Brace Yourself...

I know you have been waiting...

I have been waiting, too!

Waiting for my photography/computer saavy husband to put some pictures on my computer so that you all don't just have to read all that is floating through my head these days.

But, alas, all the "saavy-ness" in the world cannot undo what a Russian semi did back in August as we drove the 17 hours from the Moscow Airport to our home in Krasnodar.

We had just come down a hill 8 hours into our trip when we were forced to come to a dead stop because of "prohp-kah". (Russian word for "traffic" literally translated "cork")

After sitting for a few minutes, Steve, the ever-cautious driver, looked in his rearview mirror and seeing nothing, went to change the song on the MP3 player when...

--- BAM ---

the semi rear-ended us and pushed us off the road.

Now, before you get excited... we were in a Toyota SUV with a tire on the back and all of our kids were restrained properly (which is really something considering it is not the law here and our kids were REALLY tired of being restrained!). No one got hurt, just real shook up.

The worst part is what we discovered after we got out to survey the damage...

When the driver (who offered no explanation as to why he rammed us when traffic was clearly at a standstill and he had plenty of time to stop and even admits that he did not try to slow down) hit us he broke out our back window and consequently crushed our roof (we had quite a few boxes stacked on top as we had just come from America).

That is still not the worst part...

While walking around the semi to look for skidmarks, Steve discovered his laptop bag behind the semi... Yes, it had fallen out of our back window and the semi ran over it, not once, but twice!!! I had the greatest picture of our "u" shaped computer, but since it also demolished our flash card and card reader, I cannot show it to you no matter what my photography/computer saavy husband tries.

And here we are again... you're stuck reading my ramblings.

So, to whoever is still listening... I will try to give you updates during the holidays and try to steal pictures from others and if you just hang in there, it should all be remedied by February... or maybe March...

To the faithful few... I'm sorry!

It has come to my attention that those who faithfully check my blog are tired of seeing bikes day after day. Being a "regular-blog-checker" myself, I understand the frustration (I'm talking to you, Rick Greene!).
I have been wanting to update with pictures, but I am stateside right now typing on a laptop and am not computer saavy enough to provide you with them... so you will just have to wait a few more weeks.
We came to Texas last month to renew passports and visas and are stuck 3/4th of the way through the process right now, so we are just enjoying all the family around us.


Lucky you! I found a picture. It is from the bike trip, but doesn't contain a bike, so that is something. Can you imagine being able to bike in those beautiful mountains?! You can, too! Come on over and join us next time!

Bike Team!

For those of you who have been checking out our "Coming Events" at the botton of this page, you will be pleased to see some of these photos! The Bike Team from Texas has arrived!


This is Johnny. He is the leader of the pack. A gentle giant... and pretty good with a bike.


Will is the audio/video guy. He rides right along with them, but he also makes great DVDs of their trips.


Ryan is helping to build a bike ramp in the empty lot next to our house... that is, until the owners showed up and put a stop to it. They were afraid we might mess up the property that they may or may not build on in the next 20 years. We were actually cleaning up all the garbage for him!

We knew we had kids in our neighborhood, but they really came out of the woodwork when Jake started doing his tricks. We were warned about Jake before he came. He is not afraid of anything, even getting hurt! He proved it the first night he was here by shattering a coffee mug with his foot. Ouch!


He is even crazy without a bike!



I let them do this to Steve, but when Maddie tried to volunteer I said, "Enough is enough!"


These are two girls, Anna & Ira, that we have been getting to know when they come to our house every other week to practice their English. Yes, that is me... I went a little short and light for the summer!