Next best thing to being there...

After multiple emails, bothering my dear friends on the other side of the world, I have a picture to share with you!
Stass & YanaMay 18, 2008
I wasn't lying, was I ?! She is a beautiful bride!
(Thanks for having your camera aimed and ready, Leigh!)

Missing Home...

Our very good friend, Yana, got married yesterday in Russia and we had to miss it. I know it was a beautiful wedding - they are a beautiful couple inside and out.

As I am missing Russia so much, I am going to post some pictures to show you some reasons why...

The kids were attending the International School and they had some great friends... ...as well as great teachers! They miss the fun times and I miss someone else planning and correcting their lessons!

This is Haillie Broberg... a girl I hear about almost every day from the lips of my Madi. In case you are one of the few people left on earth that hasn't heard this yet...

Madi misses Haillie.

This is the White House.
The kids would spend hours here...

...and here at the Indian House living in another world with Haillie...

...and Noah Broberg...

...and Jonah & Silas Broberg.

There is nowhere here in America that is as cool... according to the Hayes kids.

And I miss spending so much time with Jen Broberg playing Settlers and Hearts and making pizza and so much small talk that she eventually falls asleep from an overdose of me.

(We miss you, too, Mark, but have no pictures of you... and we talk to you every morning... come to think of it, maybe we actually get enough of you as it is... :-) )

And I couldn't finish without an honorable mention to India.
Who couldn't miss that face?! We haven't had any news about her and absence has made our hearts grow fonder (not cleaning up after her in 5 months has probably helped with that as well...).