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Photos:

1. "I'm a US Citizen!!!!" Moments after clearing Immigration and getting Visa stamped!

2. Post-Ike breakfast... note the spoon :-) She still won't pick food up with her hands and put into her mouth, but she's VERY enthusiastic about the spoon and is already clumsily feeding herself (with some help)

3. More breakfast

4. Gdansk, Old Town

5. Gdansk, Old Town

6. Paulina seaside in Sopot

7. Sopot

Well, we made it in Thursday night to be greeted by Ike... when we left Poland the forecast still had it heading south of Houston... boy what a difference 18 hours makes :-) The trip was very long, but uneventful. Paulina slept about 30 minutes on the flight to Amsterdam, and then stayed up and kept me company during our 5 hour layover. I have to say, if you must have a layover, Schiphol is a pretty good place to do it. Lots of shopping, "baby stations" everywhere - they have dedicated restrooms with sinks, changing tables and chairs, they even have a baby lounge with soft music and individual little "cabanas" with cribs and supplies... All free of charge. Also, NO SMOKING in the airport!!!! I felt like we were back in the real world. We were seated in the bulkhead row and got the wall-mounted bassinet for Paulina. She slept a total of about 3 hours on the 10.5 hour flight, but was pretty good-natured when awake. She did want to "walk" around a lot so a couple of the really sweet flight attendants would take her every few hours to give me a break. We came through Immigration in Houston and Paulina became a citizen with stamp on her visa :-) The best part was seeing Hayden, Tom, Mamaw and Papaw waiting for us when we made it out of Customs... wow. Such a wonderful sight... Aunt Reagan, Uncle Aaron and cousin Emily were waiting for us at home with a Texas flag cake, welcome home banners, balloons and Papaw picked up Pappasitos fajitas for us... SO GOOD!!!!

Paulina took it all in stride, she didn't seem overwhelmed at all, even when Maddie greeted her with "kisses" in the face :-) I put her down to sleep at 8:30 and she slept all night through 8 Friday morning. We spent the day Friday preparing for the storm - Mamaw had stocked the house with everything we could need, thank goodness since everything was closed Friday!

The storm was a little scary, but no real damage for us, thankfully. And, in case you were wondering, it really does sound like a freight train. The winds lasted from around 10:30pm - 7am - it was really bad from around midnight to 4am. In the morning we'd lost a couple of trees and part of the fence fell down, but all in all... unscathed. We lost power around midnight and yesterday they told us our neighborhood would be without power for 5 days... after hearing that we talked to some friends in Katy who still had power and were planning on heading out there today (Sunday), but around 11pm last night the lights and more importantly, THE AC!! came back on. So 24 hours total - feeling pretty darn lucky all the way around.

I'll get some photos up later in the day, my camera is in the room with Hayden who is sleeping soundly. NEVER wake a sleeping child :-) Paulina is doing so well... she is exploring a lot, she still prefers to be held, but she finds walking around holding your hand an acceptable alternative :-) She seems to be ok with the dogs, she doesn't cry or seem afraid, but she's not in love with them yet either.

More in a bit, going to try and get some of the house cleaned up and stuff unpacked before the kiddos wake up!!

LEAVING IN 13 HOURS!!!!

So, not that I'm not a little emotional about our time in Paulina's birthplace ending, but WE'RE COMING HOME TOMORROW!!!! We have a Polish passport and a US Visa in hand and will get on the plane to Amsterdam at 6:45 tomorrow morning... 5 hour layover in AMS and then we land in Houston at 5:35pm!!!! Thank you, Hurricane Ike!!

Paulina is giddy also, she must be picking up on my relief. We're all going to have dinner tonight, one last round of the yummy potato pancakes with mushroom sauce before heading back to fajitas and 'ritas :-)

I'll post another round of pictures as soon as we're home and have bandwidth again... I'm just all out of patience for the 1 bar of borrowed wireless...

I will never be able to adequately express my gratitude for the support we've received from our family and friends, both new and old. You are all so generous and wonderful to share this experience with us. Paulina is truly a joy and such a wonderful gift to our lives... the time here was long and hard at times, but worth every single moment. Love you all!!

FINGERS CROSSED!!

OK, thanks to Hurricane Ike, we were able to change Paulina and my tickets to Thursday departure... now we just have to get that US Visa today... because Tracy's ticket was booked on miles, they couldn't get her on the same flights from Amsterdam and only had a flight that stopped in Newark available, so she opted to just stick around and spend the night in Amsterdam as originally planned. I am feeling pretty guilty for throwing her under the bus, so to speak, and leaving her here... but she offered and I jumped all over it! Her friend is in Warsaw through Friday for work so she's not alone and will hopefully be able to have a fun and kid-free day and evening after we leave!!!

We are picking up the Polish passport at 9:30am and the Visa interview is at 10:30. Provided everything goes as planned, we can pick up the completed Visa at 3pm this afternoon. More after the interview... my fingers are crossed... it would be so good to get home tomorrow night...

bye bye

Well, Paulina and I put Papaw and Hayden on the plane home this morning... :-( Rough morning for Mommy, rough night for everyone. Our last night in Poland was spent in the ER - everything turned out ok, but Hayden did a coffee table dive at Jack's apt (we went over last night to eat pizza and let Hayden tell his new friend, Jack, good-bye). He cut his browbone, just below eyebrow... it was only about an inch long, but bled a lot and was pretty wide so we decided to take him in just in case. Since they were flying first thing today, didn't want to take any chances. The Children's Hospital was phenomenal, we were in and out in less than 30 minutes and the whole thing cost $25USD. Amazing. They didn't do stitches and opted for the steristrips (sp?) instead - he got a giant bunch of gauze taped on top of that and he has actually left it alone as of 5:30am this morning. According to the doc, the strips won't come off and we can remove in 7 days... he clearly doesn't know Hayden. The family from Floriday was so kind and kept Paulina for us while we took Hayden in. When we returned to their apartment, they too were amazed at the speed... and Paulina and their daughter were in the tub splashing together :-) Very happy babies last night, all things considered.

We have the Visa photos and doc appt this morning, Tracy arrives tomorrow, Polish passport appt Friday, train to Gdansk on the Baltic Coast Saturday - Monday, then final Visa interview on the 10th... and provided everything goes as planned, home on the 13th!!! Woo Hoo!!! I wish I'd thought to bring a little American flag for Paulina to hold as she enters the US and becomes a citizen... kind of silly, I know, but great photo op :-)

Happy to hear Houston dodged another bullet (thus far) with Gustav. Hoping everyone is doing well and getting back to school easily!

Little bit of walking

Well, not much new here in Warsaw. Old Town was nice, Nowy Swiat (the nice street on the way to Old Town) was a great walk. Other than that, same story, different day :-) Paulina is walking now, pretty much all the way... only she won't do it on her own without a big show. She has excellent balance and if you get in the floor and scoot along a few feet in front of her (like a carrot!!), she can pretty much walk the whole apartment. However, she NEVER initiates it!!!! Little devil... but she's doing very well and here's a little video of it.

We're ordering Chinese delivery tonight from this great service that's just like Take Out Taxi at home, only much faster... some things are universal :-)

Sorry for the delay in the post! Krakow was beautiful, very storybook'ish. We stayed in the Jewish Quarter which was very charming and an excellent location. We were just a 15 minute walk from the Old Town Market Square, which was enormous and filled with cafes, shops, and... pigeons. This thrilled Hayden to no end!! I think he could chase pigeons all day long... We also took a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, which both kids thoroughly enjoyed. Until it was over and Hayden decided that the horse was "MINE".

It is funny to me how quickly Hayden has slipped into big brother mode... everything is "MINE", and every 5th or 6th phrase out of my mouth is "Hayden, please don't hit your sister". etc... Mostly he really likes her and asks for Paulina when he wakes up in the morning and is very sweet to her all day... but sometimes sweet turns into a smack in a millisecond :-)

We picked up a walker / push toy for Paulina on Sunday and she uses it well... until she realizes she's doing it by herself... she also is taking 4-5 steps by herself, so she's doing super well on the walking. I was able to get her to eat some chopped up, super soft green beans and a mashed banana in addition to the jar food yesterday which was good. Still absolutely no interest in putting anything into her mouth on her own, but that will come.

We're going to find Old Town Warsaw today and then the park with our friends from Florida after nap. Only 1 week until Papaw and Hayden leave, which makes me very sad. It will be hard to say bye to Dad, but boy, I am struggling with putting Hayden on a plane without me. I know in my head everything will be ok, but I am going to miss him terribly :-( It is best, he is homesick and needs to get back to his routine, and his daddy and Mamaw and Cousin "Enny" (Emily), etc... we've had to tiptoe around those words to avoid a monumental meltdown here.

Hope all is well at home... only 2.5 weeks to go :-)

Papaw's here!!!

Well, Dad made it! Papaw arrived Sunday, called me on the cell phone from our front door :-) He was a sight for sore eyes. Hayden was ecstatic, and Paulina picked up on it and was in rare form as well. Both kids perked up and Hayden jumped up and down on Papaw's bed with the balloon Mamaw sent for, oh, about 2 hours. And repeated yesterday morning. It's really funny, sort of, when he wakes up in the morning and from nap he is his normal self for about 5-10 minutes and just lies there waking up, then you see him remember that Papaw is here and he starts screaming, "Papaw! Papaw!!". Paulina immediately took to Dad as well and the smiles are coming more and more easily.

We found the children's store Smyk, thanks to our friends in Round Rock. It is awesome. Very good quality stuff for really reasonable prices. AND, and a really great indoor playground with lots of trucks and tunnels and other great distrations. Hayden played for a long time and then Paulina joined and slid on the little slide with our help and rocked on the rocking horse. Anyway, it was really good.

We leave for Krakow on the 8am train in the morning. It's a 2.5 hour ride, Hayden should be beside himself! We are going with Magda and another family adopting a little 2.5 year old boy. Hopefully he and Hayden will entertain each other on the ride :-). "Home" on Friday - going to do Old Town Warsaw this weekend and some of the museums next week. We may give Papaw a hall pass to visit some of these on his own - otherwise, it might be the fast-forward version with Hayden in tow. But, it's worth a shot. Also, the zoo.

Hope everyone at home is doing well and staying cool! I'm kind of glad to be missing August in Houston :-) Take care!!