The Wandering Boys

So, normally on the blog we talk about what we're up to, and we occasionally mix in some pictures of the boys or something, but I thought today we'd show you what they've been up to lately.  Mostly because that's all we seem to have pictures of this month, since the lovely Bobbie and I have pretty much been doing straight language study and not much else.

Anyway, it's been a while since we posted, so here's a shot of our New Year's Eve.  We kept it pretty simple, stayed in and just watched the fireworks (the boys loved that; they would NOT go to sleep!).  We did get together with our neighbors from across the hall, who came over to say goodbye to the old year with us.  Not much of a party, and they didn't stay long, but we hung out and chatted for a bit before they left to ring in the new year in their own apartment.

Earlier that night we let the boys light off a sparkler.  Well, I should say "boy," because Matthew was having nothing to do with letting something burn in his hand.  He's too bright to think that's anything but a bad idea!

For Christmas we got a sushi kit, and Steven is a budding chef.  Thus, it was only natural that he would want to help out whenever we make sushi.  Here he's laying out the raw fishy bits for the roll.  The odd thing is that the boys don't really like sushi, but they love making it.  So do we, actually, as it's one of the only 'ethnic' foods that we can get the ingredients for here.

Matthew showing off the muscles that he gets every time he takes a bite of broccoli.  We've managed to teach the boys that eating green food makes them "strong," and they think it takes an instant effect and have to show us their bulging muscles every time they take a bite of vegetable.

On the other side of the healthy/non-healthy spectrum, we had a taffy pull.  It was mostly a test, to see if we could do it with some of our friends sometime, but the boys loved it.  Matthew gave up after a few pulls, so we had to help him out some, but Steven did really well.  We let them choose which color and flavor they would put into their taffy, which was a big hit.  Steven's was red and vanilla; Matthew went for blue and mint.

Grandpa and Grandma in the States sent us some money for Steven's birthday a few months back, and we saved it until a really cold day.  On Saturday we took the boys out to the indoor pay-per-play playground, which has an area like a McDonald's playplace that kids can play in.  They had a fun half-hour running around (during which we forgot to take out the camera), and then we went out for pizza.

Seriously, Daddy, it was fun, but please put the camera away now.  I've had enough pizza and now I'm tired:

In other big news, the other set of grandparents sent a hammock, all the way from Bolivia!  It's like a slice of home, right in our living room.  The boys LOVE it, of course, and so do I.  I like to pull out the e-reader I got for Christmas and just lay in it, reading.  Could anything be better than unlimited books and a hammock?  If only I had unlimited time ...

The hammock has actually been quite a novelty for the folks here.  Our upstairs neighbors came down for a visit the other day and couldn't get enough of it!

It was quite tricky to figure out a way to hang a hammock in concrete walls, but I had a handyman here putting in a new lock in our metal door, and I asked him what he thought.  He disagreed with my idea of a brace drilled through the wall, which I admit was overly complicated, and came up with a solution I never would have thought of (but which is totally brilliant).

He thought for a minute, said, "We need a metal plate that we can drill in," and left.  He came back with two of these, which are spare parts for a car (it goes somewhere underneath where the leaf springs and suspension hook into the axle, I think).  It already had two holes, we drilled two more, and voila!  A hammock hook hung with 4 anchored bolts, size 20cm by 10mm.  Holds me and the boys, swinging.  Pure genius.

And that's about it for the Wandering Boys.  Next time, a post about ... I don't know.  Whatever happens between now and when I leave for Thailand in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Shaken Up!

 Most of you probably don't know, but, on December 27th  around 11:00pm as the boys slept and we were getting ready for bed, we had a pretty serious earthquake here (6.6 on the Richter scale).

Is started with a loud rumbling outside (sounded like a semi truck right outside our window) and then, all of the sudden the apartment started shaking, and then rocking back and forth.  We ran into the boys room, grabbed them in their blankets, threw on our coats, and ran down 8 floors to outside where we joined other people who had the same idea.  

The rumbling had stopped by the time we got outside but we didn't want to go back in since we weren't sure it was over.  After about 40 minutes outside, Jesse and I decided it was OK to go back in (the fact that is was -30 and we didn't have our regular clothes on and the boys only had the blankets around them helped in making that decision).  

There have been several strong aftershocks ranging from 4-5 on the Richter scale. Once we went back inside, we got our things and spent the first night at our office since it's in a 4-story brick building versus our apartment building which is 9 stories and made of concrete.  As you can imagine the buildings here are not built for such things, since an earthquake that strong has never happened here before.

We are all OK, if a little shaken up (hehehe).  Several teams have been going around to check buildings for damage.  I read somewhere that they found 31 buildings with enough damage to evacuate.  I'm not sure how true that is so I can't confirm or deny it.  Our building is fine and there are only 2 minor cracks in our apartment (not serious).
 

But, we survived and we didn't lose anything.  The aftershocks have stopped for the most part and life is back on track.  Thank you for those who knew about this already and thought for us. 

Christmas with the Wandering Family - a B post

Well, first Christmas is over.  Now, we are getting ready for second Christmas.  

At least, that's what I call it.  They call it New Year's here.  They have the same Christmas figures and traditions as we do but they do it all on New Year's eve (now, some of you might already know this but just in case some are new to our blog I thought I would state it again).  

Anyway, to recap what we did for our Christmas: of course, what's December without a Christmas party?  So, being the party animal I am, I assumed the responsibility of hosting probably the only actual Christmas party here.  We did it the Friday before Christmas and had our English Club over.  I wanted to introduce them to some of the typical fun we have at Christmas parties like Dirty Santa and going for a treasure hunt.  I don't think they got it.  I basically had to tell them where to find the next clue.  But, we had fun.  

And, of coures, I had to bake, bake, bake.  I'm pretty proud of this snowman cake if I do say so myself:

Our tree had lots of gifts under thanks to some grandparents, aunts, and uncles who wanted to spoil their grandchildren (I can't complain either since I got a ton of stuff to make me even fatter (again, not complaining).  Jesse got the perfect gift:  a Nook (an electronic book reader).  More space for me to pack things when we come back, because he won't be trying to hog an entire suitcase just for his books. 

Anyway, because of time conflicts, we did the typical present opening/cooking thing on Christmas Eve (we wanted to do it while skyping the grandparents).  

So, we woke up, the boys helped make pancakes, and then we ripped into the presents.  

By the end, the boys got the hang of ripping into the presents.  The rest of the day they were busy playing while Mommy and Daddy crashed.  

I wanted to start our own traditions and decided to make a Stollen bread (a German fruit cake).  Since it takes 6 hours to make I probably will not make it except for Christmas.  It was pretty good.  The boys like it but ended up picking the fruit out.  Oh well.

 And, I had to take this picture of what the market looks like.  The whole market is lined with kiosks looking exactly like this one.  It was so crowded I wasn't able to take a picture of what the aisle looked like.

So, we finished up our Christmas.  Now, time to celebrate second Christmas which included Christmas programs at school.  

Here, the kids all dress up like Halloween for their parties.  I had to have a pirate costume for Steven since he was in a presentation with the other boys as a pirate (look below).  Anyway, I had forgotten about getting a costume for Matthew.  So, I just dressed him up in Steven's costume since their parties were on different days (ain't he cute?).

So, like I said before, Steven's class had a program that included songs and dances from the kids. 

Here Santa Claus is named Father Frost, and he has a granddaughter named Snegurochka (Snow Maiden).  One of girls from Steven's class is playing her here (the one dressed in blue) and she looks just like the pictures of her.  On a side note, Steven adores this girl.  She takes really good care of him and has assigned herself as his protector.  So, cute.

I knew about one of the songs Steven was doing, but what I didn't know was that he was going to sing Jingles Bells (in English) by himself.  I wanted a video of this but by the time I got the camera out, he was already half way through.  He did great (if a little quiet). 

 They had one of the dads dress up as Father Frost/Russian Santa so we had to take a picture of it.

Although we usually don't buy each other something for Christmas, I really wanted to get this for Jesse (or I should say, for both of us).  It's a sushi kit.  Pretty tasty, and we've already had sushi twice since Christmas!

We really tried to work with Steven to memorize his lines for this poem but he just couldn't say it fast enough.  Besides, he was having way too much fun with his scarf to bother with lines.

Anyway, that's about it for Christmas-related post stuff.  Tune in next year for more on New Year's, and until then, С Новым Годом!

Holidays

 I'm too lazy to write much, so I'm just going to let most of these pictures speak for themselves.  Above is obviously family game night, with a tense game of Candyland won by, if I recall correctly, Matthew.

Except maybe these pictures I'll write something about, because they won't make much sense without an explanation.  In an effort to get more time in the language, I've been trying to make some contacts in a nearby village.  Finally, I was able to arrange to live with an older gentleman there in his one-room home.  It gives me lots of language practice, and until he moved back to the city very recently, I was trying to get out there several times per week.  Here's where he lives:

 

The inside looks like this:

I sleep next to the bag of potatoes, he sleeps on the bed where I'm standing to take the picture.  It really is a very cozy affair (note the wellhead inside the house, so it doesn't freeze!).

This is the kind of thing we do there; go out and look for firewood to cut up and haul back.  The coal trucks have been slow to come around this year for some reason, so everyone's trying to find enough wood to burn to heat things.  It gets rather cool this time of year.

Back in the city, Steven's been working hard on learning to read, and he's doing really well.

Though he does take frequent breaks from his studies to wrestle with Dexter.  By the way, Matthew seems to be allergic to Dexter, so he'll probably be leaving us as soon as we can find another home for him.  It will be a sad day for poor Steven, who will lose his wrestling buddy.

Getting into the Christmas spirit by baking cookies,

and putting up the tree and the ornaments!

Merry Christmas from the Wandering Family!

Catching Up (a post by B)

Well, it's been quite busy the past few weeks.  So, we'll start with Halloween.  It's becoming more of a known holiday here.  I think it's just another excuse to party.  

So, party we did - we invited over our friends in the English club, as they really wanted to see an American-style Halloween.  I even decorated the apartment in a "spooky" theme with "spooky" food and all.  There was quite a turnout and fun was had by all.  An advantage of being here is that they haven't seen the type of food that is typically done for Halloween parties like spider cupcakes, eyeball eggs, and ghost toast.  People even came dressed up which is always fun.

We then had a few weeks when it was a bit slower.  In those weeks, Steven's class had a "mother's" presentation in which some of the students recited poems.  There was one in the local language, one in Russian, and they asked Steven to do one in English.  

We taught him a version of the "Roses are red" poem for mothers but I guessed he had Russian on the brain because when it was his turn, he started reciting something in Russian (still not sure what it was).  So, I had to give him a prompt before he did it, but he did OK in the end.  He even got a certificate for participating.

Sorry about the video, it got cut off a bit short (plus you might hear Matthew getting excited about Steven getting to talk):

We also found that the local meat market was open last week, so we went to stock up for the winter.  This is when all the farmers slaughter their cows and sell the meat at a discount with no middlemen.  They wait until it's freezing, and that way people can buy all the meat they want and just put the extra on their balcony (remember, our balcony is way colder than our freezer).  

Because there's no difference in the price for which cut of meat you get, Jesse was able to get a beef backstrap for the same price as any other meat!  So now we have some nice filet mignon waiting in our "freezer."  The downside of this whole process is that they just cut off the part of the cow you want with an axe, and you have to do the butchering yourself at home.

Then came Steven's birthday.  WOW!  I can't believe he is 5 already.  My beautiful baby boy is growing up. So, we continued with our balloon tradition and hid his presents under balloons so he could find them.  We had several neighbors over to help celebrate the occasion which I think Steven's loved since there were several kids there for him to play with.

Matthew didn't want to be out of the loop for all the excitement, so he snuck in and tried to blow out Steven's candles for him!

Presents from the grandparents far, far away:

He seems to really like both of them!

We'll have to post next time on Thanksgiving, as this post is long enough already!  The short version is that we had friends over and made all the fixings (from scratch, of course) including a goose.  So, today, after I dropped the boys off at school, I spent Black Friday in bed doing nothing.  It was all I hoped it would be!

In other news, our puppy is getting bigger and bigger.  I've never house trained a dog before but he seems to be obeying more and more commands so I think it's working (he still likes to pee on the floor so I'll take suggestions as to how to manage this).  The boys love him but we will wait for a time when we don't have anything to write about to blog on that. 

And with that, I leave you with this thought - HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!