Kazapalooza 2011

We went to Kazapalooza this past weekend, June 3-5th with about 125 other families that have adopted from Kazakhstan. This is the 4th year Kazapalooza has been held, but it's the first time we've been able to attend. The planners did an excellent job putting it together for such a large group. When it started 4 years ago, there were 4o families. Each year, more and more families have come. It was kind of hard to meet new people because so many already knew each other, and it didn't help at all that I couldn't speak above a squeaky whisper for pretty much the whole weekend! But, we met several families from all over the U.S. and even some from Canada! They did a nice slide show of all the kids by which region they were from during the luncheon on Saturday. You can see Tanek's slide in the background on this next picture. They also do a charity raffle every year...each family brings something to donate for the raffle and then everyone can buy as many tickets as they want for the items they would like to win. There were so many nice things that people brought or made, plus a lot of Kazakh gifts. We didn't win anything, but it was a pretty neat experience!

Tanek was enjoying his cupcake to the fullest! He and his new friend, Brogan, were playing "monkey see, monkey do" most of the time they were together. Whatever one did, the other one had to do, too...except Brogan's cupcake was blue.

Tanek and Brogan were playing cars with some of the other kids. Brogan was Tanek's bff while we were there. We hung out with his family a lot. They live in central Florida and it was their first Kazapalooza also. Brogan is 5 too, so he and Tanek had a lot of fun together, along with Brogan's brother, Bryson.

Some of the other kids Tanek enjoyed playing with...