Cities We "Saw".....

A few of you have asked what our route to Russia looked like. There are no direct flights to St Petersburg, Russia...even from Dulles. So we got to "see" lots of airports in Europe.

Where we flew through, in order:

Dulles to Franfurt to St Petersburg Russia (Lufstansa),

St Petersburg to Munich to Dulles,

Dulles to Paris to St Petersburg (Air France),

St Petersburg to Paris to Dulles,

Dulles to Copenhagen to St Petersburg (Swiss Air),

St Petersburg to Moscow (Aeroflat-yikes!),

Moscow to Dulles (our only direct flight!).

It was somewhat excruciating to be "so close yet so far away" to all these AMAZING places!

Thankfully, I had seen Paris a couple of times in my college and younger days. Sadly, we had dear friends just one hour from Frankfurt but our transfer there was so fast that we sprinted through the whole airport and nearly missed our connecting flight. Each trip we only had about a week's notice so we grabbed whatever flight we could get within reason. We travelled light every trip...never checking any luggage until the last leg with Ana.

The worst airport to travel through was Charles DeGualle in Paris...we had hours before our connection but the security set up was so poor that we almost missed a flight there too. Every airport required us to go through security again and again- even though we were getting off one international flight and onto another. Matt stopped wearing belts and we wore slip on shoes.

The cleanest and most "secure" feeling airport was Munich. It was sparkling. We had a 6 hour layover there which felt REALLY LONG with the time changes, etc. Too tired to read, too uncomfortable to sleep on the leather and steel chairs. Munich was rather hyper about security. Our passports must have been checked a dozen times each....even once we were in the gate. At one point I made the "mistake" of walking 50 feet to the restroom without mine. I explained to the guard that my husband had it and even pointed to him across the way, but I was "escorted" back to the gate to show it. You even had to show your passport to buy a cup of coffee both in Germany and in Moscow.

Because St Petersburg is up so high (60 degree latitude), Copenhagen was the most direct route...just 7 hours from Dulles and only 2 more to St Petersburg.

What a whirlwind!

A photo of Kirsten- taking a "nap" in Charles DeGualle Airport

First 48 Hours Home...

This photo was taken 48 hours after arriving home. The first few days were a mix of everything...exhaustion (jet lag had me up at 4:30AM the first morning), euphoria, and "ooohhhh, that's right" moments (as in; "oohhh, that's right, you can't put a 2 years olds' crib next to a window shade" and "ooohhh, that's right, safety gates"!). It's been a while since I had to have the safety radar on 24/7! And then there was the issue of the dog. We figured she would be a bit hesitant....and perhaps have never seen a dog. However, we were unprepared for her to be completely terrified of the dog. She did not want to even see the dog across the room and she especially did not want to be sniffed or have the dog actually look at her! Six weeks later, we can report that Sarah the Dog is one of her favorites. Every morning Ana wakes up with new enthusiasm for the dog, pointing her out and making "woof-woof" noises to communicate. Sarah, is, however, getting a little pudgy around the middle. The constant flow of Ritz crackers and other treats "falling" from the high chair is catching up to her.

Flying...the Friendly Skies

Many of you all know, I don’t really like to fly. In actuality, I’ve flown plenty. I flew for the first time at age 1 from the US to Scotland where, as my Mom’s famous family story goes, I learned to walk in Edinburgh. When my father’s job posted him outside London the later part of high school and into my college years, I “jumped the pond” as the Brits would say, at least quarterly for years. But when you’re leaving 3 babies on the other side of the world, you start to get a bit weary of international travel. The feeling of adventure is less, and the worry is heightened. When my Nana from Boston to Philadelphia to visit us she would report; “I had to pray the plane up and down (insert number) times.” Direct flights were better to her…less praying necessary. I thought this was funny as a younger gal but found myself adopting this method during our many flights around Europe en route to Russia. I would be irrationally calculating the likelihood of a terrorist boarding our plane in this airport versus that airport. I’d look for our proximity to the “Exit” doors all the while knowing that those doors are almost never, if ever, used. I’d consider the weather, or what I thought to be the age of the aircraft, the amount of time the crew had, to my very uninformed knowledge, seemed to have to prepare and “check “ the plane from the last flight until we took off. The whole time I would simultaneously chide myself for being so paranoid but what can I say; that’s really what was going on in my head. There was constantly a pull between my (fairly) unrealistic fear and the knowledge of my Creator who loved me and had plans and purposes for me beyond my understanding but represented the only place I should want to be. By the thirteenth flight (yes, “13th”), I was slightly more relaxed. I kept reminding myself each flight that God was Sovereign and that nothing thwarted His plans and so forth. By this last flight, I simply hydrated, popped two Tylenol, squeezed into my Economy Class seat (or “steerage seat” as Matt called them) and settled into the stale air filled metal tube that would be our home for the next 12 hours. Ana, on the other hand, was an angel. After her nap, she remained very calm and happily sat on our laps for hours while amusing herself with something as mundane as my coat zipper or the seat button. Why can’t we have this childlike faith as adults? Ana was sitting in the lap of her earthly Father (or Mother) and had no fear. In the lap of our Heavenly Father, why should we?

Her People Now...

When we travelled to Russia each trip, we relied on Skype...mostly to keep us in contact with our 3 children back in the US and the grandparents staying with them. One late night in Moscow, we had the delight of skyping a dear friend, a grad student who lived with us for a year two years ago. There was so much that we loved about her but the way she jumped right in with our family's sense of humor made for the creation of many little "inside jokes"....like giving our Suburban a special name..."Big Blue"...or joking with Matt about his very "dogmatic" personality. When we skyped her that evening we jumped right into joking and one of her comments to us about Ana was "does she know that you all are, like, "her people" now?" We've made that one of our new little family jokes, but we're serious about it too. We ARE her people now. Or, as they say at the adoption agency, her "forever family".

This evening we sat around "post-Christmas" visiting with much of our extended Keyser family. We told the the "her people" story and announced to Ana with the wave of our hand...."Hey, these are all your people now!". In Ana style, she giggled and did a little jig of a dance. How amazing and how blessed we are with this new little one in our big family.

Bundling Up

Once we had Ana out of the orphanage (or "Baby Home" as they called it), we were constantly told to "bundle her up". The day we picked her up, we brought everything she needed- clothes, shoes, coat, diaper. We were told that otherwise we would have a "naked baby". They own nothing. We handed the clothes to the orphanage worker and they brought her out dressed in them. The only remnant we have from her first "home" is a tattered undershirt that they left on her because they did not think what we brought was warm enough. "She need a snowsuit"..."She need a snow boot". But at that point (October 27) it was not THAT cold (at least we didn't think so). Besides the cute, flowered leather shoes we brought for her (a lovely gift from a friend back home) would be just fine. Even though she was walking, indeed running around, easily, we were pretty sure we'd be holding her non-stop. Which was, of course, exactly what we did for the next 8 days before departing the country. That didn't stop the Russian folks from scolding us at every turn. On the bus, in the hotel lobby, in the streets, "she be cold"..."she need a hat". Our "snowsuit" was actually a fleece pajama onesie from Target that I threw in our suitcase at the last minute! The fact was, we learned right away that she was a "hot-pot"...the kind of kid who was just naturally warm and tended to sweat a lot. Like her new Daddy! She was so hot in the car the day we drove to the airport in St Petersburg to catch our flight to Moscow that she barfed all over Matt and the car. At that point, while Matt changed his pants in the back of a small hatch-back type vehicle and stuffed his vomit covered jeans into our carry on (a nice surprise for security agents later), I stripped our poor child down to a shirt and tights and zipped her into the Target fleece pajamas which I assured our Russian escort was an American snowsuit. (She's sporting it in the photo above riding in her back pack in Moscow)

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like....

Christmas! Our kids are just a little bonkers here today about the huge amount of snow that fell last night. As a matter of fact, we haven't had snow of this magnitude since the first winter in our house here....7 years ago! Does this look familiar to Ana? Last winter in Russia, she would have been just 1. Our understanding from speaking with locals in St Petersburg is that the weather there was marked by cold rain, sleet and snow from mid-October through April. Several commented how "depressed" they were that the winter was approaching. Anyone owning a car is "required" to have chains on the tires in the height of the winter. They claimed the sun never came out at all. So we gathered that St Petersburg was beautiful in the short times that the weather was nice but dreary the remainder of the year. I am so thankful all of our adoption travel was completed by November 4!