Winter Activites - a blog by B

It's been a long and busy winter.  The pictures are pretty self explanatory but I'll inject a few comments here.  As most of you know Siberia can get pretty cold.  It's difficult to spend more than 20 minutes outside.  On the warmer days (those that reach above -30) we get to have a little fun at the ice park the city has every year.  

The small slide

It has small slides for the younger kids, a huge slide for the older kids, an ice maze, ice animal sculptures, and a small ice skating rink.  The boys love going there and we would spend all day there if it weren't for their wimpy parents who are freezing after 30 minutes. We usually bribe them with hot chocolate to tear them away from the slides.

The ice maze

Matthew says he will marry this girl when he becomes a man.  How cute!

I even roped J into making Christmas cookies this year

Steven opening his stocking

Skyping my parents so they can watch their grandchildren open up their gifts

It's tradition for kids to dress up for New Year parties - like Christmas and Halloween combined!

Of course, Christmas/New Years is always a busy time for us.  Between making Christmas cookies, opening gifts on Christmas Day, having New Year's parties at the school we stay busy.  In between that, I had a few cake orders to fill.

In other news, we have bought a garage for our car.  J can explain why it is necessary to have a garage (it has something to do with the oil freezing and the tires freezing to the pavement) but in the end we needed one and thanks to a friend we have one.  It's only a 10 minute walk away which is really nice since most garages are at the end of town (a 30 minute van ride).

Our new garage

School has been out for 3 weeks because of the flu spreading fast in this region.  So, they shut down all the schools to slow the spread (which according to the news it worked) and the boys go back tomorrow.  It's been nice having them home and catching up on homeschooling and spending time with each other.

For those who don't know yet, we will be coming back to the States from April-August.  So, put your request in now if you want us to visit you since our schedule is filling up fast!

My pride and joy!  I had always wanted to make a peacock cake and now I have! (buttercream and fondant)