Coming Home

Today was long. We traveled for at least 24 hours with an off and on very cranky four year old. All things considered he did pretty well and is now officially a US Citizen. Now however, if you'll take a look at the time stamp it is 2:55 am and I am exhausted but instead of sleeping I am sitting on the couch watching Toy Story while Sam plays with toys and we try not to wake Daddy up. I thought not having a baby would mean I got sleep. Not so much. Also, it's crazy that Toy Story 1 was my little brother's favorite movie for a very long time and I can still recite whole parts of it. Weird how the brain works. Anyways, it's good to be home, although I don't know that the cats would agree.

Not Luck Just God

So we had a little bit of a rough day today. We walked all the way to the Kremlin which was about 25-30 minutes each way with Sam, and then we ate at TGI Fridays. Personally, I could have done without both, but I guess we should at least try some sightseeing on the trip. We have not gone sightseeing at all this trip except if you count going to the orphanage, downtown St. Petersburg (to court & vital records [what incredible sights, in deed]) & Priozersk. Sam did fine, but it was definitely not easy with him wanting to go pee and us having to find somewhere in a foreign country with a public restroom. Thank you McDonald's by the Kremlin.

Anyways, now I will tell you the real story of the day. We went out to find this pizza place that we were told about, and could not find it. So we came back to the hotel, and ordered room service. I went to the store to get some drinks, because we are not paying the ridiculous amount for room service drinks (they already were charging a ridiculous amount for the food). Anyways on the way back from the store, I felt this sliding feeling, and I checked to see if my wallet or passport had fallen out. They had not, so I just kept walking. I got back to the hotel and realized that was the money belt, and this was after a couple of minutes. Oh crap! So I ran out of the room as fast as I could under the arms of the bellhop who had just knocked at our door, and sprinted back to retrace my steps. Praying the whole way, but really all I could even pray was, "Oh God please..." But God did please and our moneybelt was just lying in front of the store in plain site with a light showing on it. I picked it up and hugged it, and thanked God. I ran back to our hotel, because I assumed that Carrie was probably freaking out and looking for the money belt. She was. But God was watching out for us, and I can only think that it was God. Praise God! (And yes, I forgot to take my blood pressure medicine today. Guess what I did when I got back to the hotel clutching the money belt in my hand? Took that medicine.)

Long story short, PRAISE GOD!

Made to Moscow

We made it Moscow. We are staying in a "posh" Marriott. We didn't have a choice they booked us there. We left our apartment at 7:45 this morning. We got the airport at 10:15. Our flight left at 11:50, and we got to Moscow at 1:20. We then spent another 2 1/2 hours in the car getting to our motel. Poor Sam didn't get lunch because we were scared he might get motion sickness like he did the morning we picked him up from the orphanage.

He did very well for not getting any lunch and flying his first time on an airplane. We were ready to get dinner when we got the hotel, but we had a meeting with the contact here, and then once again we were ready for dinner, but we had a doctor come to our room next from the US Embassy for Sam. So by the time that was over, it was 7 pm. We made it to the hotel restaurant and that was cheap, however, it was here and Sam was running on empty about 4 hours earlier.

Oh I forgot to mention Sam was scared and woke up at 3:30 and didn't get back to sleep. We are tired. Poor guy.

Thanks for all of your prayer and support.

Sam sings the ABC's

Anyone wanna hear Sam sing the ABC's? You know you want to!

Макдоналда (McDonald's)

So we had our first trip to McDonald's today. Sam was very good and ate all of his cheeseburger. He got a Happy Meal, but we held his toy until the end of end of the meal. He was very excited that he got a car. We took a couple of pictures of him with his Happy Meal box when we got back home.





Later we went to the park as we always do in the afternoon, and there were a bunch of boys playing (with realistic toy guns). But Sam made a new friend. A little boy a couple of years older than him with the exact same coat. They rode the slide together, and chased each other around the playground. It was really funny, and I am glad that he found a little friend. As we were leaving, I think Sam told him that he would see him tomorrow, but I don't think that boy will be there, because his parents will be at work and he will be in school.

In parenting news, we decided to give up on Sam's naps, and we implemented a quiet time hour. He is right at that age where he really doesn't need a nap anymore, and so we just started putting him to sleep earlier. He is a little grouchy around dinnertime, but that is only a little bit before his bath which is only about 30 minutes before he goes to bed. It is better than him not going down at night, because he is not tired from his nap. We also moved up his bedtime from 9:30 to 7. And he has been falling asleep at about 7:30. They told us that his bedtime at the orphanage was 9:30 to 10:30. That is a little too late especially since that is my bedtime. We tried moving him out of our futon bed and onto the cot that is in our room, but he fell out of it at about 11:15. He was ok. He said, "Mama, Papa" and I picked up and put him in our bed and he just went back to sleep. Sam sleeps like a rock.... a radioactive moving rock.

Things that are completely and totally adorable:

- My little Russian singing short snippets of the ABC's. He knows about five random letters and just walks around the apartment humming to himself.

- How much he LOVES the bathtub. The minute we say the word bath he runs around the apartment stripping off all his clothes.

- How he wants to give us kisses all the time and will just walk up to me and say "ya te-bya ly blu, mama" (I love you mama).

In other news, I think I'm learning more Russian than he is English and he's definitely getting more sleep than me. I think God gave us three cats to prepare us for surrendering all of the bed space to someone half our size. At one point I woke up and he had his head on my stomach, his legs draped over Tim, and his hand on my face. Who knew he would turn into a little mini whirling dervish at night.

We are absolutely ready to come home now though. Every time we go some where we get asked if we are going to America. It took an entire day to explain that our cars weren't here but in America. I don't know how we're going to explain the fact that Moscow is not America.

Still, I love being a mom. God created me for this, even when it's hard. And he's revealing himself to me more and more everyday. Even the fact that going to bed last night shrank from an hour and half to fifteen minutes was a miracle much prayed for.

We love all of you and can't wait to get home so you can meet our little miracle.

Signs I Have Been in Russia Too Long

1. When I close my eyes at night all I hear is Russian, and I don't understand half of it.

2. When the computer does something I don't want it to do I speak to it in Russian.

3. I am able to figure out who else sticks out like a sour thumb, and is not from Russia.

4. I wake up thinking this futon isn't so bad. Especially when you have three people on.

5. I am not really completely bothered by going to the store anymore.

100th Post

I did it. I posted the 100th post. Yay!

We are all so tired. We spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to put Sam down last night. He finally fell asleep with help from Mama. I am not such a calming influence on him. Sam was very tired today (Thursday) and is currently in the middle of a 2 1/2 hour nap (he just woke up). And Carrie is currently feeding him ice cream. It is really not helpful that it is cold and rainy here and we spend most of our day cooped up in the small apartment. Plus we keep giving him sugar.

He loves taking baths though I mainly let Carrie do that because I am not really sure about the whole bath thing. Kind of like in Big Daddy when Adam Sandler makes Julian wear a bathing suit in the bath tub. This a mohawk he had last night during his bath.

Gotcha!

Introducing Samuel Aleksey Stanley Tweten, the newest member of the Tweten family!


Thank you everyone for your encouragement, kind words, and generosity, all of which made this day possible. What a sweet, sweet gift that our father in heaven allows us to experience the joy of adoption. There is nothing sweeter than the sound of an amazing five year old boy playing with his new papa in the next room.

Tomorrow is Gotcha Day!

Tomorrow is the day!!! It's finally here!!!

Okay, now I will tell you what we've been up to. This weekend we had to venture out on our own to get Sam new shoes and a new coat (the ones we bought were WAY too big, I told Tim there was no way he wore a size 12 shoe). The whole thing was an experience because the first time we left we had not done our homework and had no idea how to convert the Russian sizes. So after eating lunch (at Chili Pizza, weird spicy pizzas) and looking at the four kids stores we came home and looked at what Russian sizes he should wear and then went back out. Turns out all the malls around us are like designer malls. There was no way we were paying $100 for a pair of kids shoes. Finally we found a jacket that looks very Russian and will probably be warn a total of three times when we get home since it's never that cold in Nashville, and a pair of adidas sneakers that were the right size. I've never spent so long by such little clothes.

Sunday we fully intended to go out but we didn't. It was cold and rainy so we just napped and Tim finally got his computer to connect to the internet so we could watch all the stuff off the slingbox (thank you Chip Hayner!). We are so desperate for American TV that last night when we got home we watched almost the full hour of The Price is Right. The time change really does mess with your tv schedule though.

Monday was our LOOOOOONG day. Everyone kept saying it would be long and they weren't kidding. It was the day we were officially declared Sam's parents so as of yesterday he belongs to us! However we spent the day driving three hours to Priorzersk, the town Sam was born in, to get a new birth certificate and an adoption certificate. As of yesterday Sam's birth certificate has his new full name and lists us as his parents! We then got back in the car and drove the three hours back to St. Petersburg. The pictures are from Priorzersk, which is a very old city right on the border of Russia and Finland. There is an old fortress there that the king of Russia used to stay in. The town is very pretty and sits on the edge of a pretty river. We were lucky that the weather was clear and beautiful. We also had about an hour to kill and ended up eating lunch at a Japanese/sushi restaurant. Our driver Andrey was laughing about how we had to fly all the way to Russia and then drive all the way almost to Finland just to eat Japanese food. I can confirm though that all Japanese restaurants look the same everywhere. All in all we spent about 11 hours driving and doing paperwork yesterday. Then we came home and crashed.

Today was a little easier. We met Irina (our coordinator) at the passport office. It's this huge building that looks like five DMVs all smushed together. When you go in you take a ticket with your number on it. Our number was 304 and they were on number 135. Needless to say we had to wait again. It's a good thing waiting has become our specialty. After lunch in the little cafeteria and about another hour of waiting finally Tim and Irina went in to the assigned office and came out ten minutes later and we were done. After a quick stop at a huge souvenir store where we spent way too much money but got all of our shopping done at once, we went to the grocery store to get stuff to take to the orphanage (tea and cakes and candy). And then we came home and now we are cleaning up and getting ready for Sam.

I've put pictures of Priorzersk and of our apartment below for your viewing pleasure. We miss and love all of you and can't thank you enough for all your sweet comments and kind prayers.

Uphill Both Ways

Today was interesting...

It started out normal enough, get up, get dressed, get ready to go see Sam at the orphanage. We went outside and it was snowing, just a little and not sticking so while it was pretty it was not a big deal. We got through town really fast, a miracle since it took 45 minutes to go a block on Monday. And that it was it all started.

About five miles outside of town it started snowing. Really snowing. And sticking. So we keep driving, north so it's getting colder, and there is more and more snow. And the cars coming towards us have about an inch on them. This same road on Monday looked like autumn, leaves changing and sun shining, and now it was the depth of winter. Overnight.

I don't know if all of you know this but the orphanage is down a very long, very bad road. I don't know why our adoption has been marked by impassable roads, but there you go. So we get to the road, after crawling down the highway for an hour and a half, and we can't even get 10 yards before the van is stuck. None of us, including Andrey our driver, were prepared for snow. In fact Andrey had even told us this morning before we left that he had planned to put on his winter tires this afternoon. So then we tried to go to the nearest town where the orphanage director told us we could catch a train that came to the orphanage. Only it turns out that the next train isn't leaving for an hour and the one coming back wouldn't leave until four o'clock, so that was a no go.

I was ready to call it off and just come home but the orphanage director had emptied out Sam's savings account in order to give it to us and she didn't want to keep the money over the weekend.

And that's when we decided to walk.

Do you remember those stories your parents or grandparents used to tell you about how when they were younger they had to walk 2 miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways? Yeah. 2 miles, in the snow, uphill both ways. Actual childbirth cannot be worse than that.

And Tim did not bring his hat, and was wearing his work shoes that have a small crack in the sole. That is why in the pictures Tim has a blanket on his head.

But we made it and Sam was very excited to see us and was even pretty well behaved. We took his shoes and coat with us and neither of them fit, both are way too big, so tomorrow we have to go find new ones. I put some pictures we took below. Some of those Sam took. Master photographer in the making.

And then we walked all the way back and the car was stuck so Tim had to get out and push. So now we are real Russians. Snow and all.

Sam Takes a Funny Photo of Papa

Mama and Sam

Papa and Sam

The Orphanage

Tim and Andrey and the friend who wanted to follow them home.

Evening

If last Thursday was Night and last Friday was Day then yesterday (Monday) was Evening. Sam was trying really hard to behave but once again everything was different. We had to move downstairs because they were packing up files in our usual room. We brought a Where's Waldo book but Sam was going to have none of that. Really after about 20 minutes he was pretty much done being civil, but he was not as bad as last Thursday. That might have been because in the room there were about 4 other caretakers just sitting around (Not sure why they have the full staff when Sam is the only child under 15 in the orphanage and there are a total of 3 children). But he might have just been wound up because we gave him a bunch of sugar at the beginning of playtime. We really need to wait until towards the end.

Today we went to Ikea to pick up a couple of things. We walked about 1 mile to avoid riding the trolley or going an extra 5 stops on the Metro (subway). We then got to where we thought the Mall bus would come to pick us up but it actually was one stop too far. It also turns out that was the scariest areas around a Metro station we have been. We figured out that we had gone 1 stop to far and got back on the Metro and where riding the bus in no time. We ate at Ikea. Swedish meatballs and potato soup and it was very delicious. On the ride back from Ikea we got on the wrong bus. Apparently we should have gotten on the blue topped bus and not the red topped bus. Our mistake was rewarded hansomely with 1 1/2 hour Metro ride that featured 14 stops. Exciting!

We may go to see Sam tomorrow, but we might not be able to, because our driver bought a new van from Germany and is possibly going to pick it up tomorrow from Finland. Long story short, he bought a van from 2004, but thought it was from 2006, because of this mistake he had to pay an extra $7000 on top of the $7500 he had to pay for buying a non-Russian made car (Don't tell Obama or we might end up paying a ridiculous import tax on foreign cars too. He would do it. Yes, I just got political.). So we may go tomorrow or may end up going on Thursday and Friday again.

Sam and Daddy

Please do not post this video anywhere!

Night and Day

The last two days with Sam were like night and day. We went to the orphanage on Thursday and Friday for about an hour and a half each time. We'd like to stay longer but the orphanage is actually in the process of closing and I think we're really just in the way.

Thursday was pretty much a nightmare. Poor Sam had wound himself up pretty well and he didn't get to go outside that morning. Needless to say we spent the whole time trying to keep him calm, keep him from yelling, and saying "nyet" about a thousand times. By the time we were ready to leave we were all exhausted. Tim was convinced this was a symptom of a larger problem but Mom knew better. We hadn't been there for several days and he still doesn't fully understand why he can't just come with us. It doesn't help that his whole world at the orphanage is in chaos as well.

For yesterday we were better prepared. We took fewer toys since he was definately overstimulated and I put his snack away instead of putting it out first thing. Right off the bat it was much better. I think it helped that we came back. If Thursday was a nightmare, Friday was a dream. My Russian is getting better which also probably helps. We got him to say several words in English (as you can see below). We're not quite sure he understands what they all mean, but it's a work in progress. We also spent almost the entire hour playing with bubbles. The best part of the day in my opinion had to be Tim and Sam looking at this big book that had several activities in it. One of the pages was like a "Where's Waldo?" book and as they were looking at it Tim would do something like say "hmmm" or tap his mouth with his finger. As soon as he did Sam would do the same thing, wanting to be just like his daddy. I got it on video and we'll post it next week.

Other than that not much is going on. Doing anything in Russia is like 1000 times harder than doing it at home so we don't do much. The washing maching holds about 4 pieces of clothing, takes 2 and a half hours, and the clothes are still wet when they come out. Never thought I would miss my washing machine. The funniest thing that's happened to us is we went to the store on Wednesday and I was determined to make something for dinner that wasn't ham and cheese sandwiches. I bought pasta and what I thought was spaghetti sauce. It wasn't. Let me tell you, ketchup, salami, and spaghetti noodles is not good. It's really not. The container had garlic and spices on it. Who does that to ketchup? Oh well, spaghetti take 2 last night went much better.

Today we were planning on taking the metro to Nevsky Prospect but the weather's not looking so good, so we'll see.

Thank you all for your sweet emails and comments on facebook and here. They are very much appreciated when we're so far from home.

Sam says Hi!

Approved!!!

Our petition to get Sam was upheld and we were given a positive ruling. That is a fancy Russian way of saying we are now Sam's parents. The judge asked about 20 times if we were sure we wanted to adopted, and we are still are sure that we want him. We are very excited, so we celebrated the safest way we could think of by eating at McDonald's. And yes, somehow we ended up with 3 Big Mac's and 3 Fantas even though Carrie held up her finger and said 2. There was something strange in my Fanta too. We probably won't go back there. But Carrie says, "Desperate times...."

I spoke most of the time during court. We had already decided that well before they gave us the option of either of us speaking. I really only was tripped up twice. Once during our prepared speech, and during a question I really didn't understand. And a got a few laughs which is good.

Thank you for all your prayers. They made a poor public speaker a better one.

We will get to see Sam on Thursday and Friday and three times next week. I am really looking forward to those visits, but I am also looking forward to our break times in between our visits.

God is a powerful God. He soften the heart of a judge that thought we had no logical reason to adopt. All praises be to God! I am thankful everyday that He adopts into His family!

Time to rest!

The Power Struggle Begins

We saw Sam this afternoon at about 3 pm (6am CST for the folks reading at home). He was very excited to met us, and we were excited to see him. He ran in and gave us hugs, and was wearing the sweatshirt that we had given him 6 months ago. We had to wait until later in the afternoon to see him, because they had just picked him up from the hospital today, and he needed to take a nap. He didn't sleep. He was too excited to see us. We played a couple of games with him and he was really hyper. We had to calm him down a little, and had to say нет (no) a bunch. He is a curious boy, and since we did not have a translator today I think he was trying to get away with as much as he could. He shutdown for a second when I had to take him away from a fancy tea set that was in the room for some reason. That was really our first experience with him shutting down, but I think we handled it just fine. Children who live in orphanages sometime just shutdown completely. This is known as "fight or flight." We have to be careful to unprogram this behavior from Sam, and it will probably be one of the bigger challenges that we face when we get him home.

Tomorrow is our court date, and we have court at 11am (or 2am CST). Hopefully, all goes as planned and our request for Sam is approved. Carrie says she is very calm, but I think that is because I have been volunteered to do all the speaking in court (yes, I did just throw her under the bus, but we are married and I will probably get in trouble for it later so stop giving the computer screen such a dirty look). I had to write a speech today for our court date tomorrow, so at least something is prepared for court. I do feel like we are prepared. I remember my brother, Dennis, always use to say that if you have to cram the night before a test you are prepared. We am not cramming so we guess we are either prepared or in complete denial.

Please pray that we both have the words to say and that we can effective communicate tomorrow.

P.S. I used the micowave in our apartment today which is in all Russian, and somehow I ended up defosting my 5 minutes and 50 seconds. I did manage to figure out how to use it later. I also just tried to spell check this blog and every since word was put in red, because somewhere blogger thinks I am typing this in Russian.

Jetlag is Fun

We went to bed at 9 pm St. Petersburg time last night, and got up at 3:30am. I love the jetlag. We have some appointment today at 12 and then we will get to see Sam at 3pm. I am really excited about that. Apparently, Sam is more excited. The orphanage director went on vacation for a while and the first thing Sam asked her when she came back is when are they coming to pick me up. Also, he very active now which is a good thing. We were told that after his surgery a couple weeks ago he was running around the hospital the next day.

We talked to our contact here in Russia about our court date and she seems pretty positive about our court date. She said that we shouldn't worry and that we need to be very strong when speaking to the judge. Good thing that at my last job my boss called me a bulldog when it came to issues that I want to resolve. (I just had a little deva ju about writting this blog post. Either I am tried or had a dream about writing it.) From what our contact here tells us it sounds like God has already worked and moved to get us here. She said that the judge give her a second chance to work on the dossier documents instead of us resubmitting everything, and that she was very forgiving and she has not always been that way in the past. She also said that the judge has been very friendly to her.

So please just pray that God gives us strength to be tenacious, and not back down in front of the judge. Also, pray that if we have a chance we can share Christ with her. I really felt like God has been calling me to do that for some time now.

We are alive

We made it here alive. We didn't die. This is not ghost posting this blog. I haven't sleep in 36 hours.