My first road trip was to St. Louis to see Dr. Ladage. We left on Sunday morning and met Luke and Jake Sayre for brunch (whatever that is) in Kansas City. Luke and Jake brought along their mom, Stephanie, but had to leave their sister Alex and their dad Brad at home because Alex was sick. Luke and Alex were adopted from Almaty, Kazakhstan in January 2002, about the time I was born in Almaty. Brad and Stephanie adopted through World Partners and even used Adoption & Beyond for their homestudy, just like Mom and Dad. It was sure neat to meet another kid from Kazakhstan and I can't wait to see Luke again and meet Alex. Jake seemed to have a pretty good handle on being a big brother, so I may need some tips from him in a few years.
After we ate it was off to St. Louis. We got there just as the blizzard was moving our, so Dad was driving really slow and I was getting really restless. We finally made it to the Sheraton and headed up to our room. I think this place was just as neat as the hotel in Moscow. Since it was so cold and snowy in St. Louis, we did not do anything Sunday night but go to eat at Friday's and go to bed.
Monday was interesting to say the least. We got around pretty late and went down to the sports bar in the hotel for lunch. After lunch, I got to go see my first NHL game. The Savis Center was right across the street from the hotel, so we just walked over to the game. This was way different than the Scarecrow games back home. St. Louis won the game pretty easy, and Mom got to see Chris Drury play for Calgary, so we all went home happy. We went back to the hotel and hung out in the room for a while.
Monday turned out to be the "Night the Lights Went Out in St. Louis." About 7:00 at night, the room went dark, I mean really dark. It turned out there was a fire a few miles away from the Sheraton that knocked out the power. There was light in the hallway and the elevators worked, so we went down to a restaurant in the hotel for dinner. For some reason, the restaurant had power, just the rooms were out. We tried to kill some time in the sports bar after dinner, waiting for the power to come back on. Finally about 10:00 or so, the hotel told Dad that the power would not be coming back on in the rooms and that we could either transfer to another hotel or stay there for free. We were all so tired, we just went up to the room and went to sleep.
We got up early on Tuesday and tried to get ready by flashlight. Dad did not realize that not only were we without power, we were also without hot water and heat. Who would have thought that after 3 weeks in Kazakhstan, Mom and Dad would have to stay at the Sheraton in St. Louis to see what it was like to live without power, heat and hot water for a day.
After we got the Explorer loaded, we went to see Dr. Ladage. What a nice lady. She did a bunch of pushing, poking and prodding on me, then asked Mom and Dad a bunch of questions about what I was doing. She said I was the healthiest baby she had ever seen from Kazakhstan and that everything looked great. I still have to have some blood work done next week to check everything on the inside of me out, but everything else was great. That's when the fun stopped - in a hurry! In came this other lady with a handful of needles. First she stuck one in my arm for a TB test. That hurt, but wasn't all that bad. Then she proceeded to give me five - that's right FIVE - shots in my legs. She said they were inoculations and were good for me. I don't care what they were called, they hurt. They hurt bad. I am never going back to see that second lady again.
We left the doctor and headed for home. We stopped in Kansas City on the way back so I could have dinner with Ethan and Avery Stith. While we were having dinner, Mom and Dad had dinner with their parents as well. Dad kept giving me his mashed potatoes and man were they good. Much better than that baby food stuff they keep shoving down me.
All in all, it was a pretty good roadtrip. I got to meet another kid from Kazakhstan, go to an NHL game and got a great report from Dr. Ladage. Other than not having any lights and those darn shots in my legs, I had a blast.
You can see the pictures from my trip here.
