Back to Blogging

He'll be rooting for Brazil, of course!

So, now that we've gotten off that other website that we used to use to keep in touch with y'all, it's back to the blog. And back we are, with a vengeance! Or at least, with a lot of pictures. I don't know which of those is more threatening.

The fun never stops in this part of the world, and now that spring has sprung (and pretty much gone by now; we only get about a month of spring before it's warm enough that it has to be called summer) the whole world has opened up and we can go outside again!

Recently we had the huge celebration for V-E day where all of Russia celebrates the end of World War II. In the US, this holiday has sort of fizzled as all the veterans die off, but here it's still a very important day. Remember, as many people as the US lost in the war, the Soviet Union lost almost 60 times as many. Seriously. So the holiday commemorating the victory is a very big deal. Here the students line up for the parade in the schoolyard outside our window.

And then there's the parade itself. Also a big deal, with all kinds of different troops and schools and things.

Steven managed to find a decent vantage point high above the rest of us.

Of course, you can't have a holiday celebration without grilled meat! And here's the shashlik lady, right on cue with skewers of it for us to enjoy.

A couple of weeks later, the schools had some sort of big celebration in that same yard right outside our place. Russians (and, by extension, people in the T school system too) love to give out what are called "gramoti," like certificates of achievement, for almost anything. They gathered all the schools in the area together around a bonfire and spent an hour handing them out recognizing various achievements. By the end I figure almost every student and teacher there had gotten a certificate for something or other.

Another big thing that we've been "up to," or more accurately "down to," is being sick. This month has been a bad one for our health; the boys and I were sick off and on for quite some time, and even Bobbie had a week of feeling poorly. Thankfully there were DVDs to put on for sick little boys, and a bed to lay on for the sick parents. We're all feeling better now, so thank you SO much to those of you who were thinking of us.

I never put video on here, since it takes so long to upload, but I decided to put this one on to upload while I went and did other things, and came back and here it is! Just the boys being cute, mostly for the grandparents.

Oh, and one more cute one of Matthew, who managed to get into Mommy's clothes this morning. I like his expression; sort of a "Really? You're going to take pictures of this?" look.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and be sure to do so more regularly. We're planning to get back to updating every week or 10 days, since we're now solely available to you on here.