Nope, your eyes haven't tricked you...I haven't gone to Tahiti. I am still in Moscow.

First of all...I just read what my amazing husband just wrote on our blog. I love him so much! Don't let him fool you though. He is doing a ton at home with taking care of the house, the girls, our cat, and our sweet Lilly...the Bulldog. And on top of it all..he is working a majorly stressful job!! He is the one that deserves the honors! I am a lucky woman to have found the man of my dreams. And now, we have 3 beautiful children. I am truly, truly blessed.

So, about that picture I put up today....what is up with that you might ask?. Well, the longer that I am here...the more that I realize I am getting a better view. Are you scratching your head yet?

Where I am living right now in Moscow is the very top floor of an apartment building which allows me to look at over a lot of Moscow. The view is great. But, I am talking about a different view.

I realize that sometimes in life we get so busy in our everyday world that we only see what is in our own "box", our own reality. We get so bogged down in working our jobs, taking care of our children, our parents, our pets, worrying about the bills, who said what on some adoption board, or some blog that got us riled up. I could keep listing it all. I know that was me. I couldn't see past my front door. I thought that I was limited in what I could do in my own world. That I was "just" at Stay at Home Mom that worked at the Y part time and wrote on the side. I felt very blah about my personal looks. I let myself get into a rut. I would dread having to walk further than my mailbox. I refused to watch the news, because it was too depressing.

My life has changed being here. In more ways than the obvious. The obvious is...we are parents to a new son!!. But, I realize that there is more than my front door. As much as I have travelled the US and have been abroad...I somehow forgot that any other world but my own house existed. Until now.

I feel alive...I feel like I have a whole new lease on life. Being with Nikolai and of course H.D. (which by the way, thank you for your prayers...I am getting better..I am giving it up to God and praying that he will find a family soon) made me realize that my small problems at home are nothing compared to what they have been through in their short life. And I have also seen first hand what some of the people who have lived through Communist times have gone through. I have seen a whole other way of looking at people and not looking at them as "The Russians", but, as people with a different lifestyle. I realized that I can walk much farther than I have in ages. It makes me feel good...makes me feel envigorated. Believe it or not, I don't mind the silence on the Metro. There are no pretenses...fake conversations. Sounds jaded. But, I needed for my mind to stop racing and have time to really take in this entire experience. I see everything, hear everything, smell everything here.

I never thought that I could tackle that Monster of a Metro by myself. I did and now I can pretty much take it by myself wherever I want and I can't speak Russian!! I feel like I have taken back my own power. Sometimes in life, we just get in a rut... I am definitely out of it now.... I wished I could travel the world and experience what everyone else is experiencing. Well, most everyone.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from this is experience is.... education leads you to tolerance and no excuse for ignorance. Those two combined allow you to walk in the shoes of others and gives you a different view of the world.