LOI's have arrived!!..Pre-Hallowe'en Rehearsal...Work from the TO DO list!!

Yes!!! It's official - Our LOI's (for you non-adoptive people - that means Letter Of Invitation, without which you cannot travel and has been behind ALL our delays in travel since September) arrived yesterday... at last... That means we are finally travelling - Nicole was delighted to be finally able to ring us with 'good news'. All we need to do now is to get the LOI's to the Kazakh Embassy in London so that Almat can issue our visas and Sue, our travelling companion has kindly offered to do this momentous taskk for us so that we will not have to travel to London. We couriered our passports, application forms etc to her two weeks ago. Anyway, she took off at speed for the Embassy only to find out it had closed early, as today is a public holiday in Kazakhstan! She was unable to get through by phone either!! Ah well, it could not be too easy!! No sooner had Nicole told us to book our flights for Saturday than she called back to tell us 'DON'T book fllights!' The date on the LOI is 30/10/06 which she thinks means we cannot enter the country before that date. So, we reconciled ourselves to travelling on the next available Air Astana flight which is next Tuesday. We have since found out that many others had this on their LOI and had no problem getting a visa to go before that date so yes - maybe we ARE going Saturday after all!!! All the uncertainty! I will be so relieved when the flights are booked and we KNOW what is happening. All this speculation and 'what if's' are driving me crazy!! We will get there, when we are supposed to get there, not when we think we should be going - I should have learned all that by now!!! and with the help of all those wonderful people who are helping us out , with the girls while we are away!! Take a look at those ringlets!!! Many the Irish mother years ago who spend ages putting rollers in their daughters' hair overnight before a 'feis' as you could not go Irish dancing without the necessary curly locks (don't ask me why!). Well, Elena's are naturally there - do not know about the dancing ability though! We are not steering her in that direction - She is more keen on starting 'blastics' (gymnastics) and I will bring her after Christmas when lilfe gets back to normal!
Why Hallowe'en on the 22nd October?! Last Sunday Declan and Darrelle decided to go to a match in Cusack Park and although they usually bring Elena decided to leave her behind because she has a cold. She was none too pleased and in order to stop the tears we decided to look for her Hallowe'en costume so that she would be ready to 'Trick or Treat' with cousin Odhrán. We found lots of last year's decorations and art work so put all up. Here she is dividing out lollipops for herself and Odhrán.

For the past few weeks I have been working my way through a very long 'TO DO' list and according as I am striking things off I am also adding things on. It is amazing all the different things that have to be done when you are leaving for a while. Know Mum would say 'leave it - we will do it' so Mum, will not tell you about them until I have them done!!!
One of the things to do was a poster competition Darrelle had to have in today entitled 'Keep Clare Clean'. Like every other project she did last year we ended up doing it the night before- Think I may have passed on some serious 'lastminute .com' genes to her!! Like every other project she does it is usually worth the effort' so here she is 'tired but satisfied'! and ready for bed! If you look carefully you will see Declan in the background drinking a guinness and watching it all!! and NOT stressed!!
Here she looks anything but satisfied! At school the children from 4th to 6th Class are members of 'ÓgÓgras' a youth group that encourages and organises evening 'as Gaeilge' (through Irish) and they do different activities, like games, day trips, themed nights, parties, etc. It runs only a few times a year so 'tonight was Hallowe'en night! Now Darrelle always has a busy Wednesday with extra-curricular activities so tonight ÓgÓgras had also to be factored in. Back to the house with twenty minutes needed to find something to dress up in. The photo does not show it but she has on a black wig that Dad and Declan had great fun with last Hallowe'en - a bit like Tina Turner on a bad hair day!! Actually every day was a bad hair day for Tina Turner!! She dressed as a homeless waif - they are my snow boots for Kazakhstan she has on her - just need a bit of a clean up!! The glum face is not because she is homeless but because we asked her to wait for a photo and she is LATE and not impressed by more delays. Elena, on the other hand is anything but glum! She thought it was great fun! However when we explained to her that she was homeless, and was carrying a blanket in her bag because she had to sleep out side she got real upset and said 'I don't want Dari to sleep outside - She is my sister!!'
Anyway Darrelle came back happy and all are asleep in bed now except me!!