June #3

I know it's not June anymore. In fact, it is almost August. And yes, I am going backwards in time to tell you a little bit about June. This is what happens when in transition for a couple of months.

We were able to go back home to Colorado for about 5 days, before leaving the US. It was not the most relaxing time, but we were very glad to be able to see some of our friends and family before taking off on our adventure.

One night, we drove up to Denver and met up with a bunch of Stephen's (and now mine!) friends at Maggiano's for some family style Italian. It was a lot of fun to catch up with the bunch, although I don't have any pictures of that. Man, I am really bad about whipping the camera out! My husband doesn't help, either.

We spent a lot of time in Colorado, trying to track down our belongings that were being shipped from NY and needed to be put into a storage unit in the Springs. This was all the stuff that didn't come to the big K with us. Thankfully, it all fit into a 10 x 10 unit!

I also had the treasured time with my dog, Riley. I miss her so much, it hurts. She hasn't been able to live with me since November 2006, but I still feel like she is mine. I can guarantee that one of the first things I will be doing when we are done here in K, will be going and getting my dog to live with us. I don't care where we'll be living - if it's in the States, she's all mine! How I wish she was here with us now. She is such good, comfy company. Well, Riley was in need of a new bed again...she needs a new one about every 1 1/2-2 years. We picked up one of those beds that sits up off the ground so air can circulate underneath, which is great because Riley gets hot in her bed at night! Here she is, trying it out. She doesn't look happy because I told her to stay and she wasn't sure about the bed, itself.

Then, one night, my parents hosted a small gathering of our closest Springs friends. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and prayer and delicious desserts.
Ali, me, and Margarita ~ Such good friends from my teaching days at Grace Best.
Angie and Me ~ Angie is one of those people who you become instant friends with. I have only known her for about two years, but she knows me. She gets me. And we have great talks! And she is the inspiring mommy of two adorable twins, Caleb & Carissa.
And here is me and Kari ~ my treasured friend and mentor. Kari is another one who gets me. She did our premarital counseling with us. Kari is mommy to Sarah Grace, Hannah, and Samuel. I have cared for the girls since the day they were born and I treasure them in my life so much!
Here is me and Eli, Ali & Tom's little guy. Well, he's not so much little as he is stinkin' adorable.

It was great to see you all, even if for a few hours. You all are such treasured friends of ours and we look forward to seeing you at Christmas, when we come home to visit.

Ta-Da!

Some of you have been requesting some pictures. Well, I have a small confession to make: I haven't taken many. I will get better at this, I promise. But, we'll start with our temporary apartment. A tour, if you will.

This is the living room, home of the most uncomfortable couches we have ever sat on. They make my buns fall asleep.

Oh, and they are ugly. That brings to mind that old "cheer" from high school: Ahem... U - G - L - Y! You ain't got no alibi, you UGLY!!!

So, apparently, I am in a sassy mood.

Here is another view of the living room - the large windows, which are nice. Notice the drying rack with our laundry on it. See? I am kind of keeping busy. I do laundry for fun now.

Here is our bathroom. Oh, it looks nice. However, we are lucky if the water stays hot in the shower. And the water sort of smells weird...like ramen water. I am hoping that my citrus scented bodywash masks it. You guys would tell me if I smell weird, right? Here is the kitchen. My favorite part is the beautiful curtain with the fake sunflower.
And here is our bedroom. Please pardon the horrific mess. Remember all of those Space Bags I packed in NYC? Well, they all made it here and have managed to spew themselves all over the place. This is what happens when before getting to your destination, you have lived out of your suitcase for 5 weeks and then are supposed to do it for another 5 weeks, but you don't want to.
I need to start going through them and re-organizing things again. We are waiting to hear from our landlord if we can rent this place for an additional week. Our permanent apartment's move-in date has been moved to the 8th. If the landlord says no, we will need to move ALL THIS STUFF to the Hotel Kazakhstan for a week. Not the most convenient of situations, but what are you gonna do?

I am heading out in a few minutes to this place called Palladium, where I have been invited by my boss, Andrew. Some American guy is having a whisky tasting tonight there with other food and drinks. I'm not a whisky drinker, but it'll get me out of the house.

By the way, I woke up at about 5:00 this morning and the power had been out for at least an hour. It stayed off until 4:00 this afternoon. Then, it went out again for about an hour. It's back up again and I'm hoping it stays on for the rest of the night, as I'm not a fan of climbing up and down the 12 flights of unevenly constructed stairs.

Internet Launched

By my title, you must be thinking to yourself, "Beth must be so happy!"

You would be more than correct.

I had an interesting day yesterday (Tuesday) here at the apartment. The first thing that happened was at around 11 am, I was just stepping out of the shower and I heard the doorbell ringing...continuously. Stephen was at work. I was not expecting anyone. I am dripping wet.

Well, I went towards the door and (thank goodness) we have a neat contraption of which uses a video camera to show who is outside. I know this can be accomplished with a simple peephole, but we live in a technological world these days. The peephole has graduated to a tiny video camera.

There were a couple of ladies' faces on the screen, of which I did not recognize.

Now, let me interject my own thought process on this little scenario: 1) I am alone. 2) I am in a foreign country. 3) I have read that if you don't know who is at your door, don't answer it. 4) I shouldn't open the door.

But I did. In my towel.

The younger chick said she was here to show the apartment and the landlord said she could. Fury rose inside me like you wouldn't believe. I just couldn't believe the audacity of the landlord to A: assume I'm home, B: assume I'd open the door, C: assume that it's alright with me to let complete strangers in. That's a lot of assuming. And you know what happens when you ASSUME.

Anyway, I made them stand in the hallway while I threw some clothes on. Now, I had big plans of taking my time getting ready. I was going to put lotion on, pluck my eyebrows, do all that girly stuff that seems to take time, so you don't do it every day. You gals know what I mean. But, I threw on some clothes and chucked my 4 pairs of shoes that were in the middle of the bedroom floor into one of the suitcases. I let the people in.

The couple looking at the place were very nice and she was very apologetic to me. The realtor was not. I was very honest with the lady about the fact that the internet hadn't worked for the last 3 weeks and the bedroom A/C unit doesn't work. So, they left. It just threw my day off.

Then, at about noon, the landlord called, and I was able to make out enough of her Russian to believe she was telling me the "Master" was coming over soon. Four hours later, he did show up.

And yes, there was Russian yelling at me.

After about 1/2 hour, he called the landlord and figured out that she had given me the wrong user name and password a couple of weeks ago. So, he felt the need to yell and scream and tear up the old password and throw it on the table and tell me I wasted his time. I told him to get out. "Das Vadanya!" I yelled back, and pointed to the door. By the way, there is no swearing in Das Vadanya...just means good-bye!

Can you believe I kicked him out? Sometimes, I surprise even myself!

However, the moral of the story is this: the internet now works at the apartment. I am once again connected to the rest of the world. At least, it works now. If you lose track of me, it will mean that I lost all connectivity again and you can bet that I'm sad.

Igor, our driver, is coming to get me at 2:30 this afternoon and I am going shopping at Pamctop by myself, for the first time! I'm a little scared, but I should be fine.

It is good to be back.

I'm Sorry!

Okay, I know we've been in the Big K for over two weeks and I haven't updated the blog. I'm sorry. However, it has been out of my control.

You know my last post, when I mentioned that we would have internet in our apartment?

We don't.

It did work the first night we got into town. We had it, just long enough to call my mom really quick on Skype to tell them we had made it. When we woke up the next morning, no internet. And we haven't had it since.

The landlord came over to see if it would work, made some phone calls that involved angry-sounding Russian. Still no internet.

They came over every day, with a "Master" (of computers?) and still no internet. This went on for several days. Oh, it also involved them yelling at me, as if I was purposefully willing it not to work, in Russian. And no matter how much I informed them that I don't speak Russian (yet), they continued to think that if they said whatever they were saying LOUDER, I would magically start to understand. I really didn't like the "Master."

The last time I saw the Master, he finally figured out that the landlord hadn't paid the bill for the internet, so it had been cut off. Ha! Supposedly, they paid it.

Still, no internet. And we haven't heard from them since. We are not banking on having internet at this apartment...ever.

So, my exposure to this lovely, amazing thing that we all take for granted, the Internet, has been limited to weekend-only usage at Stephen's office. And today has been my only chance to really spend more time on here than just checking my email real quick, once we talk to Moms and Dads on Skype.

Okay, enough griping about the lack of internet. Well, one more thought on that. While laying in bed for several nights of crying myself to sleep (due to exponential amounts of boredom during the day, loneliness, and isolation -- all because of no internet, of course), I am convinced that He is trying to get me to learn the all too valued fruit of the spirit: patience. I am learning I don't have much of this and I am going to have to learn to get it while we live here. So, my current prayer, for myself, is that I get me some of that.

Anyway, now I will talk about what Stephen and I have been up to since we got here 17 days ago. We have actually been busy, mostly on the weekends, since Stephen has been working, pretty much since we got here.

We met one of my future co-workers, John, and his wife, Vanera. We like hanging out with them. They are very interesting and fun. You'll learn more about them, as I blog what we're up to. But, last weekend, they took us hiking in the mountains that are so close! We went to an area called "Madeo." I'm not sure on that spelling, but I'm sure it's close. It was really fun, except that it reminded me that I am far from being in shape. Although, I wasn't as sore the next day as I expected to be. It was the first time, for me, of hiking with cows. Yes, there were cows wandering the trails with us. Oh! And, I recognized this plant that we learned about when we were on our Alaskan cruise, called Skunk Cabbage. It grows like crazy here! In case you didn't know, some animals use Skunk Cabbage like we use Tums or Pepto Bismol when we are feeling "not quite right." I saw some cows eating it. Must've had some stale grass.

We also met up last weekend with some new friends, Matt & Jonna. They are neat people, teaching English here. Jonna grew up in Woodland Park (just outside of Colorado Springs)! Isn't that crazy? They have an adorable baby, Caleb. You will also learn more about them later. They took us to a local restaurant and we had an Uzbek dish, called Logmon. It had homemade, thick, spaghetti-type noodles, lamb, and veggies with a kicky sauce. Loved it. Stephen liked it, too, but we are starting to question if he has a slight allergy to cabbage, as his lips got a little puffy and he felt weird for the rest of the night. Apparently, this has happened before with him. I'm thinking that as his wife, I need to know these things.

Sidenote, Stephen has only had one bout with accidentally eating nuts, so far. Those crazy sauces with their ground up nuts. It's a little difficult here, when you can't speak the language and you're eating unfamiliar foods.

We have been going to the Ramstore a lot. In Russian, it's spelled Pamctop. Neat, huh? Pamctop is where we have been doing our grocery shopping because we can get a lot of American products. Plus, it's only a couple of blocks from our place right now, so it's convenient. Once we get into our permanent home, I hope to do more serious shopping at the local level.

Our apartment will now be ready on 8 August. [That is me, attempting to write the date the way they write it, outside of the US.] I will start work on 3 August, with teacher orientation. I am very excited for this to start, as I am quite bored during the day. Did I mention that? I have some pictures of our apartment to show you, but my computer won't connect to the internet at the office. You'll have to wait. However, in all my boredom, I managed to open all 10 boxes that we brought and basically have strewn their contents all about the flat. [That's me, attempting to speak British, whilst I type.] Anyway, I came across my collection of knitting needles, my knitting books, and one skein of pink yarn. I chose the most challenging baby sweater to knit and I'm already halfway done! However, I don't think the one skein will be enough, of course. I am hoping I can find some neat yarn at the Market, one day, when I'm not scared of it. The yarn, not the Market.

I am happiest when I get out of the apartment, even if it's just for a meal, but mostly when I get to use the internet and talk to our parents. Stephen has been so supportive and understanding of all my crying. And trust me, there has been crying. Mostly of frustration, so nothing a little crying can't handle. Although, if you think of it, I can use some healing prayer. I am experiencing shooting pains in my stomach, about 30 minutes after I eat, every time I eat. We bought that Dannon Activia yogurt and a bunch of green vegetables at the store yesterday and I'm hoping I just need to get regulated. I know it's also partly due to stress, as when I am even a little stressed, my stomach usually bothers me. We have noticed that they don't serve vegetables a whole lot with their meals here. I am a person who will crave a nice bowl of peas, broccoli, or green beans every few days.

We hired a driver this week. His name is Igor. He is very nice and his English is better than our Russian, so I think we'll survive.

I know that we are supposed to be here and He will carry us through our difficulties. Sometimes, it is hard to remember that when the power goes out, right when you've reached your parents on Skype. Or when you wake up in the middle of the night with stomach pains. Or when you just want to call your sister and tell her you love her because you know she needs to hear it, but you can't.

We are doing great. We are taken care of. We are learning about ourselves and this world we live in. We are growing closer together and closer to our Father each day. Although I'm sure that is partly why we are here, I know that there is so much more to come that cannot be expected or assumed. I am grateful for all that we have and I am learning that He is enough for me.

Until who knows when...

Love,
Me

Kazakhstan...here we come!

So, the day is finally here! We are leaving on a jet plane from JFK tonight. Yikes!

Just kidding.

Sort of.

But really, we are excited to start our adventure. Although, I think the adventure started a few months ago, trying to get ready to go.

Good news! Stephen got an email this morning from his office, saying our boxes already were delivered! And they offered to have them taken to our apartment that is all ready for us. Aren't they so nice?

More good news! Internet is already set up for us at our new apartment, so we will be able to let you all know that we got there alright.

We were also reassured by a woman who works in Stephen's office, that getting cell phones there is very easy, so it will be no problem. Everything will be fine!

It is crazy to think that today is our last day in New York City. And, it is our last day in the U.S.

We are going to be living in Kazakhstan for the next three years! Wow.

Stay tuned on here, for I will be showing off pictures and stories like crazy.

I will also get caught up with posts that I've been meaning to do, but have run out of time before we leave. We have been busy! I am exhausted.

We love you all. We will miss you all. But, we live in a small world. (Cue "It's a Small, Small World" music)

Please pray for us.