More from Rylie.....

Hi everyone,

I hope you liked my first photos! Things in Astana are pretty good. It is warming up a bit, so that seems to make everyone happy. Not warm by any means, but at least a little closer to the freezing mark.

Here are a few more pictures of my life here in Astana- specifically the playroom at the Baby House. We've been having lots of fun playing together.

This is the big bin of balls. At first, I wasn't so sure about the whole thing.

But after a few minutes, I started to like it in there.

Hey Mommy- do you see me?I love when my Mommy gives me kisses.

And Daddy gives me lots of kisses too!

But all of that playing made me a little sleepy.

So that's my update for the day.

Oh, and just a few things I need to clear up. There seems to be some confusion amongst some of my relatives in Philadelphia and my boyfriend Avi. I am not an Eagles fan. I am a Redskins fan. And Avi, Mommy and Daddy told me that you aren't really an Eagles fan either. While I wasn't able to make it to Gallagher's for the first Eagles/ Skins game of the season, I heard you spit up all over your McNabb jersey. Rumor has it you may be a Skins fan too!

As far as the whole fight song thing goes, Mommy has already started teaching me Hail to the Redskins. For whatever it is worth, Daddy is working on the Hoosier fight song too- I hear that they are ranked 9th in the NCAA preseason poll! And Nana, I'll root for the Pats as long as they aren't playing the Skins. Okay, just had to clear that up.

Oh, and I wanted to wish a very very happy birthday to my cousin Jordyn who is 3 and my cousin Russell who is a little more than 3! Hope you both had a great day.

I love you all,

Rylie Naina

While it seems like most people care about the Rylie Report, we thought we'd fill you in on what we've been up to the past few days. We had a big accomplishment at the grocery store yesterday sans translator. Adam wanted perogies for dinner, which are basically sold frozen, by the scoop out of a bin. There were three bins of perogies, and we weren't sure which had meat in them. So we learned the word- Kartooshka means potato. We asked the woman if they were kartooshka, and then said "nyet" (no) and pointed to the meat counter. She seemed to understand us after a few times of repeating it and a bunch of gestures towards the meat counter. We are happy to report that the perogies we bought were in fact potato. A big accomplishment for Adam! In happy news for Sara, we found Reduced fat Sour Cream & Onion Pringles!! Again, everyone in the Tennen apartment is happy.

We had a funny experience doing our laundry on Sunday. We have a washing machine, but dryers don't exist here. So after we do laundry, we hang our clothes on the drying rack. Each apartment has what they refer to here as a balcony. But really, it is more like a sunroom- completely enclosed by windows. We washed our sheets on Sunday morning, hung them out to dry on the rack. When we went to get them a few hours later they were completely frozen--- with a thin sheet of ice on them! We brought the sheets in and put them in the closet to defrost and dry.

That's basically all to report from Astana. We hope you are all well.

Love to you all---