Well today was a rather grey and rainy day and I am afraid there just wasn't enough light in the playroom to catch our ever-active daughter on film (well digital but you get it).

As I write this tonight it is snowing - the first we've seen. It isn't yet enough to show up on the ground as it is still fairly wet from today's rain, but the snow is enough to make the cars and other surfaces white, and who knows, by morning maybe we'll be looking at a different side of Astana, one I no doubt feel confident we'll get to know well.

The two photos today are of the main room for Aitugan's group. I don't pretend to have all the facts, but as I understand it, there are several different groups divided roughly based upon a mix of age and development. Each group has at most ten children, and the Baby House as a whole has the capacity for 100 children, though there are not that many presently.

I am not sure of the exact size of Aitugan's group, though I do know that they have fewer than ten as the crib across from hers is empty. Her group room is at the end of the hall on the second floor, and it is really more of a suite of rooms.

You first enter a sitting room of sorts with a desk and and several chairs, and from there leads a hallway with the room in the photos going off to the left, while to the right, as well as straight ahead, are the doors that enter into the sleeping rooms.

Today was the first time that we have seen Aitugan's crib, and I must say it was very sweet. It is in a fair sized rectangular room with two cribs head to head against opposing walls, and a fifth crib at the end of the room.

We peeked inside this room just after they put her down at the end of our visit, and within seconds she was laying quietly under a thick comforter looking very peaceful.

The room in the photos above is the room that the children are brought to to be fed and to have some time to play with each other. The caregivers obviously have a lot of work to do, and so feedings are handled rather matter-of- factly. Hold the bowl near the child's mouth, shovel large spoonfuls of food into mouth, scrape excess away with spoon, repeat until gone.

When the solid food is gone, the bottle of formula follows. When that is done, the child gets places in one of the supersized crib/playpen areas seen in the photos, and another child is awoken and fed. The children keep to a fairly tight and predictable routine, and seem to do quite well with it.

Out of frame in these pictures are two adjoining rooms that come off the main room. One is a food prep area, and the other is a changing/bathing room. All of the facilities are very nice, modern, clean and cheery oh yeah and warm, did I mention they like things warm here!

So that's what you get today. We will see what tomorrow brings. Take Care.

P.S. I just checked the 10 day weather outlook for Astana and it shows the daily highs all below freezing while the lows fall into single digits. I'm glad we had last weekend to enjoy one last moderate weather tour of the city. Tomorrow says 1-3 inches of snow!!!