I'm Dreaming of a White ... Halloween??

It's how long until spring??

Yes, folks, winter has arrived here in Moscow. Actually the day after we posted last, but more on that in a minute. First, we can confirm for any of you who haven't heard yet that the lovely B is indeed expecting. Baby #2 should be arriving sometime next April or early May, which should make our visa renewal situation interesting (they expire in the middle of May, so that leaves us with some decisions to make). At this point, we don't have any definite plans for what to do (stay here, go somewhere in Europe, return to the US) come delivery time, so your thoughts would be appreciated as we mull over our options.

Though it might be a bit of a complication, we're still very excited about our news (of course!), and hope that you'll share with us in rejoicing. B has been quite ill, though fortunately hasn't needed hospitalization as she did a couple of times when carrying Steven. It has kept her from class quite a bit, though, so we're hoping the nausea will disappear soon so she can keep up with studying. Please be remembering the whole health situation (both for B and baby) at this time - we'd really appreciate that. Mostly, she's been exhausted, with bouts of nausea thrown in for good measure. Upshot is that poor Steven's been getting cared for by Daddy, who's not as good at it as Mommy, so he's probably suffering as well. Fortunately, he seems to be as plump and happy as ever, so it's not affecting him that much, :) though the overall cleanliness of our apartment has taken a hit.

At any rate, overall everything is going quite well, other than B spending most of her days lying in bed sucking on ice. And ice is one thing that we suddenly have in abundance. You see, while the rest of you are enjoying the beauties of fall, here in Moscow we waved bye-bye to fall a week ago. It lasted for all of about a month, I guess.

Here was the scene out our window early last Sunday morning. It quickly turned to this:

Which, after about 4 hours, turned into this:

B didn't feel that well, but I had braved the trip to a family meeting that morning, and I was quite surprised to emerge from the building to all this snow! It's still the middle of October, last time I checked. I guess that it's not abnormal for there to be snow on the ground this early here, but it seemed absolutely insane to this Amazon-raised boy who grew up where we had only two seasons - rainy and dry.

Steven enjoyed it, though I don't think he knew what to make of all the white stuff. The weather has calmed down some since last weekend, and even warmed up all the way to 12° (C) the other day. Most of the snow has melted away, but it's still a lot colder than I'm used to. I guess it will take some time to get accustomed.

So, what else has been going on? Not a whole lot - just the usual language and culture stuff. When I took the above picture of Steven after he got up from a nap we realized that it was time to break down and buy a hair trimmer, so the next day I got one and we both got shaved:

Steven has sadly lost his "mane" of pretty red hair, but now he looks like some sort of tiny soldier. His dad, looks like, well, the less said there, the better, I guess. :)

What else have we gotten up to? Well, today we were invited to go with some friends to a "Super Mom" Club, where a local family group organizes a get-together for parents and parents-to-be (and we temporarily fit into both categories) to sit and hear ideas on parenting and consult for free with a pregnancy doctor. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I was able to understand (it's way easier to understand how to teach your kids the Russian equivalent of "Duck, Duck, Goose" than, say, a discussion on whether Russia is culturally rooted more in the East or the West, so that helped!). We had a good time enjoying meeting some new people.

On to this weeks, What is It?™, although, technically speaking, this is more of a Who Is It?™ Last week's pregnancy test strip was fairly easy, and the point was won by the first person to write in, Lourens. This week's is also not all that tricky, although the "more mature" might have an easier time of it, since he was famous before some of you were alive (although I've no doubt that everyone has at least heard of him).

This is a monument to a Russian hero that we saw back when we took our tour of Kolomna a few months back. Does anyone know who this might be? As always, first correct answer in the comments section wins a point toward the yet-to-be-determined grand prize. Happy guessing!