Tag Archives: family

Gus’s city

We are here in Gus’s city. Today is a free day, so we just walked around a bit. I showed my mom Arbat St. and New Arbat St. That’s about it. We are exhausted. I set a goal of staying up until 7pm, to combat jetlag, and I’m not sure we’ll make it there.

Our facilitator and driver pick us up at 8:30 am tomorrow. Alla is taking us to the grocery store, to help us buy food for Gus, then we will go pick him up!!! I am guessing we’ll pick him up around 10am, which is 1am Central time.

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The view from our apartment (on the 22nd floor).
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View of New Arbat from ou Apartment.

To the Beach

Reed and Lena went to the beach for the first time yesterday! Reed kept talking about wearing his “babe’n suit”.

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Ready!

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Reed started running up the dunes.

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R: “That is a really big lake!”

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First, we had to eat lunch on the beach.

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Applied our sunscreen.

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We jumped in the waves for awhile. That was super fun, as long as I didn’t threaten to throw him in. THAT was not funny.

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Lena jumped in the waves a bit too, but she was really more of a sand girl.

After we finished at the beach, we decided to go over to the bay side of the island. This water moved at a pace that Lena preferred.

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Searching for seashells.

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Waiting for some dinner.

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This is the face pirates make.

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Fish and Chips for dinner.

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And one last special treat!

Princesses…

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This is actually from our drive. This dragon is in Vandalia, Indiana. You put a token in(available at the liquor store across the street) and it breathes fire.

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Reed, Lena and their cousin Violet put on a show for us. I thought these two were so cute sitting and watching it that I had to take a photo.

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Lena and Leif at the water table. She wears this helmet all the time.

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Water balloons with their Deepa(grandpa).

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They just threw them into the alley… don’t worry, they cleaned them up afterwards.

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The neighbor’s dog came over after dinner to play frisbee.

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Adorable Kara at her rehearsal dinner!

The most exciting part of my weekend was the wedding of one of my best friends! Kara is one of my most supportive friends… my only regret of my own wedding was not having her as a bridesmaid. I wanted to stick to 3, to match the 3 groomsmen, but I wish I had made it work. Although, Kara was the one behind the scenes, letting me cry to her and putting my shoes on, when I couldn’t manage to do it myself in my dress. So, I felt so honored to stand up with her and untangle the fishing line from her feet (literally!). This girl has always been there for me… even from 1,100 miles away, she is always there for me.

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How beautiful is she? Comment and wish her congratulations!
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Reed and Lena came up to see the “princesses” for just a few minutes. They were invited, but since Aaron couldn’t make it and I was a bridesmaid, we just thought it would be more fun for them to stay home with their cousins, aunt, uncle and grandparents.

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Tonight, we went to the poool. Totally cute picture, except this guy waving in the background. I could not tell if it was waving to someone or if it was on purpose.

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And here’s this little man, enjoying the pool!

Tomorrow… the beach!

Hanging out with Family

We are here in Pennsylvania, spending time with my family. The kids seem to be really enjoying this time with their cousins.

Here are some photos…

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This is Reed and Lena when we went grocery shopping the other day. Lena is actually just pretending to be a baby– she is NOT in a headlock, despite how it looks.

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Here’s Lena and her cousin Milo. He likes to put his arm around her while they watch movies together. They are in love.

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They get to goof off with their grandpa.

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Piles of children.

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Sword fights.

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And big guns.

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Tonight Reed and Lena decided to entertain their cousin Leif, while we played Apples to Apples. Leif is not quite 3 months older than A. That was fun to watch.

A Very Busy Week

We’ve had a busy last week. Ilya and Lena met all their cousins for the first time, as well as two of their aunts and their uncle. Their cousins are 11, 8, 5, 3 and 6mo. They stayed with us for a few days. I wasn’t sure how it would go… I figured they’d all have fun together, but I anticipated some conflict. Nope, not at all. They all got along wonderfully. My sister’s older kids were great about helping my two. There was wrestling and rough housing and then there was hand holding and stories. Ilya and Lena really loved meeting their baby cousin and would often run up to him and give him kisses or a big hug.

It was a week for a lot of firsts… we went to Cedar Cove Feline Sanctuary… a really neat place in Louisburg, Kansas. They have tigers, lions, wolves and other animals. We also went to Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead… if you are in Kansas City with kids, GO THERE. It is free Monday-Thursday, and only $2/person on the weekend. They do have other activities which you must pay for, but it is all very reasonably priced. My kids rode on toy tractors, fed baby goats, tried out fishing, saw all kids of animals and spent a ton of time on a very nice playground. Everyone, grown-ups and all ages of children really enjoyed Deanna Rose. We spent 5 hours there and easily could have stayed longer if it wasn’t closing for the day!

We also had some other adventures during the week, like trips to the dog park or up onto the University of Kansas campus. Our other very exciting adventure was our first trip to the pool! We have a couple of very nice public pools here in Lawrence. One which is indoor and one which is outdoor. My sister and her family had gone to the indoor one earlier in the week, but I wasn’t comfortable taking two kids who had never seen a pool before without an extra set of adult hands. But, with my other sister in town and Aaron free to join us, we went yesterday.

Ilya just loved the pool. He just walked around for hours, he wanted to try everything out, including stuff like the big slide, which he’s just too little for. Lena was more hesitant. She did not like to get her face wet. She clung to me or my sister most of the time we were at the pool. Occasionally, she’d waddle around in the kiddie pool, coming to check in with me every few minutes. Both kids had a good time, though and did not ask to get out once during the 3 hours we were at the pool.

I really enjoyed having my sister and her family here. It was a great opportunity for Ilya and Lena to get to know more of their family. I also think it was a very positive experience for them to see how families function in day to day life. I also felt like I got to experience another side of both Ilya and Lena, seeing how they acted with other members of their family, especially how affectionate both of them were with “the baby.”