Cousins!

Uncle Gregg and Auntie Sunshine came down from Utah for a summer vacation with Zeke and Jeremiah. With Aunite Elizabeth and her family, we had quite the party going! We BBQ'ed a prime rib, went on a fishing trip and to Magic Mountain, and played in the water. Maksim had his first sleepover when all the kids spent the night in the tent in the backyard. Two boys ended up sleeping inside on the floor instead. All weekend, he kept yelling "Fun!" over and over. What a silly, cute and wonderful boy.



All that excitement did kinda freak him out a bit. He couldn't go to sleep the night after going to his first theme park. And boy, was mom ready for bed. It was a great amount of excitement. Maksim got overwhelmed a couple of times but well within toddler limits - but he did AWESOME! Here are a few pictures of all the fun.

Maks loved the big furry characters walking around - especially Sylvester. He wanted to pet him. I think he thought he was a real kitty-kat.


That was right before he bolted off down the sidewalk with Jeremiah. It took Mom about 1 minute to finally catch him. A nice man jumped in front of Maks and held up his hands to stop. The natural consequence for running away from Mama and Papa is a little strict, don't you think?? Yikes!

Maksim wanted to ride on the Tweety Bird spin you around make you kick thing. So we put him in the cage. He wasn't thrilled and Papa ended up in the cage, too.

Finger Painting

Uncle Dave and Ireland
Pine Cones.

Mama and Papa sure love their little guy. He is the most amazing thing ever.

Family!

In the last month, we have celebrated Father's day, went hiking, Mama got done with school and we played with the cousins and had a wonderful time being a family. We seem to take 3 giant leaps (weeks) forward then have 1 step back (a bad week). But we couldn't be happier unless we had a little more sleep. : ) Here are some pictures of the fun!

Maksim's favorite new word...
Family!!
or.. Cousins!
or.. Auntie Elizabeth!
Growing Boy
Maks the photographer
Baking Brownies for Papa
An Airplane! America!
Slip and Slide with Nate and Jonny

Our successes: Maksim's English skills are amazing. He has picked things up so quickly. He knows the whole alphabet and even what sounds each letter makes. His favorite thing is to read signs. For the last month, Maks wouldn't say anything in Russian. This week he suddenly started singing all of these songs. There is a really cute one about Kazakhstan. We have videotaped the ones that he'll let us. (Stinker!) He is learning to color and hold his fork, crayon with his fingers. He is snuggling us, looking to us for comfort AND letting us comfort him. We think that he is learning to trust us. It seems to take longer than we thought it would- but thinking that we have only known him since February 20th and only have had custody since March 29th - he is doing amazingly well. He loves his family and gets very worried when one of them is sick or hurt or leaving.

Our challenges: Maksim likes to be the boss. He wants to decide everything and when he can't (of course) he has a tantrum. His tantrums run from the very mild "no, no, no do I like it, " with head tilt. Then we have the full blown screaming, kicking, "NO, NO DO I LIKE IT." Kinda fun. : ) Maks tests the boundaries A LOT. He likes to try the dangerous stuff to see our reaction - I guess. There are also some days when he just can't seem to be comfortable. It is kinda like it is hard for him to breathe - although medically, he is healthy. He likes to be chased - and that is quite a difficult one when it is time to do something.

But Maksim is wonderful, funny, smart and quite the charmer. Everyone eats him up! They are so impressed by his communication skills. He talks to everyone at the store, in line, on walks, and any place else. If they only knew he had been speaking English for only about 4 months! We know that his willingness to talk to everyone means that his attachment is shaky. But we know with love and consistency our family is getting stronger each day.

Mother's Day

It has been a wonderful and difficult last two weeks. How do working moms (and/or dads) do it! It is so hard to leave Maksim everyday. I wish that I could be with him every moment. Today we had a BBQ and even roasted marshmallows for smores by the fire.
A definate hit. We having been laying low and giving Maksim a chance to bond to his parents. It is hard to limit contact with our friends and outings. But we know that for Maksim it is best for his progress and attachment.

Maksim is learning English soooooo fast. We are amazed by his progress. Mostly, he speaks in phrases and uses them in interesting ways. "Shut the door" works for a variety of situations. We are glad that we are able to understand what he means. :) He is learning his boundaries fairly well and loves the river, going for walks, ice cream pine cones, ride on machinas,
all different foods, Elmo (eeooow- I don't love Elmo), tickling, chasing, dancing to Bluegrass (yeah!) and books. He doesn't like when something he likes is over. We are making progress on accepting "the end" of things.

"Neee-yet the end"
"Yes, Maksim, the end."

Our dog is doing okay. But today is her 9th birthday and she is feeling a little like the ugly red-headed step child. She has many of her old priviledges but some our our attention is directed toward her little brother. And boy are little brothers annoying. Sometimes she cries at us when he is finally asleep and we are all snuggling in our room like we did before HIM. Poor baby. We do love that girl.

Well, Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mother's and waiting Mother's out there. Good thing that there is a Father's Day. Papa needs his props. We are especially thankful for him and the hard work he does, too.

Doing Great!

Mom started back at work. It has been quite the change to our schedule. Maksim has been a little upset by it, but it is necessary and so we are all trying our best.

I just wanted to share a couple pics.

Maksim's first ice cream cone was a hit. He called it an ice cream pine cone. For those who don't know, Ice Age is Maksim favorite (and only) thing on TV. He loves it and quotes it all the time. There is a part where Sid the sloth feeds pine cones to the Rhinos. Pine cones have become quite the cool item in our house.

Pine Cone!!!

Momma's turn
Pine Cones are GOOOOODDDDD!!!


Tooo Funny! Who knew kids where this f...ing cute!!!

Update

OK. OK. I'll make an update and will try to update as often as I can. But between work, sleep, Maksim and Dad, I've barely had a chance to check my email.

It has been VERY busy around the Woods household in our first week at home. Lots of visitors and lots of things to see and learn about. In spite of everything, Maksim seems to be settling in quite well. We are making progress toward attachment and getting to know each other.
He loves trucks and any other kind of machine. He loves Audry and Shamma and wishes Shamma loved him. Audry is trying to get used to him. She can't figure out how a new addition to the herd gets to eat 3 times a day plus snack!! Where is my second breakfast???


Bringing home a toddler has been a real eye opener. Gone are the times when we'd kick back by the fire quietly gazing at the stars. (Great, but a little boring. In a way, we miss it.) What we have gained, though is sooo much better. Maksim keeps us laughing, keeps us on our feet, and keeps us NOT kicking back. It is so much fun. Sure there are times when he is a big stinker and a little mischievous. Sure he throws a tantrum when things don't go just his way. But mostly he is a sweet little boy whose fear and pain will subside. Tiny bits are already being melted away.


This morning around 5:30, Maksim woke up and wanted to come and snuggle his Mom and Dad in their bed. Whenever he wakes up early we do this - mostly so Mom can get a little more shut eye. When he saw me he said with his tiny little sleepy voice, "There she is! Loubish Mama." No prompting. :-) And he wrapped his arms around me and closed his eyes. My first REAL I love you! I didn't know it would be in Russian.

Man - are we thankful for this little boy!

In other news, I will start back at work on Monday. I am torn between wanting to be back and wanting to stay at home with Maksim. I know I'm going to miss that sweet little voice telling me "good morning!". What about snack time and our walks??? But...we've gotta live. Darn money. :-) Dad is going to be off full time to care for Maks until the end of the semester. It's only a few weeks. But, it is already very difficult for Mom to stay at the computer when he calls me.

Maksim

I didn't give you the gift of life,

but in my heart I know the love that I feel is

real as if it had been so.

For us to have each other

is like a dream come true.

No, I didn't give you the gift of life.

Life gave me the gift of you.

-unknown-

Dom Mali Dom

Home Sweet Home!

We finally made it to California after about 24 hours in planes and airports. Our trip to Kazakhstan was the best thing that has ever happened to us. Of course, it was also a long gnarly trip.

Maksim was very good on the airplanes and slept for much of the time. Thanks Terri! He had about a total of 1 hours worth of crying or screaming but for the most part just loved the adventure. My sister and her family, my brother, my mom and her husband and my dad were all there to welcome us home. It was so great to see everyone. Of course we all cried and hugged and Maksim jumped straight into Grandpa's arms.

Oak View is so beautiful and green and the sounds of birds fill our ears. Yeah! Luckily there are no horns continually honking. Our animals were very happy to see us and follow us around. We cannot thank Nana and Papa Jon enough for staying in our house for 63 days and taking care of everything. THey had to fix a leaking water heater, deal with a leaking roof. They also did a bounch of projects like installing shelves, staining furniture and Papa Jon made a wonderful copper fish for the front door. We love it! I don't know how you can ever repay someone for such a gift. We will be forever grateful. And now I am speaking in cliches.

When we got home, so much weight and worry was lifted off of our shoulders. Maksim settled right in. He was pretty scared of Audry Bear (our dog) a first. But after Shamma (our cat) swiped and scratched him he decided that Audry was pretty cool after all. He keeps saying "Shamma no, Audry da!" as he motions with his hands what Shamma did to his hand. Sooooo funny. Now he is kissing, feeding, loving, hugging and chasing Audry. He keeps us laughing and amazed. He is sweet and smart and loving. What an amazing treasure.

Thank you to everyone for following our blog and making comments. Your words, thoughts and advice kept us going when we thought there was no end.

It was ALL worth it.

Horse sausage - Yum! Thanks to Bulgan for bringing the sausage and baulsak. Very tasty.

Celebration dinner at Soho on our last day

Cousins finally united.

Engine room of the New Salt. My boys love machines! Almost as much as Mom.

Family Day

Our official Family Day is April 19th. We decided to use today as our gotcha day because we finally arrived in the USA. YES!!!! An interesting coincindence (if you believe in that sort of thing) is that today is the 7th anniversary of Auntie Anna's death. We all miss Anna terribly and are happy that we all can use this day as a celebration for our family.

We know that her spirit is with us.

Still Here

Well....We are getting closer to coming home. I know many of you are wondering what the heck could take so f****** long over there. Ya, so. We wonder, too. We should know for sure our travel dates by tomorrow.

On the parenting front, we have been staying to a pretty tight schedule so that Maksim knows what to expect. This is helping his behavior issues ALOT!! Thank goodness for the good advice we have received. He is a very sweet and smart little boy. Maksim's temper tantrums are not too fun, though. But we feel blessed, lucky, and tired.


We went out to lunch with the Gaines family. It was really fun to meet their 2 boys.
After lunch we visited the Russian Orthodox Church. They were celebrating a day where you use willow branches to heal pains and sicknesses. It always happens one week before Easter. The Russian calendar is one week behind our Christian calendar. So next Sunday is Easter. Anyway, it was very interesting. Inside the church, the father was spraying each persons willow branch with holy water. I was observing and got a good shower, too. We walked around and a man was playing the saxophone. Oh my gosh! Could the saxophone be Maksim's instrument? He is soooo musical. He learns songs very quickly and loves to listen to music. When he heard the man playing he was drawn. He walked right up close and listened for 5 minutes without barely moving. It was really cool. The man even let Maksim touch his sax for a few minutes. Cool!



Here are some cute pics of the last couple of days - of course I think they are! And just so you know it is not all fun and games for the little guy, there is a pic of a tantrum. He was soooo mad.

Hiking in Beautiful Kazakhstan

Bulat and Bulgan took us hiking today to cheer us up. We were kinda bummed out yesterday because we don't know when the heck we will get to leave Kazakhstan. And they had just the right idea. We love the mountains and hiking. You should have seen Maksim's face and cries of glee as he hiked around the waterfall. Absolutely precious.

It took about 30-40 minutes to get to the trailhead. Then it was about an 1 1/2 hour hike to the bottom of the waterfall. It was pretty much straight uphill. Papa carried Maksim in the backpack. It was treacherous and muddy and then snowy. We were for the most part dressed for the occasion. Mom's shoes were Dansko slip ons - not the best. The funniest was Bulgan. She wore 3 inch stiletto spiked boots. And she knew where she was taking us. This was a hike for experienced hikers - for sure. Slippery and steep.

We almost gave up making it to the waterfall but Bulgan urged us on. It was sooo worth it. When we got there we had a picnic lunch and took some pictures. Maksim got out of the pack and walked around with huge eyes and a grin on his face. He would just giggle out loud with glee. That is the only way to describe it. We had so much fun.

The way down was a little more trecherous and each of us had a spill. It was really funny. Maks' shoe fell off into the creek. Bulgan slid about 20 feet down the side of a snowy hill. She stopped herself just before plunging about 5 feet down into the creek- scary but not really. Bulat's shoe got slurped into the mud and fell off. Somehow he held his balance while we dug it out. Then almost at the bottom, yup, Bulgan's heel broke off. We were laughing hilariously. Soooo much fun and laughing. Just the right medicine.

Only a few more days. We will make it. Thanks Bulgan and Bulat!! What a beautiful day.

Camera issues...

We are stuck in Kaz. It is hard to be pleasant sometimes. These are the things that make us happy:

Maksim's laugh when we chase him in the park. THE GREATEST!!
The park and many tulips across the street from our apartment.
Knowing that our dog is waiting for us patiently.
Our family because they call us and write us and tell us they love us.
Sleeping Maksim (what is it about sleeping babies?)
Emails and posts from home - so what are you all waiting for??? Just kidding. Not really.
Knowing that there is something more powerful than us in the Universe.

Sorry no pics. I know it sucks to read when there are none - but battery issues have gotten us down. We lost our rechargeables in the move to Almaty along with several of Maksim's shirts. Hmmm...

We are making great strides with learning to become parents. We are making some strides with Maksim's attachement to us. We are eating well in Almaty.

Some pics soon. We may be able to come home by next Wednesday. Not sure. We will know by tomorrow(?) Yeah right. Who knows when we will know, really.

Physics Students!

Hello everyone!

I hope that you had a great spring break. 2 weeks must be nice but hard to get back to learning.

Today you were supposed to learn about resonance. This is a complicated subject but is very cool! Resonance phenomena can help describe many different things that we observe everyday. First we have to realize that everyday objects have a special frequency that they vibrate at. This is called the natural frequency of an object. It is just the amount of vibrations that an object will have if it is forced to vibrate. Any easy way to think of it is imagine if I was dangling my keys. You would immediately know that it was my keys that were making the sound. The reason you know is because keys always make the same sound - because they vibrate at their natural frequency. Now resonance occurs when another sound or vibration is acting at the exact same frequency as the natural frequency of the object. This will cause the object to vibrate without touching it. Really, the sound waves coming in push on the object at the same frequency that it "likes" to vibrate at. So this sound waves pushes and pulls when the compression and rarefaction regions strike it. When it pushes and pulls, the object begins to vibrate at the same frequency. We call this resonance. Ms. Yoshizumi showed you a cool demonstration of this. If you didn't think it was cool something is wrong with you!!! Really!

So....here are some answers to your questions

3rd: An opera singers voice can break a wine glass through resonance. If she sings at the exact same frequency as the frequency that the wine glass likes to vibrate at (its natural frequency) then it will start to vibrate. The vibrations become so large (big amplitude) that the glass cannot withstand the changes and it shatters. Resonance!! Why is the sky blue??? The sky is blue because the molecules that make up the sky (mostly nitrogen and carbon molecules plus water) are the exact right size that they scatter the photons coming from the sun that are blue and violet. The other photons are absorbed or reflected so we do not see them. I have a very cool demonstration to show this. Perhaps I will get the chance to let you see it. Why is the sky blue!!!

4th: The highest and lowest frequency is a vague question. I wish that I was there to hear you ask it. Do you mean that humans can hear? If so, many humans hear on the range of 20 - 20,00o Hz. That means that anything that vibrates with these frequencies, we can hear. Have you heard of a dog whistle? These whistles have a very high frequency. Too high for most people to hear, but dogs can hear them. I have heard of some people that claim to be able to hear them, too. What about you? Do you mean the frequency that light waves have? Light waves have very high frequencies. They are caused when charges (we haven't learned about this) like electrons vibrate very fast. But, alas, I don't know if I am answering your question.

5th: Vibrations sound cool because the parts in your ear are exactly the right shape and size so that they vibrate when sounds come near them. Music is a vibration that many of us love. Although some people's taste in music we may not find pleasing. I for one, like country music and punk rock. What kind do you like? A pendulum can start swinging all by itself because of resonance. It makes a sound -even though you cannot hear it - and this sound's compression and rarefaction regions push and pull on the pendulum to make it move. It is kinda like when you are on a swing. If you move your legs just right, you will start to swing higher and higher. Do you know what I am talking about?

Thanks for your questions. I am stuck in Kazakhstan and do not know when they will let me go ( if ever). I sure miss my dog, my mom, my sister, her kids, and even Uncle Punk.

Please continue to learn and be NICE to Ms. Yoshizumi for heaven's sake!!

Great Couple of Days

Life has been pretty good in Almaty. After Maksim's adjustment to his temporary new apartment, things have been pretty fun. We have walked around alot. We have eaten alot. We have gone to the play area at Silk Way City. We have completed our medical appointment for the Embassy Interview - our last step before flying out of here. This is a pic in the waiting room. What a happy boy! He LOVED the playpen. Should we invest in one?? LOL
We have even visited the mountains, twice! Today, there was a guy there with an eagle that he would let people take pictures with (for a small fee). The bird was magnificent and maybe a little hungry! Maksim was napping so we took picture with the bird without him at first. Once he woke up, we snapped a few next to the bird.

We have met some really nice people in the last few days and feel happy that people (other than whom we have paid!!) are friendly.

Of course, we really miss home and wish we knew when we will be able to fly out of here. We are waiting for Maksim's exit visa. We hope that we get it by the end of the week or our trip will go into it's 9th week. Yes, you heard us, 9 weeks!!!

Thank you to Nana, Papa Jon, and Auntie Elizabeth for getting the house toddler proofed. We thought that we had already done this - but you know - we didn't know what a toddler was really like.

Cross your fingers for us. Pray for us. We long to be home.