Things have settled down a little here on Christmas Day, so I thought I would take a minute to update the blog. It is amazing what a difference a week makes! We have had people over to the house over the last several days and the overriding observation is that the girls seem so much happier and settled in this week over last! And, I would agree. They seem to be settling into what it is like to live in the Bernadsky household!
I told you previously that the girls had discovered our Wii, so for a family gift Kelly and I went and bought a couple of new games and some new controllers as the ones we had were original and were showing their age. We had the kids pick numbers yesterday afternoon and the winner got to open the present, which was Caleb.
We all went down and played Wii yesterday afternoon, with Jessie, Riley, and Leah on a steep learning curve with a bunch of competitive children all yelling and directing each others movements. I had THOUGHT that a game that four players could play together would be a positive thing, and ultimately it was, but we had to bring down the level of competition a little bit…
Last night the kids opened presents from my parents, who live in Arkansas with my sister, Nicole, and her husband, Josh. They were not able to come up here this year, so they sent presents on ahead. Everyone was in a festive mood waiting patiently to open the presents.
We went youngest to oldest, so started with Mia.
Then Caleb and Luke opened their cap rifles.
My parents got Jessie, Leah, and Riley nice necklaces.
Riley more than the others struggles a little with the attention aspect, which is amazing because of the three she is the most outgoing and wants to interact with people. But she doesn’t necessarily appreciate all of the attention being on her! So, when it comes to presents, she is somewhat of an unwilling participant!
The boys modeled their gift cars well!
We put them all to bed (including the older boys who complained about having to lie in their beds and stare at the ceiling, seeing that it was “only” 11:30) and pulled out the presents. It takes up a lot of real estate to lay out twelve stockings!
This morning Kelly had to make her way downstairs past all the kids waiting patiently on the stairs!
We have a rule that you can’t come downstairs until everyone is ready, then you come down, open your stocking, and have a little breakfast. After that, the main presents get opened.
Some waited with great expectation!
Others waited comfortably.
And yet others seems a little irritated with the process!
But once they were all ready we were able to take a quick photo!
Off they went to open their stockings!
After that, and a quick breakfast, we Skyped my parents so that they could participate with us as we opened the rest of our presents.
Kelly’s parents came over for our traditional Christmas Day brunch and the sixteen of us sat down to share some time together!
After brunch, the girls got involved in building their Lego sets!
And Ali took a little spin on her new bike!
It is interesting to see the girls concern over cost, which was first evident while we were in China but really came up today! I think we are fairly modest in the amount of presents we purchase for the kids, but the girls were very concerned over how much everything cost us. Leah received a new set of paints and an easel and we told her we needed to buy something solid for her to paint against, but she said no that she could make due and that we didn’t need to spend the money. Riley, also, commented on how much everything cost. That is something new to us in that Ali never mentioned it and, in fact, Ali was pretty “Americanized” within a few months of being here!
Tonight we all travel to my in-laws house for Christmas with Kelly’s parents and siblings. Between the four families, there is something like 26 grandkids, so there will be a LOT of people! We will see how the girls do with just a large group of people!
It is so hard to believe that, after all the waiting and anticipation, the trip to China is over, Thanksgiving is behind us, the girls have been here almost a month, and Christmas is coming! Kelly had the entire clan in the dining room decorating cookies the other day!
The “old timers” helped out …
… as well as the “new comers!”
Our resident translator chipped in also!
Sometimes, if you only have one hand, you have to use what you have to make sure the decorated cookie looked just right!
Tonight, Brittany and Riley worked on chocolate covered pretzels together, after Brittany and Max had prepared most of our dinner.
Brittany took a little time out to take a candid with Dr. Jessie!
A little update on Brittany. As most of you know she was diagnosed with Graves Disease the week before we went to China. This has caused, in her case, high amounts of thyroid to be manufactured in her body. That week before we left we rushed around having appointments with our endocrinologist as well as a myriad of tests. Upon our return, we had an appointment with an ENT. Brittany had a nodule in her Thyroid and while not overly common in children, there was a concern about it being cancerous. They scheduled her for a ultrasound-guided needle biopsy this past Monday at Dayton Childrens.
We went in Monday morning and after about an hour of prep, they took her back into the procedure room. Kelly and I went to wait in the lobby. Just a few minutes later the nurse came out and asked us to come back into the room. When we entered, the radiologist asked us to come over to a computer monitor where he showed us the ultrasound from before we left for China which appeared to show a 1.6 cm nodule in Brittany’s thyroid. He then took us over to Brittany at the bedside and started up his ultrasound machine. He could find no nodule! He told us he could do a needle biopsy, but there wasn’t anything to take and he would just be causing her discomfort for nothing. We counted that a miracle and went home!
This week has been a pretty good week. We had a few issues very early in the week, but things have seemed to calm down as the girls are starting to find things to do to keep themselves occupied. A couple of them discovered Wii this weekend and while I am not an advocate of using it as a babysitter, it has been a nice outlet to have available! We will probably have to go buy a couple of new controllers, but I am not complaining about that!
Tonight we had a little trouble, but it was pretty short-lived and certainly isn’t worth complaining about. The past couple of days have made me feel like there is a “new” normal coming. Hopefully it isn’t too far away!
We hope that you and your family have a blessed Christmas! I will send you some Christmas pictures once we get on the other side!
This was the question posed to Kelly yesterday by Jessie. Not, “Why did you choose me?” Not, “Why do you bring children into your home?” But “Why did you adopt me?” And, more specifically, “Why did you take me from China and bring me to America?” This is a very poignant question when asked by a little girl on her 14th birthday whose future would have been bleak if we had not been able to finalize her adoption before yesterday. A birthday that, when viewed by adoptive families, symbolizes the end of that child’s ability to be adopted and abandons hope of leaving China for a better future.
But from Jessie’s perspective, this has been a time of sorrow and fear, balanced on occasion with laughter and joy. She saw nothing overly wrong with the life she was living. A life with few requirements or boundaries. A life of few expectations put upon her by those who were charged with her care. A life where teachers allowed her to sleep in class because they determined she was not smart enough or motivated enough to succeed. A life in an orphanage that, until Love Without Boundaries became involved, determined that she really did not need to go to school. She was, after all, an orphan. What did it matter?
So, on her 14th birthday, halfway around the world from her “home”, Jessie musters up the courage to ask why? Kelly’s answer was that she didn’t have a mom or a dad and once she was out of the orphanage, there would be no one to take care of her or to help her. As much of an answer as you can provide at this stage of the process. But as parents, we know how much deeper it goes. We adopted you, Jessie, because you are so very precious, God’s handiwork in action, a young woman with potential beyond what her environment could possibly imagine. We adopted you, Jessie, because Christ died on the cross to adopt us, and there is nothing that we wouldn’t do to provide that same opportunity to you. We adopted you, Jessie, because, to be honest, the day we saw your picture we fell deeply and forever in love with you.
And the same goes for Leah, for Riley, for Ali, for Caleb, and for Mia. Our love for each of them overpowered all the logical reasons to say “no” and gave us the courage to say “yes”. So, on those days when one of them chooses to act up or cry or cause problems, we continue to remind ourselves of where they came from, what they are going through, and what God has called us to do. As much as they will try at times to be unlovable, it will not work, because God’s love is higher and deeper and larger than anything they have gone through in their short little lives.
Today was Jessie’s 14th birthday, one she wasn’t so sure she wanted to celebrate, a day with some challenges, but a day that was enjoyable and full of celebration. We started with an early morning hair session with Brittany.
Then Kelly showed Jessie the flower cupcakes that she made for her birthday.
We proceeded to Jessie opening presents! The first was from the little kids, with a special card that Mia made for Jessie.
Along with presents from the rest of the family and a new watch from Mom and Dad.
During the day the girls went out and spent more time playing out in the snow!
This evening Kelly’s parents came over and we ate the flower cupcakes with ice cream. I just put this one in because it is so rare to get a picture of Jacob!
Kelly lit the candles and then we had to talk Jessie into blowing them out!
Then we enjoyed the birthday dessert!
There were a few rough spots today. After presents this morning, Jessie started crying a little and wanted to call her China Mom. We agreed and while she started crying a lot at first, the conversation went fairly well with periods of laughter. In addition, Riley was able to talk to her China Mom at the same time.
Later in the day Leah had a little run in with our dog, Hershey. Leah has become more and more brave with the dog, and today she went a little too far. No one is sure if she scared Hershey or if she hurt her accidentally, but Hershey snapped at her. That was all it took to re-instill the fear of the dog in her and, to some degree, the other girls. Leah cried for about an hour and the girls spent the evening jumping away from Hershey!
In the end, though, it was a good day and a nice way to celebrate Jessie’s birthday! Tomorrow we have several girls going in for ultrasounds with some additional doctors appointments on Friday. This weekend begins basketball season, so things will continue to be busy!
Bringing to a close the weekend and it has been full of ups and downs! Yesterday afternoon we had the social worker over for Ali’s two-year post placement report and the girls one-month report. That was relatively painless! Then, last night the Brickner’s had our family and the Hamm’s over for dinner. Can you BELIEVE that there are people brave enough to invite us over?! There are, and we enjoyed the time there, watching the end of the Auburn football game and spending time together with friends. The girls did really well until the very end, when things started to get a little boring. But, they lasted a lot longer than we expected, so we were thankful for the time out of the house!
This morning was the second Sunday at church and we again spent it on pins and needles! It is like watching a volcano getting ready to erupt and you are just sitting there wondering if Pastor is going to get through all eight points and the close before one of the girls has a melt down! As the service wound to an end, we were telling this one to be quite, this one to stop stretching, and another that she couldn’t go to the bathroom just quite yet!! I’m sure it looks calm to others, but to us it feels like you are on the edge holding the dam back!! But, they made it through a second Sunday of church!
Yesterday, ahead of the dinner, Kelly and the kids made chocolate covered pretzel sticks. All the girls but Riley, who was involved in a puzzle, participated.
I tried to snap a quick picture of Riley and as you can see she has completely given into my photographic ways!
Looking at this, you would think Jessie is a perfect angel!
Leah took her turn at decorating.
Another try at Riley:
Caleb joined in on the process when we peeled him away from his DS.
Maxwell man-handled the chocolate application.
A final shot at catching Riley.
A week full of doctors and dentist appointments this week! And basketball starts for Ali, Luke & Caleb. I will update you as the opportunity presents itself! Please continue to pray for us as the process of understanding what it takes to be part of a family is still a difficult thing for some to grasp.
Today we got the first storm of winter with an expected 6-8″ of snow. So, Kelly and I ran out yesterday looking for winter boots and snow pants for all the girls. The girls seemed to have a great time out there!
I came home from work to find Jessie diligently shoveling off the driveway!
Mia providing Leah a snowy form of transportation!
Ali and Jessie sledding …
… followed by Brittany and Riley.
Leah became cold pretty quickly out there, but still maintained a happy mood!
Here are some additional shots of Jessie. You have to love her smile!
I had to throw in a couple of the boys, also!
I may have to buy another gun to keep this one from trouble. I imagine the boys will be wandering around her frequently.
Britt, as always, helped coordinate all the outside play! She is awfully good to these girls. And remains pretty patient with them!
One final shot of Leah as she and I stayed in and watched the kids play.
We came home to a really full house Thanksgiving Day with all of our kids, including Zach and his girlfriend, Sam, plus my parents. Made for seventeen people in the house, which sadly isn’t really that much more than there will be on a regular basis! Leah and Jessie rolled right into the house with just a little trepidation, but Riley wouldn’t come out of the van. It was just too much for her to absorb all at once. So, I brought her in through the front door and put her in my office for awhile so that she could adjust to all the people and the surroundings.
The part of coming home that the girls had the greatest issue with was our little dog, Hershey! They were and continued to be petrified of her for several days. There was one morning, Saturday I believe, were Jessie sat at the top of the steps for hours, afraid to come down for breakfast. We finally had to put Hershey on a leash and keep her somewhat contained. After a few days of that, the girls started getting used to her and, while they still jump away and scream if Hershey does something sudden, they have been able to coexist with her.
Every day they adjust a little more to their new surroundings. And every day seems to present a new struggle. Kelly started school with them yesterday and they don’t appear to know as much English as Ali did nor do they know their numbers as well. That adds a lot of complexity on to Kelly’s plate.
One of the adjustments for us has been how loud they talk! They talk loud and fast and it seems like there is some sort of requirement in China that when you call to someone using their name or title, you have to do it at the top of your lungs. I thought boys were loud, but these girls, especially Riley and Jessie, take the cake!
Church on Sunday went actually much better than Kelly or I expected. For girls like Jessie and Riley that have had few rules or boundaries, we were not sure how they would react to sitting in church for 90 minutes+. But, they all did very well and only required a little periodic direction. In fact, we had another Christmas service that night and they had to go sit again for another hour! I was pretty proud of them.
Leah has seemed to be the one to accept and adapt to the new environment the quickest. She remains pretty happy most of the time and is always pleasant with a “Good Morning” and a “Thank you”. She has caused the least amount of drama. Riley, also, has done fairly well. She still has not completely embraced this new life, and she can be a little stubborn when she wants to, but ultimately gets on board. Jessie has probably had the most difficulty, and I think much of that revolves around the fact that for most (if not all) of her life people have told her that she is not smart and have basically left her to herself. No direction, no support, little love. Even her China mom seemed a little “hard” and Kelly told me how awkward the hug was that she gave her upon leaving. The schools were content to let her under perform and, at times, apparently just sleep through class. So, you have a pretty damaged young lady. I believe that Leah had a pretty good support system, and Riley was smart so she was able to derive some self worth there, but Jessie had to get attention in other ways. She will probably take the most time and effort and yet she craves Kelly’s attention and sticks close by her side throughout much of the day. All she probably needs is a little love and a whole lot of patience!
Now I will try and catch up on a few of the pictures! We stayed at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou and it is named that because, well … it has a large garden! It was a very pretty area and one that we only got a chance to visit on our final full day there.
Here is picture of the entrance to the Safari Ride at the park and the girls getting on the tram ready to view the animals
The tram takes you on a pretty close encounter with many African animals!
We then took the girls through the Jurassic Park area where, as I told you earlier, the girls were pretty afraid of all the robotic animals.
Even though Ali KNEW this animal wasn’t real, she was still VERY uncomfortable taking this picture!
I already told you about the experience with the birds, but here are a few of the pictures of everyone being scared to death of them landing on them, except for Brittany and Ali.
A rare picture of just Kelly waiting on the girls at a bathroom break before we entered in to see the Pandas.
The Panada’s are always great to see as this zoo has so many of them!
We were able to see many of the animals at feeding time this visit, which made the experience a lot more interesting. Here they had an area where you could buy bananas and feed them to the elephants. Since it was the end of the day, they were just throwing the elephants all the left over bananas for a late afternoon snack!
That night we went to the circus and here are those pictures.
In this next shot, there is actually a wall of water surround the stage, falling from the ceiling probably 60 feet above the stage. It was really impressive.
Add to that the laser effects and it was definitely a show worth seeing!
Again, as we traveled out of Guangzhou to Hong Kong, we were told over and over what a mistake the train would be. How difficult it would be to manage Leah’s wheelchair and all our luggage. We were told this with Ali also, but braved it anyway and found the process both an easy and relaxing way to travel to Hong Kong.
Our guide took us to the train station and got us all settled in before he left. There was a gentleman there that offered to take all our bags (seven) and manage them through the station and on to the train for us for $20RMB each (that is a little over $3 per bag). We only really had an issue with one heavy bag, as the rest had wheels and the girls were able to manage their own bags. He wasn’t too interested in managing just ONE of our bags, but in the end agreed. That was the best investment there! He kept coming back and checking on us, making sure that we had all the necessary paperwork to get through immigration and on to the train. He took us straight to the front of the line for boarding and directed us through immigration, taking our one bag ahead of us. He made sure that we got that bag checked and then proceeded to make sure we knew how to access the elevator to the train platform. He was an unbelievable asset and our little angel for the day! We could have managed without him, but he made things so much better and I went ahead and gave him $100RMB for all the help.
The train ride was, as always, very enjoyable. They had put into service new train cars since the last time, and everything was clean and neat and quite. There was plenty of room for our bags, immigration was very easy on both sides, and after a quick two hour trip, we were in Hong Kong. We then took the double-decker bus from the train station to the airport, for about $5 per person, a pretty decent rate especially considering all of our luggage! The only difference was that last time we took the bus, it was pretty late at night and I don’t remember the bus making many stops on the way to the airport. This time, however, it was early afternoon, and it stopped EVERYWHERE along the route. So, it took over an hour to get to the airport, but it was very enjoyable riding up by the window on the upper level and enjoying watching Hong Kong. The girls seemed to enjoy it and carried on a conversation for the entire trip. Here is Riley in typical fashion! It isn’t the best video ever, but does capture some of her personality!
At the Hong Kong airport, every thing was decorated for Christmas, including a giant crystal Christmas Tree that was sponsored by a jeweler.
We had a nice dinner, went to bed early, and prepared for an early flight. We went from Hong Kong to Tokyo, which was about a 3 1/2 hour flight and it went fairly smoothly. However, that morning we actually spent a few minutes LOOKING at our tickets for the Tokyo to Atlanta flight, the long 12-hour, and realized that everyone was sitting by themselves in a middle seat. NO one was sitting by anyone else. This was a little concerning, considering that Leah would have to cath herself twice during the flight, Jessie was going to be pretty unhappy sitting by anyone besides Kelly, and Riley had thrown up on the previous flight! This seemed somewhat disastrous and it was the first time on the entire trip that I felt a little discouraged. The Delta employee that checked our baggage in Hong Kong told me that he would put through a request for seat changes, but since it was Thanksgiving Day and the airline had cancelled the other flight due to lack of flyers, the plane was full. I went to a gate agent in Tokyo and she basically told me the same thing without even looking at our tickets. We prepared for a long flight of making due, when God stepped back into the picture. Just before boarding they called several people up to the counter, including us, and moved everyone around so that most of us were sitting together. Kelly, Jessie, and Leah were in one row together, Brittany and Riley were behind her, and I was behind them. Ali got stuck in a middle row ahead of us sitting between two men! We felt a little bad for her, but as the plane started to fill up, there was an aisle set that remained open closer to us. Then began the stressful time of deciding when to have Ali move to the seat before someone else did, with the realization that the person assigned to that seat would most likely show up and claim it! We took the risk and had Ali move, cringing as every person boarded the plan and walked down the aisle, all of them bypassing the seat Ali was occupying. Finally, the plane was filled an no one claimed the seat! I talked to the lady sitting with Brittany and Riley and she happily switched seats! We went from being spread out all over the plane to all of us contained in two rows all together with me right behind them. It was a huge blessing! The girls managed the flight like troopers without incident.
We arrived home, as I said, to full house. The girls seemed to enjoy their new beds in their new bedroom! They didn’t have to sleep with someone else for a change!
As we transition back a normal life her at home, one of the challenges is keeping the girls busy! The other kids have been a lot of help! They took them out on the swings yesterday, even though it was cold, and Riley went out on the trampoline. I was able to snap a few pictures of them from the house before eagle-eyed Jessie caught me and sent them into screams of displeasure!
As many of you know, our family has blessed us on the last several trips by remodeling parts of our house. With Caleb it was new carpet upstairs, new appliances, and molding in the basement. With Ali, it was new hardwood floors and kitchen cabinets. This time we made sure that the family knew that there was nothing that needed to be done nor should be done in our absence. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn’t say the same to our friends, and they took up the quest, with our family’s assistance, in remodeling the boys and girls bathrooms upstairs, putting in new bathtubs with tiling around them (including handicapped accessible options for the girls bathroom), new cabinets, and new tile on the floor. It was a huge blessing, especially for the girls bathrooms. These pictures do NOT show off nearly how nice they both turned out. A huge thank you to the friends and family that spent their time and money getting this all completed.
I will try and update again soon! Just a lot going on. Today is my last day off and we are planning on heading to a movie soon. Then it is back to work for me tomorrow. I think I may have gotten used to this “time-off” thing a little too much!
