Water Park

Drew and Tetyana in the wave pool.... All of us in the wave pool....
Tetyana in the not so lazy river.....
Maddy and Tetyana in the kids area.....
Tetyana, Luke and Maddy in the kids area....

Well, the water park was a great but the pictures weren't too good. I used one of those water cameras and it took the worst pictures. These are the best of the bunch!

We got to Aquatica around 8 in the morning and stayed until after 4! Tetyana could barely contain herself long enough for us to put some sunscreen on her. We got her a life jacket and we all went in the wave pool. She was not even the tiniest bit scared. From then on we went on just about every water slide they had.

We were waiting in line, for at least an hour, for the slide that takes you through the dolphin tank. We get to the top of the stairs and are the next people to ride and the life guard tells us they are closing the ride because a woman collapsed! The medics get up there and start working on her and figure out that she is dehydrated. They were trying to clear everyone out of the line so they could close the ride. I was really mad because we had waited so long. We ended up trying to stay in line and once they opened the ride back up we all ran back to the top only to be told Tetyana could not wear a life jacket on this ride!! Urrg!! I knew she would drown once she came out of the slide so we had to turn around and walk all the way back down again. Try explaining that one! LOL

Toward the end of the day the sky totally opened up and it began to pour! We have these thunder storms nearly every day here. It was funny because we were all wet and in our swim suits but we were still trying to take cover! We ran into a restaurant with all of our soaking belongings and waited out the storm. Anyone who may come to FL and go to Aquatica, buy the all day, all you can eat pass. It was totally worth it. Tetyana was in heaven! LOL I think she ate a whole watermelon!

Our visit with our sweet friends from Oregon was the best. It was great to let the kids play and the mom's chat. It was just too short! We miss you Conkle's!!

My best friend and her family are in the car on their way to our house right now! I am so excited to see them!!!

Some More Pictures...

Great Friends!

We have some great friends that we have been friends with since Luke was 2 and we lived in Oregon. We met them right after we moved to Portland and their daughter and Luke have been great friends ever since. They are here in Orlando visiting us and the kids have been playing non-stop! Maddy and Luke picked up right where they left off two and a half years ago when they last saw each other.

Yesterday the kids put on a concert for us. Check out this video....

Later on in the evening we took them over to City Walk at Universal and we let them ride the carousel. Tetyana was pretty excited but when it started going Tetyana said "mommy, this easy". I think she thought the horses were going to gallop off or something! Here is the video....

Tomorrow we are off to Sea World's water park Aquatica. I can't wait to see Tetyana's face when she goes down her first water slide! Stay tuned..

Button Pushing and Electronics

Ok, is there such thing as a button pushing or electronics addiction. Maybe we could send Tetyana to Button Pushing Anonymous? It is the craziest thing! She cannot avoid pushing buttons on the remote control, TV, telephone, house alarm..etc. I can tell her not to touch and no kidding, 5 seconds later she is pushing a button. It really is on my nerves.

The telephone is still a major thing in her life. We still have our home phone unplugged unless we want to use it because she takes the phone and pushes all of the buttons or when it rings, she still wants to answer it. I have to carry my cell phone on my body or she goes crazy when it rings. You should see how she reacts when we decide not to take the call. It is like she knows the most important person is calling us and she can't figure out why we aren't answering it. Sometimes you can't chat at the grocery store with two kids in tow trying to fill up your basket!

So am I missing something here? Any other newly AP's having this problem?

She's Forgetting...

English! The other day Tetyana was trying to tell me that if she called the orphanage and talked to Sasha (her best friend) she would say "hi, Sasha. It's me Tetyana." and he that wouldn't understand her because she is speaking English and he speaks Ukrainian. She said that the Ukrainian words are "out of her head". It is amazing that in almost 2 months she is speaking so well and is already forgetting her native language.

We really wish she could hold on to it but there isn't much of a Ukrainian community here. We have several DVD's that are dubbed in Ukrainian and some other CD's and books. But I think if she doesn't converse with someone on a regular basis she will be able to retain it.

When we first got home it was easy to talk about everything in front of her because she didn't understand. Now we have to spell because she understands just about everything we say. For instance, tomorrow we have to take her for her second round of shots and I have forbidden Luke to even say the word 'doctor' until we pull into the parking lot. She will know exactly what is going on as soon as we get to the parking lot!! Poor thing will have such anxiety as soon as she sees the office. Luke is having some warts removed (what is it with boys and warts?) and is going first. Maybe her helping him feel better will help her forget about the shots for a bit.

It should be a fun day for me and the kids all around tomorrow! We are going to see Kung Foo Panda afterward so maybe a little popcorn and candy will help ease the pain.

Our Day On The Lake

Fun, Fun, Fun!!

What a fun weekend we all had! Saturday we were invited to go to the lake with the Pool family on their boat. You should have seen Tetyana's eyes when we got there! She was so excited and jumped right in. I am not sure if Luke was trying to explain what boating was or if he was purposely trying to scare Tetyana but she was a little nervous before we left. She kept asking if we were going to "buckle up" or not. We explained to her it was really, really fun. We pass a lake nearly every time we drive somewhere and she has asked if you can go swimming in it. She was very surprised when we told her you could. We left out the alligator part!!



As you can see by the pictures she had a great time. She even wanted to go faster when they were riding the tube. Can you just imagine being her? She probably has never seen a boat much less ever thought she would ride on one!

One of the best things that goes along with the lake and boating is all of the junk food. Tetyana feasted on chips, cookies, soda and a ton of fruit. This was probably the best part of her day! The girl can eat!! I did my best to let go of worrying about only eating good food for the day. I think in one of the pictures you can see the orange Cheetos on her mouth. She loved them...who doesn't?

Drew and I got to take a ride too on the tube and it was the kids mission to have us thrown off. The ride got pretty crazy and a couple of times I was sure we were going over. We hung on though for a good amount of time before we flew off. What a blast!! I had forgotten what a great time being on a boat was. I grew up on the lake or the river water skiing and jet skiing. That is how we spent our summers and are some of my best childhood memories.

Thanks Pool family for being part of some great memories for Tetyana and our entire family!!

New Look

So I had a little bit of time today (I know, scary!) to play around with our blog and add some more pictures. We took the pictures of the 4 of us recently but I am not too thrilled with them. The wind was blowing our hair, the sun was putting funny shadows on our faces, Drew's collar was tucked in wrong....told you I was a perfectionist! I like the pictures of the kids playing around. They show their personalities so well.

What do you think of the new colors?

Follow Up To Bonding

Can I just say there are still people out there in this world who are amazing. Some days you wonder what is going on with our world. We don't watch the news anymore because it is so full of hate. Perfect strangers left comments on our blog and emailed us as well as our great friends that were so uplifting and helpful.

I remember being amazed while we were in Ukraine by the prayers I received for Tetyana the night before we took her out of the orphanage. Absolute perfect strangers sent me emails and comments that were so profound and touched me so deeply inside. And again, so many people took the time to write about their experiences with their bio children and adopted children and bonding. So many people poured their hearts out and left me feeling like I was not alone in this journey. I received so many comments from people say they were "lurkers" but really wanted to comment on what I was going through.

Last night while laying on the massage table it hit me that I have only known Tetyana for 2.5 months. And almost 1/2 of the time we have known her we were only able to visit her for 2 hours a day in an orphanage. Add to that we speak 2 different languages. Add to that we are all scared out of our wits about what is happening to all of us....I guess what I realized from that 80 minutes on the massage table and from all of the great support I have received on this blog is I need to cut myself some slack!

I am so hard on myself. I would really like to live in a Pottery Barn catalog where everything is so neat and pretty. Not real life, is it? So I am doing my best to "fake it until I make it".

Over the weekend Drew and I and then me by myself, had a chance to spend some time with Tetyana alone because Luke had other plans. I found myself so much more relaxed with her. I have decided a big part of my reluctance stems from not wanting to somehow let Luke down. Not wanting to hurt him. I have spent my entire motherhood making up to him what I think my parents lacked in raising me. I need to find the balance. One thing Drew told me was "this is your life, live it how you want".....I do try to live for others, to make them happy at whatever cost it is to me. I know this is not something I want Tetyana to grow up and do. Raising a girl is a whole other post....

Now that I have rambled on and on, I really wanted to say thank you to everyone for their posts, emails and phone calls! It is good to know I am not alone in this journey!

Girlfriends and Wine

How can spending time with an old girlfriend (and by "old" I mean we have been friends for more than 15 years) and a glass of wine be so good for you? So therapeutic....Ok it had to be the massage she treated me to as well. Thank you Becky for your ear and the massage!!!

This picture is a few years old. I am so sad to see that I do not have any recent pictures of us together!! We have to do something about that when you drop by on your way back to Tampa today!