It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yep, it's Christmas. My favorite time of year. That is why I'm writing this blog. J will do good to remember to say Merry Christmas at all (poor boy). Our tree is up, our decorations are all over the apartment (although J did have to restrain me from buying more). It is so nice to see decorations up all over the city. I don't have pictures yet so I might post those later (and yes, there will be another Christmas blog).

For now I will just tell you what we have been up to. After our late Thanksgiving party, we settled back into our language studies and normal life. A few weeks ago a woman I know asked me if I would be willing to make some Christmas cookies for a party our family group was having. Of course I said yes! But I had to remember my promise to J that I would not go crazy in my Christmas baking this year. So I was stuck only making peppermint fudge, peppermint chocolate, peanut butter fudge (thanks mom), Russian Tea Cakes, and (of course) Christmas cookies. Nope. I didn't go crazy. Right?

But my instincts were right, as it turns out. When I arrived to help set up for the party, Connie (the woman who asked me to make cookies and the organizer of the party) was frazzled because she forgot her 250 cookies at her house. But, I saved the day with my many, many treats! When she saw it, she sighed in relief and thanked me for what I did. So, I guess I will have to always go crazy in my cooking because I just might save the day again. In fact, I'm sure she would have had a heart attack if I didn't show up with my treats. You could definitely say that I saved her life. So, in retrospect, it's clear - my cooking saves lives!. So, it only seems logical that I must always cook more because it just might save another life. Right?

I know. I might be a bit delusional, but a girl can dream, can't she? Anyway, J stayed home with the boys so I was able to enjoy the party without any interruptions (I have the best husband). I needed the break as Steven has officially entered the terrible twos. HELP! My beautiful, perfect son has been abducted and a something scary has taken his place. He does it all: scream until he turns purple, kicks, stomps his feet, throw himself on the floor.... the works. Any suggestions? We have tried it all: spanking, talking to him, holding him, spanking, time-outs, spanking. Nothing seems to help. Is this normal? I always thought children who act like this were spoiled. We are pretty strict with him but always try to show our love to him. Anyway, I'm open if you have any suggestions.

OK. Moving back to happier topics: CHRISTMAS! I fixed my first batch of eggnog yesterday and it was delicious (thanks, Gudrun, for the recipe). I'm also trying to fit in with the Russian culture as much as possible. I've decided to learn some of the Russian Christmas carols. The following is of me singing (or I should say trying to sing) a popular children's Christams song. Forgive me for hurting your ears. I messed up a few times but it was the best video I could get, so enjoy:

This is how it's supposed to sound, as performed by Дед Мороз and Снегурочка (Father Frost and the Snow Maiden):

Here's Steven in full "meltdown mode":

One of our few snowy days so far this year:


And just some cutesy Christmas pictures for your enjoyment:

So, that's about it for this week. Hope you have a great week and a Merry Christmas, and we'll see you again next week!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

I know, I know. You're thinking "Thanksgiving? Didn't that happen a couple of weeks ago? Why are we still talking about it?"

Technically, you're right, too. However, in an effort to catch up on my email correspondence, I've gotten way behind on blog posting. We usually try to post on this once a week, but as you can see, it's been two since our last post. It's just, well, I don't know - too much writing to do in too short of a time. By the way, if you're one of those we haven't written in a while and you're miffed, just drop us a line and we'll be sure to get back to you! Nothing makes us happier than seeing a note in our inbox. (See what I've done there? I've subtly made it your fault that we haven't written you? Wasn't that clever?)

Anyway, so, what have we been up to in the past two weeks? Of course, as usual, our days are occupied with language and culture study. I feel like maybe I'm finally getting past the plateau where I've been for a few months, so that's nice. However, we've had time to get into a bit of other things as well in that span. We had originally planned to have our Thanksgiving feast on the Saturday after the official holiday, but our family group was having their birthday celebration that night:

We went to that, which was a good time, even though it seemed to be rather more sparsely attended this year than last. The kids weren't really up for an hour and a half of sitting quietly through the program, so we ate and left.

Back at home, things are running pretty smoothly, with both kids seemingly now settled into the new schedule. Steven certainly knows how to relax:

And I promise we'll get to the Thanksgiving party, but I did want to prove to everyone that Matthew really is standing up now! At 7 months, he's pretty early for this, but he doesn't seem too bright about it sometimes (it's all well and good being able to pull yourself up, but when you lack the balance required to lower yourself without bumping your head on the ground, it's bound to end painfully.)

Since the big Russian holiday is New Year's and not Christmas, they usually don't put up their trees and such until halfway through December, if that early. I had originally made B promise not to put up ours until after the party, but when the party was delayed a week, she couldn't hold back.

She and Lena set up the tree during one of their language sessions, which made for a cultural exchange on what Americans do vs. what Russians do to decorate the tree.

The finished product is below. Interestingly, Russians weave their lights up and down instead of round-and-round the tree, which B likes better. Maybe it will be her decorating choice in the future as well.

Steven really likes being a big brother, I think. When we first brought Matthew home we worried that he would be jealous or resentful, but he has proven to be a really thoughtful big brother. He takes care not to play rough with Matthew, though occasionally he gets excited and forgets. Here he wanted to feed him after watching us do it so many times:
I think we ended up having 20 or so adults plus 4 or 5 kids for the Thanksgiving dinner in the end. The food, as you saw at the top of the post, turned out great. We were going to make it just a chicken dinner, since turkey is so expensive here, but B's language helper really wanted to experience the real thing so she bought us a turkey to fix. It was truly delicious! Everyone chipped in and made stuff, so this year B wasn't responsible for everything - sort of a potluck Thanksgiving.

After the meal we just sat around the living room and chatted. We were able to show them a few American traditions, such as sharing with everyone what you're thankful for ...

... and even breaking the wishbone (Julie won, but she forgot to make a wish, so I guess that particular bit of animism won't be affecting our lives this time around).

And that's about it. Sorry I don't have any new videos or Russian cultural notes for you this time around. Hopefully you'll make up for it by going out and researching how to prepare borshch or learning how to make a fur shapka or something.

I'll leave you with Matthew's post-Thanksgiving thoughts (he crawled his way under his Mom's bedroom table and fell asleep during the party).

С Днём Рождения, Стёпа!

Do we have a post for you! Snow, birthdays, three videos - it's like a blog extravaganza! Or maybe a blog marvel, or perhaps a blog spectacle. For sure, it's at least a blog performance. I've run out of synonyms for extravaganza moving down the scale of impressiveness, so we'll have to move on to something else.

The latest news with us is that we have received our visas for another year here! It was a struggle, and we jumped through a lot of hoops, but it looks like we're set. We'll be helping out with a language school teaching English when everything's finally up and running, so you could be thinking about that and the relationships we form from that. And that's about it, apart from our continuing language studies. Let's go right to the pictures:

Well, it took quite a while, but the snow finally has arrived in Moscow. Usually it's quite a bit before now, but it looks like it's here to stay for now. That means bundling up the boys a bit more, so that we travel everywhere like this, which Sasha obviously loves:

Since it's Steven's birthday and the rest of the post will probably be about him, we had to at least put Sasha in here somewhere. He's started to crawl everywhere, and now he likes to sit up as well. Here he somehow managed to work his foot out from his high chair, and his mom snapped a pic of the funny pose.

So, today was Steven's second birthday, and I thought we'd put up a few pictures of the party. A couple of guests, including Steven's friend Pasha, weren't able to make it since they had last-minute guests show up, so he had to be content as the only child at his party (well, I guess his brother counts too).

B made some delicious pizza, which was heartily enjoyed by the guests who did come. We had our language teacher Viola, coworker Julie, and a couple of friends from family group (and their Mom, who had flown in from Uzbekistan for a visit).

Of course, I'm not sure if Steven really understood the concept that it was his birthday, but he definitely enjoyed himself regardless. After all, he got to eat a chocolate cupcake, and we even gave him a few sips of Coke. Here he's blowing out the candles on his cake, and just generally enjoying being the center of attention.

B had a novel idea when it came to giving him his gifts on how to create a distinct family tradition that the kids would enjoy. She decided to blow up a bag of balloons (well, decided to assign her loving husband to fill up a bag of balloons would be more precise, but who's keeping track here?) and put them in the living room. Then, Steven's presents would be stashed around the room under a carpet of balloons for him to find. The result, as you can see below, was total bedlam - he didn't even care about the presents, but the chance to run around in a room full of balloons was another matter entirely!

So, when he finally did get to all the presents, the adults who were a bit bored watching him have all the fun decided to get into the act. Somehow a full-fledged balloon war broke out! I'm happy to report no casualties, except perhaps our neighbors' peace and quiet for a few minutes.

One of the presents Steven got tonight prompts this week's Interesting Russian Cultural Note. He received a stuffed Krokodil Gena, which is one of the characters of an old Russian cartoon.

I've always liked Krokodil Gena, because he sings a lot of the children's songs on the radio (I listen to the Kids' Radio Station a lot for Russian practice), and in particular is known for singing the most popular Russian birthday song. To me it's fascinating to see the difference in the birthday songs of the US (which, admittedly, has been adopted here as in so many other places and "Happy Birthday to You" is just translated and sung) and Russia.

In this birthday song, the crocodile named Gena is singing about his birthday. It's not really a happy song as such, though (and I apologize if my translation isn't entirely accurate):

Пусть бегут неуклюже                              Let them run awkwardly
Пешеходы по лужам,                               The pedestrians through the puddles
А вода - по асфальту рекой.                  And the water over the asphalt like a river
И неясно прохожим                                  It's not clear to the passers-by
В этот день непогожий,                           On this bad-weather day
Почему я веселый такой.                       Why I'm so happy

ПРИПЕВ:                                                    CHORUS:
Я играю на гармошке                              I play my accordion
У прохожих на виду...                             In view of the passers-by
К сожаленью, день рожденья -           Unfortunately, your birthday
Только раз в году.                                  Only comes once a year.

Прилетит вдруг волшебник                  Suddenly a wizard flies in
В голубом вертолете                              In a blue helicopter
И бесплатно покажет кино.                   And shows a movie for free
С днём рождения поздравит                Wishes me a happy birthday
И, наверно, оставит                                 And maybe, leaves as a gift
Мне в подарок пятьсот "эскимо".       500 "Eskimos" (a kind of ice cream)

In other words, his birthday has happened to fall on a day where the weather is terrible, which is too bad. His response is to try to be as happy as possible, and daydream about what would have really made it great, since it will be a whole year before he gets another one. To me, it's brilliant - not at all what you would expect to hear from a birthday song, but still very good. Plus I really like the tune.

I'll leave you with the video to the crocodile singing the song. Maybe sometime I'll do a bit on the actual cartoon that this clip is from, since it's very popular and pretty much every Russian knows it (maybe like Pooh in American culture). You can click on some of the other links on the right if you go to the youtube page directly and see some of the other songs and stuff from the show.



OK, that's about it for this week. Hope you're doing well, and thanks for keeping us and our continuing study of Russian in your thoughts!

Back At It

So, we've now long since passed the point at which we can still post pictures of our Germany adventures and call them "new," so we're back to finding something interesting out of our language study days to tell you about.

In short, everything is going along much as it was before we left. We're back into our routine of classes every day, it's getting colder, and there's really not a terrible lot to tell you about. I (J) have been finding it harder to study as much in the afternoons now that there are two kids to look after, but we feel that it's more important for B to catch up some, so we're going to continue to have her go to class 5 days a week. You could be thinking about both of us, me especially, as I feel like I've hit some kind of ceiling and am plugging along lately without feeling like I'm making much progress.

But, aside from dry, boring language stuff, what do we have to tell you about? A few things come to mind, actually. Matthew has started to crawl, which is neat. B tried to get a video of that, but you know how hard it is to get kids to cooperate with cameras. Steven's big news is that he's making progress with the potty training, and has managed to go in the potty at least once or twice a day for the past few days (a little M&M bribery doesn't hurt, of course)!

Also, last weekend, the local school for foreigners' kids had a "Fall Festival" at which there was a yard sale of sorts, and some games for kids. We went with the kids, and despite it mostly being geared to pre-teens, we did find some things for them to do. Steven decorated (with help) and ate (without help) his own cookie, as illustrated below.

Actually, Steven's gotten into helping Mommy cook lately, and we've been putting the apron that his grandmother made him to good use:

Then, later Saturday afternoon, I went downtown for a meeting with the newly founded "Expat Book Swap Club." Those of you that know me well know that I love to read, and it was nice to get some variety in my library. I traded two books and about 5 DVDs that I hated for a huge bag of interesting-looking books! OK, I know you don't care, but for me the opportunity to have new and interesting English-language books is huge.

And that's about it, I guess. Since this post is so short, I thought I'd introduce a possible new segment of the blog for your perusal: Interesting Russian Cultural Note of the Week. If it gets good reviews, maybe we'll try to come up with something on a regular basis, so be sure to let us know what you think in the comments. We've pretty much given up on finding more of those What Is It? items for you, as we've gotten so used to most everything that it's hard to remember what seemed strange when we arrived.

This week, our IRCNW is based on a movie I had to watch for a recent assignment: Ирония Судьбы, или С Лёгким Паром (Ironia Sudbi, ilyi S Lyogkim Parom), which could be translated "The Irony of Fate, or Have a Good Steam." We had heard a lot about this film since we got here, as it's probably by far the most famous Soviet film ever made, and is sort of the Russian version of It's a Wonderful Life, the beloved classic film that gets shown every holiday season.

I wasn't sure how much I'd get out of it, since we didn't have it in English and the dialogue moves quickly but I loved it! If you can track down a subtitled or dubbed copy, go watch it - it's brilliant, and has lots of good Russian cultural things interspersed! And with none of the stuff that makes it impossible to recommend any film made these days (unless some lighthearted drinking would bother you).

The basic story of the film is this: in the Soviet Union, party planners have designed everything to be mass-manufactured, including housing. As a result, all the houses look identical (remember your comment when we first got here, Rich, about how the buildings in our pictures looked "just like where Jason Bourne was filmed!" That's because all buildings pretty much everywhere in Russia look like that.) The first few minutes of the film are a cartoon reminding people about just that fact, and I tracked it down on youtube for you:



Anyway, the main character Zhenya is getting ready for New Year's night, which he's going to spend with his almost-fiance Galya. Before they meet, however, he goes to the banya to steam with his buddies in their annual New Year's Eve tradition. While there, they toast the new stage in his relationship and they all get quite drunk. They go to the airport to see off one of their number to Leningrad, but by mistake Zhenya gets put on the plane in his place.

When he wakes up, he's in Leningrad, but everything looks so similar and he's so hungover that he doesn't realize it. He takes a taxi to "his" address, which looks exactly like his real address in Moscow. His key even fits in the lock, and he collapses on the bed. Of course, when the owner of the apartment (Nadya) gets home, she freaks out and orders him to leave. He won't leave what he thinks is his own apartment, and they argue. Then her boyfriend shows up and wonders why there's a strange man in her bed. In their attempt to explain it to him (and on the phone to poor Galya, who's sitting in the apartment back in Moscow convinced that Zhenya is off womanizing, especially when he calls from some woman's apartment), they end up wondering if maybe fate brought them together for a reason.

I won't give away the ending, but it's very good. The New Year's night definitely is a memorable one for everyone involved, and their lives change. If you get a chance, and want to watch something a bit different from your typical Hollywood fare, give it a try.

OK, so that's about it for this week. And for you grandparents and really close friends who read the blog, here's a cute little video of the boys to make your day:

It's Me Again! (a B photo blog)

For those of you who have viewed my (B's) Facebook page, you may have discovered how much I like to take pictures. I don't claim to be good at it, I just like doing it. This is not going to be a long post because this is mainly to show you pictures from our trip. These are the ones I like the best, so I hope you enjoy them:

Home!

OK, so we're home, but you've seen enough pictures of our place in Moscow, so I thought I'd put up one more blog post about our time in Germany. We had a great time there, though we're glad to be back home on the way to resolving all our paperwork issues (until next year, of course, when we have to do it all over again!). Anyway, this last week we left my family's place in Mundelsheim and went over to visit a friend of ours, so we'll catalog our last week in Germany in these pictures.

One of the things we enjoyed most about being in Germany for this time was actually getting a "fall" season. In Russia, it seems like it goes almost directly from summer to winter, with a brief transition period thrown in there, and we miss the gradual cooling and leaves changing that you get everywhere else. Of course, this threw B into a photo-taking frenzy of leaves, and I'll leave her to put up a post with all her "fall color" pictures. However, I liked these ones of the boys, so I thought I'd throw them in:

No socks and shoes! Our Russian friends will probably freak out, but it wasn't that cold. Then, she took advantage of Matthew starting to sit up to get this one:

Steven went through a brief phase after our journey where his favorite things were trains, but now he's all about tractors. He even tried to drive this one.

So, after staying for almost 4 weeks with my family in Mundelsheim, we received our visas and went for a long weekend with our friend Anne, who lives near the Czech border in Bavaria. She is hoping to come work with us after she completes her training, so it was really good to get to spend some time together.

Fortunately, she was on break from her classes, so we got to make a few day trips out to see the countryside. The first day, we drove down to visit this castle in the town of Kulmbach.

This is the view from the top up there, with B and Anne:


When I was little, my family traveled through Germany on our way back from Indonesia, where we'd been living. We have a picture of my little brother inside a cannon from a visit to a castle, with just his head sticking out. We couldn't find a big enough cannon to replicate the shot, so we put Steven on top of this cannon instead. He got so excited!

Inside the castle walls the ivy in this courtyard was changing color to a brilliant red.

We enjoyed the Bavarian food while we were there, as well. I took a picture of our feast from our trip to a local restaurant. On the left, there are pork chops and bread balls (impossible to explain, but excellent!) in a horseradish sauce, then the omnipresent wurst and sauerkraut, then on the right is a roasted pork leg and potato balls. All of it was delicious!


One of the other things we did there was just to tour the town of Hof. They have a landmark collection of street signs from all over the world. Here I'm pointing to a sign for a town called "Brasilien" (I was born in Brasil) and B's standing near "Amerika," which is also apparently a town somewhere in Germany. If I had more space, I could post a bunch more pictures of all the signs, including one from Rocky Mount, a town near where B's parents live.

We also enjoyed a trip to the zoo. Steven might have enjoyed the slide even better than the animals:

He did enjoy the animals, though. He's been learning all the animal noises lately, so he got to practice a bunch of them and learn some new ones. Here he's feeding the goats.


Matthew didn't get into it too much, but the monkeys that ran free inside the conservatory-thingy looked him over carefully. Finally, we realized that they were captivated by his rattle, so B offered it to one. He almost took her up on it, too.

Steven hadn't experienced a trampoline before, and even though he can't jump yet, he loved being held while we did. When do kids get big enough to jump (from a level surface), anyway? It seems odd to me that he can run around without problems but can't get it together to get both legs off the ground at the same time.

OK, so that's about it. I'll leave you with this picture of B and the boys and the answer to last week's question. No points for anyone; we only had one guess!

The sign in question was the "no speed limit" sign. They actually still have them on the German autobahn. We got to experience a little of this, as our friend's dad actually came to pick us up in his Audi Quattro. I had never been above 105 miles/hour (about 170 km/hr) in my life, but he quickly put that to shame. We averaged around 130 m/hr (200 km/hr), I'd say, though he briefly went up to 160 + mph (260 km/hr). It was unbelievable to me that you can drive that fast legally, but people seem to be very good drivers and we didn't see any major accidents ourselves. I just remember a friend in the US paying lots of money to have a "NASCAR experience" and not going over 150, so I had to laugh that we got to do it for free there.