stool, and his "jug" of water and said they were sitting at the beach! They had a beach party at school and he continues to want to go to "the beach" often. I think that means we should go to Hawaii....doesn't it?

He is looking so grown-up these days.....time has flown....We were talking yesterday about the fact that we had just arrived in Almaty at this time last year.....we had spent 7 1/2 weeks in Zhez and thought we were finally going home .......little did we know that we had 2 1/2 more weeks in Almaty!! Those last weeks were the hardest of my life especially after Pat flew home at the 9 week mark.....Nick was understandably a little crazy and so were we.....I remember distinctly hearing the lady in the apartment next to us giving Pat a lecture (in Russian) about something and I was able to translate one phrase...."plach, plach" which of course means crying so I knew she was not happy about all of the crying in our apartment (bedtime was not pretty)........and now, I remember and wonder if she was talking about Nick or Me?? LOL! ;) But, God is gracious and those memories are now precious and I would love to go back and do it all over if it meant that we would come home with the Kazmanian Devil sleeping upstairs!