Kazapalooza

Hello my name Sasha and i will be talking about the Kazapalooza trip. The Kazapalooza trip is where every year people from Kazakhstan meet up with each other and hang out. they also get to know each other better each year. they have been doing this for over ten years and this year was our first year going. We don't usually go because its usually on the west coast near Maryland, But this year it was in New Mexico it was only a two hour plane ride from Utah so that's how we got to go Kazapalooza.

Before we left to Kazapalooza there were a couple things i was looking forward to for when we went. One was that I would know that  wasn't the only one adopted from Kazakhstan. That I would make some  new friends I could hang out with. also that I would have a ton of fun being there with my family. It all came true after the Kazapalooza trip and even more happened then I was hoping for, it was so fun.

 

This was a picture of my family on the porch of our Hotel Room wearing our Kazapalooza shirts for the year so people could recognize they group of Kazapalooza  people in the day.

This picture is with me and all the other kids that were born in Kazapalooza [editor's note: she means Karaganda, the city her baby house was in] with a blanket that was knitted for the bidding they have each and every year and the age of kids is 2 to 18 of people who were adopted from Kazakhstan in all the city's not just Karaganda.

This is a picture of me my dad and my sister all swimming in the hotel pool which had a water slide and a deep pool that you could do tricks in. the pool was like 100 steps from our hotel room and me  and my sister both went into the pool every day.

This is a picture off me doing a archery class with me doing the form to shoot a arrow the class was super fun we got to shoot a turkey and a  target which i was so close to hitting the bullseye. my dad and sister both did the class with me.

This picture is a class my brother took it was basically making rings and necklaces and bracelets out of metal and making a design on it. my brother enjoyed the class because he was trying something new.

This picture is of me and my mom and sister renting bikes and going on a nice bike ride in the forest behind the hotel. 

This is a coyote that crossed the path why we were biking on the path it was so cool to see a baby coyote in new Mexico. 

this is me on my rental bike turning a corner it was nice and shady so fun to bike in a nice forest.

this is a picture of my mom and siblings doing a horse back riding lesson even though i wasn't there it was cool to know that they had fun together.

This is my next favorite part to talk about it this picture of me my dad and sister in front of meow wolf which inside looks like a normal house but when you  open something like a refrigerator it has a secret passage way which leads into a alternate universe. 

this picture is of my sister going down through the washing machine to  get to the alternate universe the washing machine is basically a slide tunnel.

this is me inside the washing machine and basically there are socks and clothes all over the inside of the washing machine.

this picture is of my sister playing the laser harp which is basically when you put your hand through the laser it made  music not like a normal harp would it was super cool.

those pictures that you just saw were the most fun things that happened while we were in new Mexico while we were at Kazapalooza. All of the activities we did were so fun me and my whole family had so much fun. That is why hopefully we can go to Kazapalooza next year and if we can it will be a super fantastic fun trip no matter what.

The Story of The Eagle Huntress

by Sasha

We went to the Sundance Film Festival and it had a movie. It was called The Eagle Huntress. It was about a girl who wanted to learn to hunt with eagles. When she learned pretty good there was a festival and she won the first prize. They were seeing how fast their eagles could go.

The girl from the movie and her father came to the movie. She was born in Kazakhstan and we took a picture with her and they realized I had the sign of Kazakhstan on my dress and they realized I was born in Kazakhstan.

I liked seeing them and I liked The Eagle Huntress.

[Editor's (Mom's) note: technically Alshupan (the heroine of the movie) is Kazakh and lives in western Mongolia, but we won't split hairs with the 8-year-old]

Old Friends

Yesterday we were blessed to share dinner and a playdate with one of Sasha's first American friends, Shannon.

Shannon and her husband adopted Sasha's cribmate Olivia from the Botakoz Baby House in 2008 and quickly fell in love with little Sasha as well.  They were instrumental in petitioning for the baby house to complete Sasha's paperwork so that she would be adoptable and were a huge encouragement to us along the way as we pursued Sasha's adoption.

We are so, so grateful for Shannon and her family!  It was so good to see Sash and Shannon together again... our little girl has come so far in the four years between these photos.  It's equally heartbreaking and astonishing to think that the 12 pound 10-month-old girl in this photo who could barely hold her head up is now our spunky, sassy, zany Sasha.

Shannon, thanks for loving our baby girl before we even started considering adoption.  Thanks for pushing agency and orphanage to get her paper ready so that she could having a loving family and permanent home rather than languishing in group care.  And thanks for encouraging and loving on us every step of the way as we brought Sash home.  We love you!

Giving Back

We are so grateful to our daughters' homelands for giving them life, nurturing them for their first two years, and providing our whole family with a sense of identity and connection that stretches well beyond the boarders of our town or even our nation.  It's tough to maintain that connection through the hectic months and years - we're so blessed to be able to maintain relationships with some of Sasha's baby house mates from Kazakhstan and forge new relationships with other China adoptive families in the area, but, well, if you know anything about our family you know that we're always looking for more :)

So, over the past couple of weeks we've been researching charities that work in the girls' birth areas and are so excited that we have found two nutrition projects and two sponsorship projects to bless other kiddos the way our gals have been blessed!

Here's a quick run-down of the charities we recently started supporting.  I share these for two reasons:

1. These are great projects and well worth anyone's consideration when looking for charities to support
2. To encourage adoptive parents that with a little research you can probably find groups to support that work in your kid's area of birth.  It's a really special thing to us to know that we can affect positive change in little lives just like Sasha and WanYing's and for us having a monthly donation going to these great groups keeps us remembering and praying for all those still waiting.  You can stay involved, even from the other side of the world!

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SPOON Foundation is conducting really cool nutrition research, education, and support all over Kazakhstan. They provide supplements, but even more importantly are working with the Kazakhstani government to change legislation and nutrition guidelines to provide healthy nutrition to all kiddos in institutions.

SPOON was started by a Kaz adoptive mommy who saw the need and effects of malnutrition firsthand in the Kazakhstani baby houses and decided upon her return home with her first child to do something about it.  Oh, and they work in Botakoz, Sasha's babyhouse :)

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We sponsor a little boy just about Sam's age through SOS Villages Kazakhstan. SOS Villages has a children's home in Temirtau, Sasha's birthplace, to protect and care for vulnerable children - kids whose parents are either temporarily or permanently unable to care for them. Temirtau is a poor, heavily industrial area, with all of the social issues that generally accompany, and we love being a little part of providing this young man with a safe, healthy, loving environment like every kid deserves.

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Love Without Boundaries is a charity that works in China and they have a nutrition project in Shangrao, WanYing's SWI. We know that WanYing benefited from this project and even got the cutest little baby photo of WanYing from them after we returned home from China, and we love supporting a program that helped our little one so much.

Love Without Boundaries was started by a group of China adoptive parents who wanted to give back to the country that had given them so much, and we are so glad to be able to support their efforts.

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And lastly, we also are privileged to sponsor foster care for a baby girl through Adopchina, the organization through which our sweet (new) friend Laura sponsored WanYing. Adopchina is based in Spain, but through my highly advanced (and mostly forgotten) college Spanish and the miracles of Google Translate we have succeeded in communicating well enough to sponsor a child of our own in WanYing's SWI. Holt also sponsors kiddos in WanYing's SWI, if you're looking to sponsor a Shangrao kiddo and have less of an appetite for comical translation errors than we do :)

Learning Kazakh by Osmosis?

Look what I discovered in Sasha's bed when I went in for last night's final tuck-in - her "First 1000 Words" book in Russian, Kazakh, and English!

Here's hoping that she can learn her native tongue(s) by osmosis.

SPOON in Botakoz

Support and Provide Overseas Orphan Nutrition (SPOON) is an awesome foundation started by some Kaz adoptive mamas who decided to do something about orphan malnutrition in Kazakhstan. They just started a new vitamin and menu pilot program in a few Kaz baby houses and Sasha's baby house, Botakoz, is one of the baby houses in the study. Hooray!

SPOON just posted these sweet pictures of breakfast time in one of the rooms of Botakoz – the boxes in the center of the table are the new vitamins that the kiddos are getting.

SPOON is a fantastic organization doing life-changing work on behalf of the children of Kazakhstan and beyond. That’s why we chose them as the recipient of all funds raised by ads on our blog - almost $100 so far! :)

Here are some great resources SPOON has made available:

• SPOON’s Facebook page (with more photos of Botakoz!)
• The SPOON website
• The Adoption Nutrition website, which reviews some of the effects of childhood malnutrition, gives country-by-country nutrition reports, and is chock full of ideas for adoptive parents on how to help their kiddos
• Food for Thought webinar on Adoption Learning Partners – a live webinar on 10/20 about the impacts of poor nutrition on internationally adopted children

Way to go, SPOON! Thanks for looking out for orphans, adopted kids, and their parents!

More Kazlings!

The day after returning from our informal Karaganda reunion, our homestudy agency, the fabulous Families for Children, hosted a Kazakhstan adoptive families picnic up in Parley's Canyon.

It was our first time meeting so many local parents who have adopted from Kazakhstan, and the best part was meeting quite a few adoptive kids who are now in their teens. I know it probably sounds silly, but it was reassuring to see those teens and tweens paling around and playing soccer and doing normal teen stuff (if the words normal and teen can be used in the same sentence)... just a good reminder that adoption, although an important part of these kiddos' identities, doesn't always dominate every aspect of life. And it was good for the soul to be around other families who understand the acronyms and the struggles and the joys of being an adoptive, multi-ethnic family.

A fitting end to a Kaz-tastic week!

Goodbye, Disney World

I'm thinking that a full week of posts about our Florida adventures is pushing it, so I'll combine the last 2 days into one chock-full-of-fun post.

Here's our mini-golf experience in the fewest words possible: hot, Sasha cheated (a lot), boys had trouble with high-sticking, boys loved holes with squirt-gun traps, lots of fun.
Our last stop in the Florida-Kazakhstan adventure was the Typhoon Lagoon water park. Man, do I love water parks. I'm so glad my whole family feels the same way!

Ben was ready to go swim before we even purchased our tickets!

Sash loved it all - and her haircut doesn't look quite so rediculous when it's wet, right? (just let me live in my delusions)

The wave pool was a total blast. Ben loved being thrown over the waves (he's the dot wearing a blue lifevest), while Sam preferred to be carried by them - needless to say, we all got a workout!

One last hurrah with the Beasleys
We had a fantastic time hanging out in Florida with such wonderful families. A week definitely wasn't long enough - who's planning next year's reunion?!?

The Magic Kingdom

The Kazlings invaded The Magic Kingdom on Monday and it sure did live up to its name. We had a fantastic day - so great, in fact, that we didn't get back to our hotel room until 1 am! Now that's how you make the most of your park admission. Of course, the next day we were useless for anything but lounging at the pool and Sasha took a 4 hour nap, but that's a small price to pay for all that magic.

We waited online to visit with Mickey Mouse, which didn't disappoint in entertainment value. Sasha hated it. I mean, we're talking screaming kicking angry terror. The picture really doesn't do the experience justice, although if you click on it and zoom in on Sasha's face you can get a little taste of her displeasure. Here's how she describes it:
Big Micky Mouse wewy wewy scawy. My cwy. My say, "aaaah" like dat.

Of course, now she'll tell you that Mickey Mouse is really nice, as long as it's a little Mickey Mouse, so the damage wasn't permanent.

My highlight was taking Sasha to visit the princesses. Talk about something I never (ever!) imagined doing! Steve joined the line just as we were about to walk in and I think was a little overwhelmed by the daughter in Cinderella dress, wife crying over daughter in Cinderella dress, surrounded by hundreds of other daughters in princess dresses but to his credit he stuck it out and even took pictures. I think the fact that the room was air conditioned didn't hurt.

When we first walked into the majesty of the princess visiting area and Sasha saw those lovely ladies in poofy dresses, she completely freaked out (I no like it! I no like it!). You'll notice this theme of terror when Sasha meets Disney characters in real life. Put Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) completely charmed Sasha and has earned my eternal gratitude for convincing my daughter that princesses are not "wewy wewy scawy." By the time we met the third princess in the line Sash even gave Belle a hug! And, again, Mommy cried.

In stark contrast with Mommy's favorite part of the day, Daddy's warmest memory is of the moving, talking, interactive trash can. I am not making this up. This is Disney Magic to my husband. In his defense, though, the trash can was really funny. Sam even gave it a hug as we left the dining area.

Here are a couple of other choice shots from the day:

A mama-Sasha self portrait on Aladdin's magic carpets. The girl loves those up and down rides!

Sasha, Oxana, and Olivia (one of Sasha's old crib-mates) rest in the shade. It was so great to see Oxana again!

You know it was a long day if Sam can fall dead asleep on the train station steps!

And we all slept very soundly that night.

Want Go Swimmie!

The theme parks were fantastic, but the reoccurring theme of our Florida adventure was definitely the hotel swimming pool, as seen here from our 15th floor balcony. Sasha must have chanted the phrase, "want go swimmie!" 500 times over the course of the week. It was kid heaven, and Mom and Dad definitely liked the admission price :)

Any pool with a pirate ship is ok by me. Especially if it has a poolside bar.


Did we mention that the pirate ship had a water slide? Here's Steve and Ben rushing out.
Sam found that this shirt slowed down the ride a bit...
Whenever I "lost" Ben in the pool he was always found lounging in the hot tub
Ladder + inflatable swimmie = stuck
Hooray for the swimming pool!