Heavy hearts, light loads, and loaded pants

It is not without some sadness that I say goodbye to these two cities, cities that have been home for a month, and places with which our daughter (and we) will be forever connected.

[Shout out! Good luck to Cindy, Tony, and their son, Jayden. In just a few more weeks they’ll be finished with their journey. They are getting it all done in one trip, no second trip a few weeks later like us so finished really does mean finished. Thanks for stopping by the hotel and seeing us off, guys. It was great to see you all and we hope that the mini-reunion comes real soon!]

Today we flew the Yak 40 back to Almaty, this time with our most precious cargo to date. Yes, I mean the baby. Or are we drug mules smuggling opium into the big city? Or maybe baby is the mule? The world may never know. She was a very good flyer. Mee and I had dreaded this leg of the trip the most. Even though it’s the shortest of the three flights back home, it’s also the least comfortable. In fact, one curse turned out to be a blessing. When flying the Yak, passengers handle their own luggage onto and off the plane and there isn’t a whole lot of room in the back of the cabin for everyone’s bags. The bag United/Lufthansa lost was the largest and heaviest bag we had. It was going to be a real test getting everything onboard while Mee stowed the nibler but since we didn’t have the biggest bag, I was able to easily handle the two pieces we had with no problems, a little stinky, but no problem.

We got to the office of our agency’s in country partners in Almaty at around 8 P.M. and surprise, surprise, Chloe had finally had a BM. This was some smelly but good news since after three days, we were starting to worry. Then she had another when we got to the apartment… then another in the morning. And then another in the afternoon. It doesn’t seem to be stopping, and they’re getting bigger. I think we may need a bigger place.

As for the apartment, it’s fantastic. Nice size, in a nice neighborhood with a western style grocery store on the corner. It’s a Kazak version of Fox and Obel (or Dean and Deluca for you New Yorkskis). Having a nice apartment was quite a relief after the dump we saw in Kokshetau.