Birthday Girl!

We had such a nice time with Jenya today. We tried to make it an extra special day for her birthday, but being only one, she may not have known the difference! First, we put her in her new birthday dress. We bought it here and the size was 12-18 months, but it barely fit her! It was a little tight around the torso and hardly covered her little behind. Oh well, at least she got one wear out of it. Kennedy, do you need a cute little green and pink dress?? It’s so funny to say that because we just assumed we would be using all of Kennedy’s hand-me-downs since we thought we would be adopting a 6 or 7 month old. Now we’ll probably be giving Jenya’s clothes to her!

After she ate her afternoon snack, we put a candle in the cake (but didn’t light it God forbid we started a fire in the baby house) and the caregivers gave her a large knife to cut it! Of course I helped her but was a little nervous because I’m not very good with knives myself (just ask April and Rick). With her tiara on her head she tasted her first birthday cake and frosting. We gave her the candle and she got frosting all over her hands and face. It was killing me not to wipe it off as fast as I could, but everyone was getting a kick out of her messy face. The cake itself was very tasty, but the frosting was super sweet. I’m sure that’s why Jenya loved it. One of Jenya’s caregivers named Tanya was so sweet and gave her a stuffed bear for her birthday. She made sure to have the translator tell me that it was for her to keep and take home to remember them by. I almost cried, they love her so much. We hope you enjoy the pictures of her first birthday, but wish you were all here with us to celebrate!

I have to add our food experience for today to the blog. We decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner called Haupu. The manager at the hotel told us that it was authentic Kazakh food. We were excited to finally try it! We thought that since the sign outside included the English word “restaurant” that they may have an English menu. No such luck. And the waitress spoke no English at all. Luckily we have memorized the Russian words for Karaganda beer and ordered that right away. Then we just started pointing. Catherine and I tried to imitate a chicken with the arms flapping and everything and it seemed like she understood. Rick asked for beef and she pointed to a few options for each of us. The only other thing we’re good at ordering is French fries, which is “free.” Here’s what we got: Catherine had what she said definitely tasted like chicken and was stuffed with cheese and ham similar to cordon bleu. She loved it. Rick got a cheese covered steak that was definitely NOT beef, but was really good. We’re guessing it was probably horse meat as it didn’t taste like any other meat we’ve ever had. Rick loved it. I got what I thought was chicken wings and thighs cooked with lots of spices and onions. It tasted wonderful. As I started on my second piece (they were small) Rick pointed out the fact that it had a snout on it. Ha! I think I got pigs’ snout and feet or some other random pig parts. But, I loved it! We really lucked out with that adventure. We’re not sure if we’ll tempt fate again and pick a restaurant where we have no idea what we’re ordering, but we’ll see. We still have two more weeks to go!