Are you ready for this?

Expect the unexpected: Despite being reassured for months that the little boy you’ve been told about will be available upon arrival, that changes while you are sleeping off jet lag in Almaty. Uh-Huh.

Expect the unexpected: Despite the fact that there has been a huge slow-down of adoptive families traveling into Kaz over the last few months, there is not another toddler boy available in Ust, or another region, or for that matter, the entire country. Yeah, right. Cue the eyes rolling so far back into your head that you inadvertently tip over backwards.

Expect the unexpected: You might come home with siblings. Um, Wait. What?

For those keeping score, it’s now Unexpected, 3. Things-Go-As-Originally-Planned, 0.

That’s right. We are adopting siblings, so not only is Max going to have a new little brother, but he is also going to have a new big sister, too.

Wow.

The journey to get to these words was just a wee bit complicated and stressful. But for now, rather than focus on the journey, let me share with you the details of our newest family members. Our little girl is 4 years old, six months older than Max. She is living at the pre-school orphanage, where she has been for a few months. Prior to that, she was in the baby house for just about a year. We are still getting to know her, but we see a bit more of her emerge every day. We know it will be quite a journey to get her to trust us and to feel a part of a real family, and we cannot wait to get to it, full-time, at home.

We didn’t bring any “girlie” toys with us, and we have not yet had a chance to get out to buy anything, so we take Max’s toys with us to our visits with our little girl. She loves the Batmobile, and we are relatively certain that her first English word will be “Batman.”

Our little boy will be 20 months old next week. He arrived at the baby house with his sister, when he was 5 months old. He is full of smiles and giggles, and he is already following Max around the visitation room like a perfectly trained annoying little brother.

We could continue to use MLB for our little guy – he’s Max’s Little Brother. But MBS – Max’s Big Sister – doesn’t’ sound quite right. It reminds me of “Masters Degree in BS” – that term most definitely holds a place in this story (I digress), but definitely NOT to describe our precious little girl. So, we’ll call the kids “Fina” and “Sully” for blog purposes, which are forms of their current names.

We don’t think that our dear little Sully remembers that he has a sister. We asked Fina if she has a brother, and she said “yes” (“Da”), but she could not remember his name. Needless to say, they have not spent much time together over the last year, and we are counting down the days until we have our entire family home, under one roof.

The process from this point forward includes visiting with Fina in the morning, when we can be accompanied by a Kazak interpreter. While Fina understands some Russian, she primarily speaks Kazak (although she rarely says a word when we are visiting). We have not spent any time prior to this trip thinking about the Kazak language – Max was being raised on Russian and we were told the same about the little boy we thought we’d be meeting. I was tutored in Russian before we traveled for Max, and that's what we brushed up on before this trip. I’ll be going into overdrive to learn as many Kazak words and phrases as I can over the next few weeks. This is one of about a million challenges/concerns/anticipations that are jumbling around in our sleep-deprived brains.

We will then visit Sully every afternoon, for an hour, in the baby house.

After the standard 14 day bonding period, our coordinator will apply for us to go to court. At this point, she is predicting court somewhere around December 22. We have flights booked to leave Ust on Christmas Day, and to fly out of Almaty on December 26. If it is possible to leave earlier, it’s something we’d consider. Fina and Sully will remain in their orphanages while an appeal period works through the system, and while their final paperwork is granted. We hope to travel back for them by the middle of February or so.

Max, in his overtired state, is hanging tough. We’re relatively certain that he doesn’t really understand what is happening, although he will say that he has a new sister and a new little brother if prompted or asked. We actually try not to refer to Fina as Max’s “big” sister – I’m slightly stressed out about the birth-order business as it is, so we just leave it as “sister.” Fina is pretty much the same size as Max, and given the literal stage that he’s in, chances are he’d argue with us that she is "NOT BIGGER!!!!" if we dared refer to her as his big sister any way. He exhibits signs of jealousy and clinginess during the visits – we think it’s a bit grueling to head to two different orphanages every day, so we understand that Max sees it as a bit grueling, too. That said, he is now very proud of the few Russian words that he has added to his vocabulary, and he shouts “Mala Dyets” (“Great Job”) to both kids when they do something fun. Of course, that’s Russian, and the kids speak Kazak, but we just roll with it.

We are suddenly having Internet problems at the hotel (which is exactly how we remember it from 2.5 years ago). It comes and go in spurts with no warning. Thank you, God, that was not the case from Sunday through Wednesday -- if I had not been able to communicate with my family and friends to the degree that I did during that time, I truly wonder if we'd still be in Ust. Phew.

We won't post pictures of the kids for now, and I'm just too exhausted to think about going private at this point. When we hit our stride, I'll either go private or I'll start posting those "head-turned", "fingers only" pictures that adoption blogs have made so popular.

THANK YOU for the support. It is not understated when I say that our Facebook and Blogger comments and emails are what further solidified our ability to bring Fina and Sully into our family. You are ALL a part of our family now!!!!

At the Ust airport, upon arrival ... waiting for the (300 plus pounds of) luggage.

Max on one of the statues outside of The Shiny River -- I'm relatively certain they were not put there so that little kids could climb on them! I was ready at any moment for someone to come out and yell at us -- but I may have also been giving off a vibe at this point of, "I dare you to yell at me...."

It might be hard to see, but here's our first snowman of the season.