Visitors from America

In May we have 4 college students coming from Texas to go biking with some of the young muslims we have gotten to know. In preparation their leaders came over to check out the situation so everything goes smoothly.



Eli is from Huntsville and works full-time on college campuses.



Michael is a pastor whom, oddly enough, Steve met back when he was 14 at Mike's dad's church! Small world!

Steve took them on the road about 7 hours southeast to Nalchik. (FYI: 100 km from Chechnya)

Our friends, Jerry (he is in the center) and Nancy Sturgeon, work in that city.



They definitely found time for fun...




The swinging happened at a rehab center that doubles as a fish farm. The farm sustains the work with those in recovery.


Isn't it beautiful?


But the scenery was marred by the city of Beslan. They were able to visit the school where terrorists killed over 300, most of them children, in 2004.


Steve says that they haven't changed anything at the school since the tragedy. You would have thought the bombs went off yesterday. They just put up memorials and built a new school.
The men felt indescribable sadness.



Looking at all the graves, Steve said that it is unbelievable what some people can do to other people.

Water?

I am so grateful for my water filter!

The water was coming out real slowly, so Steve changed it this afternoon.

Good idea, huh?

More of Maddie...

Our Maddie has been at it again!

This is Brooklyn hunting for eggs and trying to smile at the same time.



On Easter Sunday, Maddie generously allowed a 5 year old friend from church to take her picture.





Aubrie at the bowling alley.


Doing her supermodel best, Cady posing in our foyer. Sorry it has taken me this long to give you even a tiny glimpse of where we live. Our staircase is the biggest part of the house!

Aubrie dancing in the living room. That fireplace was a LOT of fun this winter.

Brooklyn and India are BEST friends. It may be because she is the only one who really plays with the dog, or because she always has something tasty on her face...


She even catches Mom on film.

Right now we have a houseguest, Yarik. He is the nephew of friend. He lives in Moscow, but has come down here for the week, so he is staying with us to practice his English... and his XBox skills!

Краснодаркий Хор!

Pronounced, Krasnodarsky Hore (yes... just like whore), this group is often the butt of many an american joke, but since it just means a choir from Krasnodar (our city) it also means a night at the theater!

It was Girls Night Out (me, the big girls and Yana, our babysitter) and Steve stayed home with Brooklyn. We got ourselves all gussied up for our big night of local Cossack singing and dancing. Steve & I attended this choir once the year before and it was excellent. The singing was rich and I have never seen men squat so low and jump so high (my description of Cossack dancing)!

Well, we knew this was a special celebration of some sort, but we really didn't have a lot of details. Needless to say... we should have gotten details!

We sat through two straight hours of a birthday party for the main soloist of the choir. Now, you have to understand Russian birthday parties to understand our particular misery. The soloist turned 60 and EVERYONE who has EVER enjoyed his 40+ years of singing got up to wish him well and give him flowers. He sang a little, maybe one person danced, but primarily they toasted this man until he himself said that it was enough. TWO HOURS WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION!!!!! Aubrie was asleep in the first 15 minutes!

When I could finally see there was a break coming, I snuck out before anyone else so that I could get the kids to the bathroom before everyone else. Here in Krasnodar, most public toilets are just a hole in the ground and no seat, even in the concert halls. So, I asked my friend who had just been there herself what they were. She told me there was a seat...

Well, what she meant to say was that you get yourself into a seated postition... over a hole! That crazy Russian language! (My new favorite word is "sadushka", the word for the toilet you sit on.) So all my rushing was for naught. The kids decided they could wait... that is until the line formed and went out the door and up the stairs. That was when Aubrie decided she wanted to try. I had to tell her to forget about it and think of other things. I bought them candybars and braced them for another two hours of no music.

Well, since I had left early, I failed to realize that the soloist really meant it when he said enough was enough! The concert was over! There was a mixture of relief and dissatisfaction all at the same time. For Maddie it was a mixture of headache and nausea. She actually threw up in the car on the way home.

So, what started out with so much potential ended with tears on the bathroom floor. I don't think I will be going to see that hore ever again... (okay, I heard that snicker!)

English Club

I may have already mentioned this, but every other Thursday we have the neighborhood kids who are interested in English come over to play games and do American type activities.

Since it was a few days before Easter, we decided to paint eggs.
Ira, the girl in the middle, speaks English fairly well and she acts as an interpreter for the other children who are barely beginners.


Even the youngest got to participate, though she really just wanted to crack them so she could eat them.


They decorate them very much like we do. They have really beautiful covers that shrink onto the egg in just a few seconds under boiling water.
We told them how we hide the eggs and they were facinated. Their tradition is to have two people hold eggs and then tap them together and the one who's egg does not crack is the winner. Someone convinced Steve that they also crack them on their heads. After getting a good bruise on his forehead they told him they were kidding.

After painting the eggs, Steve taught the kids how to throw a football outside in the empty lot by our house. The first step was to teach them that a football to us was not a soccer ball (that is what they call a football and considering you usually just kick it, I really can't blame them), then how to hold it and after an hour, they all looked every bit like American boys and girls! Though, the minute one of them got a grass stain, she went running home to try to clean it. They REALLY don't like to get dirty!

Happy Birthday, Maddie!

The day has finally arrived!!!


Maddie waited so patiently all through the winter as everyone else in the family had their birthdays, and finally spring arrived bringing her birthday as well.


The thing she wanted most was a guitar... for her American Girl Doll.




I think this may renew her interest in her own guitar!

Maddie asked for Chocolate Chip Pancakes for breakfast... Aubrie really got into that idea!

Thank you, Simpsons!

Our good friends, Mike & Kristi Simpson, from Kilgore, TX just sent us a care package. We already knew that they cared... but as I have said before, we LOVE getting cool stuff from the States!

Don't ask me what the dog is doing on the table. Picture taken by Maddie while I studied Russian upstairs.




The kids LOVED the stickers and pencils. I think they have enough to share with all their friends!

They also sent cake mixes, but you will see those in a few weeks when I post the cake I am going to make for Maddie's birthday.

You can always send Steve ANYTHING by Reeses.

Photographer in Training

Maddie has a new hobby. Steve is teaching her to take pictures and then fiddle with them in Photoshop. For now I will share the "raw images" (I'm trying to pick up the jargon in order to fit in) and later you can see what she can REALLY do!

The kids went bowling with the family with whom they study Russian. (If my sentence structure seems a little odd, we can blame it all on Lomonosov, the man who really created the Russian grammar system! He has my brain all in knots right now.)


Maddie was throwing all kinds of strikes and spares (with bumpers firmly in place). Aubrie was just thrilled to see that her ball made it to the end... slowly... but surely!



The girls, remembering the downtime waiting for their next turn, brought all their drawing supplies.

Wheelbarrow rides are the latest amusement in our backyard. Yana has been a faithful pusher, but I am pretty sure I saw her riding a time or two!

Sing a Song

I just found these pictures and realized that I had never told you that the kids were asked to sing in church. One of the benefits of Russian singing lessons!