Saturday, March 15, 2008

Appeal Period Day 11 of 15

Happy 11th Month Birthday, Lincoln !!

We had a fun visit this morning with Lincoln. He was in such a good mood. Strangely he was very content for a lot of our visit today to just sit on our laps and play with toys. He sat with Eric then he would come over to me and sit then back and forth. He did of course make his rounds in the playroom sampling all the other babies’ toys and we played on the chairs for awhile.

He likes those chairs so much that last night I got online to try and find a small table and chair set to buy for him at home. Of course at home he is going to have tons of other things to play with and he will probably no longer be interested.

Between visits today we are simple relaxing at the apartment.

Our afternoon visit was a lot of fun. Lincoln was just being so darn cute. He has been really into us just holding and playing with him. This is so nice; chasing him around the room is exhausting for all of us. When he gets tired he then is all fussy and that isn’t fun for us when we only see him two hours at a time. He doesn’t seem to be too interesting in learning to say Mama or any other words for that matter. He knows how to say Dada but he rarely says it. He is very interesting in learning sounds or making noises with his mouth. I was holding him this afternoon after his bottle and Eric was sitting next to us. Eric kept making different animal sounds and Lincoln was just watching him with this very interested look on his face. He scrunches up his forehead and his little eyebrows move up and down when he is really thinking about something. Eric was doing many different sounds moo, baa, quack, oink, etc.. Then he made a monkey sounds, Lincoln lite right up for that. Then Eric would stop and Lincoln was trying so hard to make the same noises. He was no where close but it was sweet to watch him try so hard to do it. Plus he was laughing at Eric and laughing at himself. He must have sat on my lap for 30 minutes or more watching and listening to Eric, laughing and trying to do it himself. It was very cute.

We left our afternoon visit a half hour early today because we had tickets to a local concert being held at the University. We really were not sure what the concert was going to be about other than they were going to play the Dombra. On Wednesday when we were at the local Kazak restaurant in the old part of the city the group at the next table talked us into buying these concert tickets. We did arrive at the show late (we did not want to miss any more of our visit with the kids). The nine of us walk into the auditorium and pretty much everyone in the audience turns around and stares at us. Mind you the show is going on while we are getting into our seats. There were five people up on stage . The one man was just the announcer. The others all had Dombras and took turns playing and singing. They were telling stories about Aktobe and about the Kazak traditions. We of course had no idea what they were saying but the music was nice. Eric sat next to Biyanna through out the show and she explained to him what was happing. I am hoping he will take the time to write some of it down for us. If I can get him to do this, I will add it to the blog. Despite not knowing what was taking place, it was still pretty interesting. And it was great to hear the Dombra being played. The Dombra for those who do not know is sort of like a guitar but smaller. It is the traditional instrument of the area.

Shortly after we arrived and the one person playing stopped the announcer started in on a speech about something. The only words I was picking up were Aktobe, Kazakh, Kazakhstan and some names he said. I then realized he said Americans and just as he said that everyone turned around and starred at us, again and clapped. The announcer was thanking us for coming out to see them play and for supporting them. It was a little bit of an awkward feeling but we smiled and waved and made the best out of it. The concert ended up going on way past when it was suppose to end. We thought it would end at 6pm at 7:30pm they were still going strongly but we had other plans so we needed to get up and leave. It was explained to us that they were so honored that we were there and they wanted to interview us after the show. We didn’t want to leave early because we didn’t want to be rude but we had no choice at that point.

They put on the show in attempts to get more interest back into playing the Dombra. They want to start teaching school age children how to play. This is an old tradition that seems to be dying out and these people are trying to stop that from happening.

After the concert we went back to our apartments to change for dinner. We went out to dinner at an Armenian restaurant that also included a dinner show. Personally I thought the food was just okay. I had a chicken dish and Eric had a beef dish. He said he really liked his but I personally thought they both were just okay. Edible yes but I wouldn’t bother eating their again. Most of the other restaurants here I thought were much better food wise. The show part of the night was very entertaining and worth the trip out. In between the show parts they had singers on stage doing songs that people were dancing too. They sang both fast and slow songs. When the show first started they turned all the lights off and the ceiling turned into a starry night, then the bar in the back of the place was lite on fire, then two fireworks went off on both sides of the stage. During all this they are talking, telling a story but again we had no idea what they were saying. After all this the show starts. They were singing and doing little dances and talking telling us a story. I would describe the show as a variety act sort of thing. Some of it was cute and funny other songs appeared to be more serious. After about a half hour of show they did an intermission. During the intermission we had singers to listen too and people danced. After intermission two belly dancers came out and danced on stage then they went through the audience and the guys gave them tips. This restaurant was a very nice place, a little on the pricey side so the belly dancers were a bit of shock to us. But I have to say they were good. After the show was over there was more singing. Everyone pretty much got up and danced. The group of us really had a lot of fun together. We all danced. Agnes, one of our single Moms found herself a guy to dance with. At the end of the night we were paying our bill and waiting for our taxis to come pick us up when the guy Agnes was dancing with came over and asked her for one more dance. She didn’t really want to go and dance again but between Eric who was pushing her to do it the most and some others she did get up and go out. Then moments later this woman walks up to our table asking Eric to go dance with her. Needless to say he was not prepared for that to happen. He turned to me grabs me and say no no to the women. She then turns to Joel across the table from us asks him and he says no no. She then turns back to Eric and ask again. This whole time he is kissing my cheek and telling this is my wife. She then asks me if he can dance with her. So I said sure why not and I made a motion for Eric to go with her. Eric still didn’t want to and the woman turns to Biyanna and says to her tell them I just want to dance nothing else, I promise just dancing. WHAT? Was there really an option for more than just dancing?? In the end, Eric got up and went out to dance with her. By the time they got out to the dance floor the song was nearly over anyway. The rest of us found it to be completely hilarious but Eric was totally embarrassed.

It was a late night for us we didn’t get back to our apartment till nearly 2AM. Remember we are all new parents so this was super late for us. For us and Gen & Joel it was our last Saturday night before our boys come home so we had to live it up and have a good time and we did.