Six months, from the home perspective

Today, we have been home, in our actual house as a family, for six months.

Aug. 19 was one of the longest days of our lives, and it happened to be my 40th birthday. We awoke in Moscow on an upper floor of a Holiday Inn. We were two new parents and two Russian girls who had been moved from an orphanage to a tiny room in a hotel, only to be moved weeks later to a hotel in a big city. Then we changed it up again. We knew we were coming home but the girls? Poor, poor girls is all I can think now. They did so well, but they had to be so scared and confused.

I took the girls down - at that point we were containing them in a front-back double stroller. Brian was going to follow with the luggage. Little did we know that a huge tourist group would be checking out at the same time and that the elevators would go on the fritz. Brian ended up having to haul our luggage down like 14 flights of steps. Then go back up to get more. And them come down with luggage again.

While he was dripping sweat and getting to know the stairwell of the Holiday Inn, I was being yelled at by an old Russian woman. She was unhappy that I had the girls outside (there are lots of very adamant opinions in Russia about where children should be, how many layers of clothing they need, etc. and women are not afraid of sharing these opinions in an, um, pointed and direct manner. Heck, neither are men. A hotel worker who was male yelled at me one morning for keeping the girls in the air conditioned lobby when it was "bad for them!"). It was a bit cool that morning - bizarre during the hottest summer on record - and there was a breeze and she thought they needed coats on. They, of course, did not have coats. They did not need coats. It was slightly cool for a moment but not a Russian winter, by any stretch.

Eventually we escaped the hotel, Brian in the front seat and Hope, Leah, me, a stroller and some luggage wedged in the backseat of a small sedan. We tried to tell our representative that we thought it would be too tight, but he was certain it would work.

Then we sat on the Moscow highway. For hours. Creeping along. In construction. With equipment hammering and horns honking. With the windows down and not the air, which was needed by this time as the cool of the morning had gone away, on. There were lots of trucks and lots of exhaust and I began to worry about missing our flight. It makes my stomach flop just to remember the stress!

And Hope threw up. I won't go into details, but I tried to catch it, then Brian tried. Leah came close to losing it. Ah, memories.

Eventually we made it to the airport and eventually onto plane. We won't go into details, again, about the long, long ride home. Landing in New York was amazing; I had been beyond stressed about just getting home to the US and it was so, so, so good. We had a long layover and then wedged ourselves into a little plane for the last leg home, where my parents were waiting at the airport to finally touch and kiss the girls.

And that, really, is the point of this post. Home. We made it.

We've had Halloween and Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day. We've documented smiles and giggles and presents and everyday moments with pictures.

Have the last six months been perfect? Absolutely not. Have we all made mistakes? Definitely. But it's six months home and that's what it's all been about, for four years. Having a home with a family in it. We muddle through most days. But now when we look to the future, there's not a mocking empty space full of, "What if it never happens?" Instead, there are two girls who love dolls and Hello Kitty and Tinkerbell and their dog Killian, who at 7:15 a.m. were clamoring to go outside since it's not freezingly frigidly cold. It's full of the potential of what we can all grow to be together.

So here's to you, Aug. 19. It was the longest day ever, but you delivered us home. All of us.

 Valentines.

New Valentine's pjs from Grammy and Grampy - Hello Kitty and Tinkerbell!

The state of the union during one moment in the middle of the Blizzard of 2011. (They are doing the "U" of KU at the end of the KU Alma Mater, which we sing a lot around here, followed by the Rock Chalk Chant. for days every picture had the "U" in it, even if we hadn't been singing it right then!)