Our last trip to Esik - by McP

On Tuesday, we loaded up the car with everyone and took our last long ride to Esik! This was Alina and Mac's first trip, as they had stayed in Almaty with their cousin Liza the first week of our journey here. Most of the time was spent either driving the hour distance one-way to and from the town, or spent waiting for one thing or another.

A lot of time was spent in the parking lot of the Ministry of Education, waiting for Gulnara to arrive with our paperwork. It is going to be a shock to Cal when we get home and strap him into his first car seat! Cal was jealous of his brother and sister getting to wait outside, but as you can see from Mac it was not as fun as it looked to his little brother:




Once Gulnara got there, the whole process took only about five minutes. Cal did not want anything to do with the women inside, even though they were making a big deal over him. He yanked his arm back from one of the ladies who was simply trying to touch him! I hope he can soon feel assured that he is with his family forever and will not have to go anywhere else once we get home.

Mac and Alina got to visit in Esik the very spot where the famous "Golden Man" was found, which is memorialized by a simple monument on the side of an long-unfinished construction site. Alina claimed to have spotted some gold on the ground, which sent her brother into a frenzy of gold fever. Emil assured them that the discoverers found all four-thousand-plus pieces of the Warrior Prince's suit of gold:


At the end of it all, Cal rested peacefully, seeming to know that all went well and that his paperwork will soon be finished and he will be on his way to his forever home with his forever family! -McP