"There's No Place Like Home" Dorothy Gale, Kansas 1939, The Carrolls NYC, Fall 2008.

There truly is no place like home and after 8 weeks in Kazakhstan we were more than ready to return to our home in New York City. We have now been home longer than we were away. It certainly was a whirl wind adventure! Logan has adjusted well and we could not be happier to have him in our lives. If the account of our journey home is any indication of our lives from here on in it is going to be one amazing ride!

We were quite nervous going to the Almaty airport to start the journey home. We woke Logan up at midnight and there was no way to tell what his reaction would be. To our surprise he woke up chipper and as usual he "went with the flow". After goodbyes with our coordinator Marina and driver Leonid we had a two and a half hour wait in the airport. The first flight went smoothly as Logan slept for half of the flight on his seat between us. We landed in Frankfurt and our lay over seemed like an eternity. Logan was having some stomach issues and we were completely exhausted. Where were those ruby slippers when you needed them?

The flight from Frankfurt to NYC is where the fun began. Logan realized that he had a plane full of people as an audience and decided to play mayor. Logan stood on his seat for most of the flight waving and flirting with everyone. The boy is definitely not shy. Logan stopped with the social graces only to eat each meal (adult portions and wanted seconds by the way) and to sleep for a total of a half hour out of seven. Why sleep when you can create excitement? Every person who walked past our row was subject to Logan pulling on their clothes and babbling to them. We were quite popular. There was a beautiful little girl coming home from Ethiopia with her new parents and a lovely elderly couple from Malaysia who enjoyed playing with Logan. There was the gentleman in traditional Taliban garb who would scare most people on sight but smiled and was amused when Logan pulled at his robes. There was a little crying and fussing but for the most part Logan was a champ!

When we landed at JKF tears welled up in my eyes. "I'm so glad it's over" I said to Brad. He smiled and said "It's just the beginning."

After flying 7,763 miles we excitedly walked Logan through JFK to customs. Once we got through the gates our little adventurer became a U.S. citizen and a happy New Yorker! He was greeted like a King by his Grandma & Grandpa Carroll, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. Not bad for a little guy who had never been outside of the Schushinsk Baby house a few weeks earlier.

Brad and I flew 3,854 miles from NY to Frankfurt. The distance from Frankfurt to Almaty is 3,150 miles. Almaty to Astana is 604 miles. Tack on another 155 miles to Schushinsk and the total is 7,763 miles each way. We did this round trip twice. A grand total of 31,052 miles of travel and worth every minute away from home.

We are looking forward to you all meeting Logan and to our new lives as a family of three.

9/8- (Mon) "On the Road Again" - Willie Nelson

We have our exit interview at the U.S. Embassy at 2pm today. There we will be asked numerous questions about Logan and our adoption process. We will file his U.S. immigration papers and will hopefully be cleared for travel to NYC!

Our flight leaves Almaty at 320am on Tuesday. It has been a long, tiring trip so far and by adding Logan into the mix the last leg will surely be interesting!
When we arrive at JFK it will take us a few hours to process our "new addition" through customs. At that point the three of us will have had enough travel adventures for a very long time.
We are looking forward to and are extremely excited to begin the adventures of our family life at home in New York with all of you.

9/7 (Sun) - Logan's Run

We have taken Logan on a few adventures in Almaty to keep him amused and show him his homeland this week. If you keep him in motion he is a very happy boy.

There is a huge Green Market in town called Zelony Bazar. This is a traditional Asian style market that sells everything from socks to rooster heads (for soup) under big tents. It is like a U.S. flea market except that you can buy more exotic fare. The inside portion of the market is where you find the food. Stalls are piled high with the most beautiful produce you will ever see. Fruits (both fresh and dried), every imaginable vegetable, nuts and smoked fish are laid out and color coordinated. It looks like a beautiful rainbow of dates, figs, apricots, oranges, apples and eggplants. Walk further in to the meat section and you find large hunks of fresh meat which are chopped to order. Chickens, roosters, pigs, horse, snakes and I'm sure other things we did not recognize. You name it they can filet it, chop it or grind it up for your tacos. Surprisingly, the meat section does not stink and not surprisingly, we did not buy anything.

Almaty is a city full of family friendly parks. We took Logan to Gorky Park which is Almaty's Central and biggest park. It has walking trails, amusement rides and even a zoo. We skipped the zoo as we want his first experience at a zoo to be in NY's Central Park. Almaty's streets and parks are lined with water fountains and Logan is enchanted by them. He is very into water so bath time is fun. We also took him to Paniflov Park which if you recall is where we staretd our adventure on the first trip. We saw a Kazahk wedding at the cathedral which was fun.

In light of current events, we took Logan to a local Georgian restaurant called Pirosmani. Georgian food is delicious. Lamb and shrimp marinated in rosemary and colorful vegetables was our best meal in Kazakhstan. We will have to find a Georgian spot in NY. Pirosmani is a big venue with multiple rooms. We asked to be put in the far room away from the other patrons as Logan is quite loud at meal time. We noticed that Logan can surely clear out a room. As other people came by to check out the secluded room they saw (probably heard him first) Logan and ran in the other direction. Smart move. We wonder what the people on the plane home will do to get away?

Last night we met up with our American friends again for dinner at the American Bar & Grill (appropriate). Logan loved being the center of attention. He likes being around people and really loves the folks we have met here. He will miss his new friends when we leave and I am sure find Mom and Dad less exciting. We are really looking forward to all of you visiting to help keep our social butterfly amused!

9/6 (Sat) - Home on the Horizon

Our US Embassy exit interview will be Monday afternoon. Early Tuesday we head home. Not sure if Logan quite grasps the two flights and the lay-over in Frankfurt that await him. He did well on the 90 minute flight from Astana to Almaty. We'll see how that translates from Asia to NY. Whether he's in fine spirits or not we look forward to getting home.

Giants start the season with a victory! Always good to beat the Redskins. With CNN-International and the BBC as the only English networks we are up to date on current events. If you want any info on the floods in India, unrest in Tailand or the standings in the British Soccer League (New Castle just fired their long time head coach) just let us know.

Michele mentioned that we stopped by the Kazak Natl Museum the other day. In a room dedicated to Kazakhstan's independence there was a large glass case with a framed letter to President Nazarbayev from the first world leader to recognize/welcome Kazakhstan as an independent nation. That letter signed sincerely, William Jefferson Clinton. Nice to see the US featured so prominently.

9/4 (Thur) - Lot's Going On

There has been a lot going on the past few days.
Most importantly, Logan passed his medical exam at the international clinic. He weighs 9.7 Kilos which translates to about 23 1/2 lbs. The doctor said that his only problem seems to be allergy related and we will have to get him checked out back in the US.
We took Logan to the Kazakh National Museum yesterday. Great place, unfortunately we had no idea what half the stuff we were looking at was because it is all marked in Russian.
There was a terrific replica of a Yurt which we all liked. A Yurt is a traditional Kazakh home dwelling much like a tent where the ancient Kazakhs lived.
This afternoon we are taking Logan to Gorky Park. Seems like Logan is only calm when he is on the move. The boy likes action!
Watched Sarah Palin's speech live on CNN this morning. She's quite the pitbull. Not sure what to make of her at this point.

9/1 (Mon) - Happy Labor Day

We celebrated Labor Day by taking a quick trip up to the mountains. The scene is quite beautiful. Can't wait to be able to post the pictures as there is an Olympic sized (world's largest) speed skating rink suspended up here that is amazing called Medeo. Medeo is a picturesque valley located 15 km above sea level. There is also a dam which was created to protect the city from avalanches. The dike's collector has an impressive capacity of 6.000.000 m of water. At the end of the gorge there is a ski resort Chimbulak, situated at an altitude of 2.200 m above sea level. It is one of Central Asia's top skiing spots. The ski season here lasts from November to April. Kazakhstan bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics but lost the bid to Sochi, Russia. Instead, Kaz will be hosting the upcoming Asia games and this venue will be spectacular. I hope to see Kaz get the winter Olympics soon as it will be good exposure for the country and there are certainly many good spots for venues.

We made the trip with our coordinator Marina, a couple from Rochester New York and their new daughter Victoria and a lovely woman from the D.C. area. I won't give further details as their adoptions are still in progress. We realized by hearing their stories that no adoption goes off without many hitches and that we have been relatively lucky in our journey so far. Our friend from D.C. has been here a week and they have told her that she could possibly be here up to thirty days without meeting her child. She may have to switch regions and I cannot imagine her frustration. Everyone has a story and they all seem to be terrible.

Tomorrow Logan is going for his medical check up. We are looking forward to finally finding out how much he weighs. Hopefully he behaves himself as we are discovering he can be quite the hand full.

8/31 (Sun) - Ah! Almaty

Logan took his first plane ride yesterday!

The adventure started with goodbyes from his girlfriends at the Hotel Gloria. Pictures, gifts, tears and we were off on our three hour car ride to Astana.

Logan slept for an hour and then enjoyed the remaining two hour game of chicken we played on the two lane highway. At one point Erkin pulled over to flag down a policeman that was inexplicably hanging out in the middle of no where. About a mile prior we had been cutoff by a lunatic in a white car who was swerving all over the road. Erkin over took him and now we were waiting for him to drive by. The officer pulled him over and took him away in hand cuffs. The guy was drunk. The Kazakhs don't mess around and his car is probably part of the police fleet now.

We spent three long hours in the airport. Logan was fussing as he had major stomach issues going on. We went through a lot of diapers. We were nervous because we didn't want him to carry on in the plane. Speaking of nervous you should have seen the guy who we were sitting next to as we boarded. You would have thought Charles Manson boarding instead of cute little Logan. Logan rallied and promptly fell asleep on my lap as we took off. He slept for an hour and a half until we landed. Good little dude.

We are now in Almaty! It is great to be back in civilization. We are living in a 2500 sq. ft. apartment which we would never be able to do in NYC. It faces a promenade with stores, cafes and artists selling their work. The apartment building is quite scary looking from the outside. It looks like the part of Stuyvesant Town down by Alphabet City. We have a quilted, faux leather front door with three locks. Just to make sure it is really safe we have a steel, vault like outer door with three more locks and a bolt. We are living in Fort Knox. The decor is Russian psychedelic Austin Powers Mod baby! We have two bathrooms. One has a toliet and the other has a shower and a sink. You have to run around to wash your hands.

The best thing is we have 100 channels and two are English- BBC and CNN. We have been tracking Gustave's path to New Orleans. Can't believe they have to deal with this again so soon. I must admit I am happy to be chilling with Anderson Cooper again.

The down side is that we are back to not having the internet. It is difficult to go to the internet cafes with Logan. He has been screaming for an hour as we post this. Don't expect many emails from us as we probably will not be able to get to both emails and blogs. If we don't post pictures for a day or two, always back track as some cafe's do not have picture capabilities and once we get to one that does we will add pictures in.