2015 Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Life continues along at its deliberate and sometimes relentless pace.  We hope this post finds you well and finding deep moments in the midst of it all.  Lily Grace and Sam continue to grow, grow, grow and somehow they've already wound up at ages 7 and 5!  

Here are some highlights from our world over the past few months:

A Time to Reflect and Be Thankful

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since we have posted to the family blog – which will give you an idea of what life has been like in our world! We hope each of you have had a good year with special memories made along the way, as you navigate your own full lives.

Steve is marking his 13th year as part of Living Waters for the World, which continues to grow and face new challenges, with 663 water systems serving communities in 25 countries. Tonya has done some freelance graphic design work and manages the family, keeping everyone on track. Tonya’s mom, Diane, came to live with us in September and has provided a much-appreciated extra set of hands and gentle, loving spirit.

Lily Grace will turn seven! in January and is adapting well to the challenges of first grade, loving reading and math. We are still adjusting to the rigor now expected of new elementary school kids – homework four nights a week (in the first grade?) and teaching concepts we first learned in the third and fourth grades! 

Sam is a happy-go-lucky four-year-old with just two gears – 5th and park – and has never met a stranger. He has qualified for our county school system’s Pre-K program, which will help in his development, and both children are benefiting from daily exercise therapy we’ve begun this fall.

Glancing back though this blog helps give us a “rearview mirror” appreciation of our many blessings. Thanks to all who have followed our journey ever since we started preparing paperwork in anticipation of that first life-changing flight to Kazakhstan six years ago.  We appreciate and treasure your prayers and support. 

May your upcoming holidays be full of love and laughter, praise and thanksgiving.

Steve and Tonya

A Big Step for Lily Grace

Lily Grace just completed her first week of Kindergarten and has had a wonderful experience so far! When we attended the parents' orientation with her teacher, we were the ones intimidated, as we had no idea how much has changed since our Kindergarten days. Wow! It's a whole new world of expectations.

Lily Grace has taken to it all like a duck to water, and loves her teacher, the structure and the challenge. We're seeing her mature in other ways, too, taking on the role of big sister more. Sam and LG were quite the pair at the park this past weekend:


We hope you've had a great summer and are looking forward to what fall will bring.

Steve and Tonya

First Creek Walk of the Year!

St. Patrick's Day brought a dash of warmer weather and we jumped at the chance to take our first creek walk of the year.  The creeks along the Natchez Trace Parkway are perfect for this and our favorite runs along the Burns Branch parking/picnic area.

Without a second thought, Lily Grace and Sam splashed right in and had a good ole time:

Happy World Water Day and have a happy Easter!

Steve & Tonya

Today is Lily Grace's 5th birthday!

Five years ago today, a precious child of God was born on the other side of the world.  Eight months later, she met her mommy and daddy for the first time and we met our beautiful Gulzhanar, who continues to amaze us and fill our hearts to overflowing every day.

Happy Birthday, Lily Grace!

A Miracle on Wiregrass Lane

Merry Christmas to you and yours,
Steve and Tonya

Young life - fall 2012

Fall is one of our favorite times of the year, as the season calls out for us to pause and give thanks for the abundance and harvest around and within us.

We hope you have had a beautiful fall in every way, and as the days grow shorter and colder, we wish you and your family a joyous holiday season full of the warmth that grace, hope and peace bring.

Steve, Tonya, Lily Grace and Sam

Lily Grace 'Adele' Young

Lily Grace has her groove on!  Sam is feeling it too ...

Views from an Empty Nest

The title of this post wasn't meant to throw you - after all, it will be a LONG time before Tonya and I have that perspective! 

Rather, Views from an Empty Nest is the title of my mom's new book, which is now available available at iUniverse and on Amazon.com. 

Here is the publisher's note:
"Southern writer Madelyn Young thinks that when a woman enters her seventies, it is time to stop talking about what she is going to do and get on with it. In her collection of award-winning thirty-one stories and essays, Young shares tales of family loyalty and love, discord, and intrigue as she poignantly reflects on a life well-lived. In creating her stories, Young takes real-life experiences and transforms them into compelling accounts that sometimes take surprising twists in the end. In "Nature's Gift", Young highlights the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in eastern Arkansas in 2004; in "Lost and Found", she contemplates what it would be like to pick up litter on the roadside and then stumble across something unusual. "Good Intentions" details a moving moment when she was a student teacher and brought home a bedraggled girl who needed just one thing-love. Following each anecdote and story, Young includes interesting notes detailing what inspired the writing and the awards each piece has won to date. From her first tale to the last, Young entertains adults of all ages with the hope that her stories will encourage other writers to always look inside when gleaning story ideas."

iUniverse has designated Mom as a "Rising Star".  Needless to say, we are very proud of her!  You can take a look inside the book by clicking here.

Go Mom!

Steve and Tonya

Sam Denver

Did you know that John Denver had little brother?

Celebrating Life

In this Easter season, as we celebrate the miracle of resurrection, we also celebrate the miracle of life itself.  All around us, this miracle is manifesting, everywhere you look.  The joy of spring is the joy of hope renewed. 

For Tonya and me, we need look no further than the two precious ones that God has entrusted to us.  We marvel at the miracles each of them are, as I’m sure you do with the children in your lives.  Thought you would enjoy these “now and then” pictures of Sam and Lily Grace.  “Then” for Sam was a little over a year ago, in January 2011 and for Lily Grace, the fall of 2008.

We are grateful for all of you – the friends and family in our lives – and wish you a wonderful, and hope-filled, springtime.

Steve and Tonya

Life with Sam - when it's time to eat ...

We've been telling friends we have a Siamese cat and a beagle puppy ... better known as Lily Grace and Sam.  When Tonya turned her back, Sam once again lived up to his billing ...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Steve

Legacy – A labor of love is born

After two years of grabbing bits of time for planning, writing, recording, catching some of Nashville’s best musicians when not touring or involved in other commitments, re-recording, mixing and re-mixing, we are happy to announce that our Legacy music project is finished!

Legacy, a collection of Celtic and Appalachian folk music, is a tribute to our family heritage and to yours – to those who came before, and upon whose shoulders we stand.

It has been a joy and privilege to work with my brother, Marty, who has become a fine Irish whistle player, my niece Audrey – a budding singer-songwriter, and the amazing multi-talented Melissa Du Puy, without whom this record would not be possible.

Our guest musicians are Celtic vocalist Meghan Doran, fiddler Deanie Richardson of Patty Loveless, Vince Gill and now The Chieftains fame, and Matt Combs – Grammy nominee and multi-instrumentalist.

This all started because of a trip to Scotland with Tonya, which inspired me to write Iona Homecoming for our wedding.  Other songs followed, as I learned more about our family roots and in particular, the story of Mary Young Lamont, whose bravery and sacrifice in the mid-1600’s made it possible for the Young family to be here today.  (Read her story in the About section of the Legacy web site.)

This musical journey has resulted in all of us reflecting on those who came before – realizing that the values we’ve learned from our families didn’t happen by accident, but have been carefully passed down, generation after generation, by those who placed their faith in God and took the risks and made the sacrifices necessary so that their children would have a better life.  This album honors them.

We invite you to listen to Legacy, and to share the music (and its message) with others.

Steve

Family, Faith and Fall

Hello Everyone, from our family to yours!

The nip of autumn is finally in the air, and it’s hard to believe that the holidays are not far away. We celebrated Sam's baptism last weekend – made all the more special by so many of our immediate family being here with us to share it.


Sam turns 18 months today and continues to make great strides. He’s on the verge of walking and we’re sure talking won’t be too far off. :-) Lily Grace is a proud almost 4-year-old with her “Gotcha Day” coming up at the end of the month and her birthday in January.








We continue to adjust to our “new normal” and even in the most chaotic of moments are so thankful for the blessings in our lives – friends and family like you being chief among them.

We hope you all have a wonderful fall season, and we’ll be back in touch once the holidays are underway.

Steve and Tonya

Summer Update

Summer 2011 has been a time of finding our feet as a foursome, celebrating the progress Sam continues to make as he settles into his new life and helping Lily Grace get used to her new reality. Special time with family and friends, the Blackberry Jam, Lily Grace's first "cousins camp" in Arkansas and Vacation Bible School at HFPC have kept us busy. Here are some of our favorite pictures taken this summer:













We hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer, and all the special memories this time of year brings.

Steve and Tonya

Update on Sam and the Fam ...

Slowly but surely, we are learning the two-kid dance, but we’re stumbling amateurs compared to all of our veteran friends and family. As an engineer friend told us, “adding kids isn’t linear, it’s log-rhythmic”!

Sam is doing amazingly well – he seems to change every day. He’s a happy, animated little fellow, eats like a horse and is curious about everything. Commando crawling is his locomotion of choice, and we’re working with him to learn how to crawl on his knees. He is also starting to pull up and hold on in a standing position. He loves to swing, jump and get baths – making sure more water winds up on the floor and on Mommy than is left in the tub. :-)

Lily Grace is tolerating Sam a little better each day, tells her classmates in pre-school how much she loves him (he’s great in theory), and is working through this “sharing Mommy and Daddy” thing. Her role playing now routinely involves little brothers and sisters, as do her favorite books to read at bedtime.

We thought you’d enjoy seeing some pictures from Sam’s first bath (we started him out in the sink), and how Lily Grace responded to that:

We hope each of you are enjoying springtime and are looking forward to the end of school and summer days ahead.

Steve & Tonya

From Schuchinsk to Franklin - Sam's inspirational journey

When I returned to Kazakhstan on Saturday, April 2 to bring Sam home to Franklin, TN, I had two main thoughts on my mind – 1) it was Sam’s first birthday! and 2) this wasn’t going to be easy, but I could handle it.

So, I thought I was prepared for come what may as I rode by car the three hours north to Schuchinsk from Astana (the capital) the next day to take Sam from his baby house, his only home for his first 12 months. I was wrong. When I walked in, expecting Sam to remember me from our seven weeks of bonding that Tonya and I shared with him between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, I felt a heavy sense of dread as Sam burst into tears of fear, shaking at the sight and sound of me – he had no idea who I was and was trembling with terror. Of course, I played it cool – not a problem! I insisted – as we dressed Sam in his new clothes, strapped him into the baby carrier I was wearing, and walked out into the cold air, with him screaming at the top of his lungs.

As he cried himself to sleep in the back of the car, now speeding its way to the Astana airport for the in-country flight to Almaty, it was time for some serious God consultation and re-calibration of my expectations for the days to come in Almaty (where his exit processing was to take place) and then the long, long trip home. I asked to be given daily bread – hourly bread actually – to have the peace needed to be there for this terrified little boy. I fought back tears, and stayed in a state of prayer for much of the three-hour drive back to the Astana airport.

I won’t put our blog readers through the scene at the airport, and subsequent day to day life in our Almaty hotel, but I know you can picture it. Fear-based crying, interspersed with moments of temporary calm, as Sam’s body took over his mind to make sure he ate and drank. Amazingly, I remained relatively calm and even peaceful throughout, staying focused on Sam.

It soon became apparent that Sam wasn’t eating and drinking enough, and since he was often strapped to my chest, he was receiving plenty of chest virus germs as I breathed down on him, having become sick the second day I arrived with the “crud” that’s going around Middle Tennessee right now. That turned out to be a bad combination, and by Tuesday, Sam was in pretty bad shape as we ventured out at midnight to begin the 30-hour door to door trip home.

We had two significant flights – Almaty to Frankfort and Frankfort to Chicago – both nine hours - and Sam somehow managed to scream and cry through most of both. Concerned flight attendants hovered trying to help, other passengers shared words of comfort and of course a few passengers shared looks not so comforting, and Sam viewed them all as potential threats, sending him higher into orbit.

The flip side to all of this was that there was only one place - one person - where he could escape and seek refuge – his daddy, and even though I still hadn’t passed full muster with this little guy, I beat the alternative of all these well-meaning strangers. And gradually, through it all, he began to trust me more and more.

Our seat mates on both long flights were angels and a saint – a Kazakh woman and her mother flying with her 12-month-old son to meet her husband in San Francisco, and an Indian man on the way to the States on business who proudly spoke of his own two kids back home. Neither was the least bit bothered by the din – and just the opposite, repeatedly did anything they could to make our lot better – cleaning up around us, taking down bags, then stowing them again, swapping seats – anything I asked for and much I didn’t. And always with a smile and a tenderness that affirmed all that can be good between fellow human beings on this pale blue dot of a planet.


On Wednesday evening April 6, at 6PM, our final “cigar tube” flight touched down in Nashville, and our long awaited uniting with Tonya and Lily Grace took place. It was special, but I was so sick and tired (literally) it didn’t fully register. But one moment did – Sam was intrigued the minute he saw his beautiful sister Lily Grace (who wasn’t sure what to make of him) and he reached out his hand and grabbed hers. LG swelled with pride and said “he likes me!” and a huge sense of relief came over Tonya and me. Not that we weren’t going to have adjustment problems, as we certainly will, but because in that one moment, we could see what was possible for this new family of four.

Sam’s dehydration and sickness got worse, and Friday night, we wound up in the emergency room of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, where he received two rounds of IV fluids and a chest x-ray, which confirmed that Sam now had pneumonia. He received IV antibiotics to “get ahead of it”, and we have been administering oral antibiotics ever since. After we arrived home, Lily Grace was treated to some special big sister celebration time by her cousins, including a sleepover and a trip to the zoo. What a blessing to have such a supportive family to make her feel special throughout this time of adjustment.

Today, Sam visited his pediatrician for the first time, and his doctor liked what he saw – a little boy becoming comfortable with his mommy and daddy, fighting his pneumonia, and giving lots of smiles and eye contact. He declared that Sam is on the way to full recovery and adjustment and the second huge sense of relief came over Tonya and me.


As we reflect on the last several days, the ultimate inspiration is Sam. He left everything he had ever known, was scared, then sick and managed to have the fight in him to see it all through, and the lung power to prove it hour after hour after hour. He’s a tough little guy, with a huge heart, and it is a privilege to welcome our son into our family. Throughout, all of your prayers have sustained us and we can not thank you enough. It’s been miraculous to us, and we’ll be reflecting on all that we’ve experienced for years to come.

Steve

Welcome home, Sam!

Dear Family and Friends,

After a journey that for now, we'll simply call "epic", Samuel Ethan Young and his daddy arrived home to his mommy and sissy!


This picture was taken just as we were uniting for the first time. We'll post a more detailed account with updates regarding Sam's transition in a few days.

Thanks to all for your love and support during this time of abundant blessings for our family.

Steve and Tonya

Operation: Bring Sam Home!

Operation ‘Bring Sam Home’ is about to begin!

Steve leaves Thursday for Kazakhstan, returning the following Thursday, April 7.

Here are the particulars:
Thursday, March 31: Depart Nashville
Saturday, April 2: Arrive Astana, Kazakhstan (Sam’s first birthday!)
Sunday: Drive to the baby house in Schuchinsk, pick up Sam, drive back to Astana, fly to Almaty, Kazakhstan
Monday: Doctor appointment for Sam at The American Medical Center
Tuesday: rest day
Wednesday: appointment with United States Consulate, process paperwork and receive necessary permissions
Thursday: depart Almaty for home, arrive in Nashville 24 hours later, but on the same day, at 3PM

Steve will not have his laptop, so will not be making posts during the trip. He will have access to email, though, and enjoys staying in contact. :-)

A special thanks to David and Melanie Hill, who have been through this before and have provided much-needed guidance for this trip.

We thank you all for your prayers and support during this last important step of our adoption journey.

Tonya and Steve

Introducing Samuel Ethan Young

Hello dear friends and family … We have just passed a huge milestone in our adoption process: COURT! We know you have all been waiting a long time to “meet” our precious little one, Sam, and here he is!!!











This video we made for Lily Grace shows our typical day with Sam at the baby house:

This is such an exciting day. All went smoothly during our court proceeding and we are breathing a huge sigh of relief right now! There are still several weeks of paperwork to get through, but this was the major hurdle.

We will return home on Monday for a long-awaited reunion with Lily Grace. Then Steve will return in late March to finally bring Sam home.

Thank you all for your prayers and support during this entire journey. We appreciate you all so very much.

Tonya and Steve