христос воскрес!

The title means, "Christ is risen!"- a greeting we heard several times yesterday. According to the Orthodox calendar, Easter was yesterday, and it is celebrated at this time in the protestant churches, too. Here is a picture of our first "kulich," which is the special easter bread, that we had for breakfast yesterday morning.

Here's the display that was in the front of the church, featuring dyed eggs and more kulich.

And some fellowship after the service.

And here's Lydia, modeling her Easter outfit before church (thanks to Alisa for the hand-me-downs!)

Ouch!

Last night Lydia had her first experience with a hot iron. The temptation to touch it was overwhelming, and she got a little burn on two fingers. It caused a lot of tears, but the bandaids made it feel better. Check out our youtube to see her talking about it.

Here's a picture I took this morning of Lydia working hard at her office!

Talent Show

Last night Lydia made her debut on stage at the International Academy Talent Show! The plan was for her to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Jesus Loves Me" with Daddy, but she was a little too distracted to sing much. She was more interested in going up and down the stage stairs. The audience started to sing with her, and she actually started to sing into the microphone, but when a feedback noise startled her, she got a bit distracted again. So, she ran upstage, but then ran back clapping and cheering at the end of the song. Not bad for her first performance! Her cuteness still scored some points with the judges!

Aaron played one of the judges- the "mean" one that always gave low scores:

We put a clip of the end of Lydia's performance on YouTube, so you can check it out with the link in the sidebar.

In other news, we recently returned from a trip to Moscow for a few days. Here are some pictures:

Panoramic of Moscow River, Kremlin, Red Square

Red Square

St. Basil's

Moscow River & Kremlin

The wall inside our Youth Hostel

Red Square

On the train back to St. Petersburg (close quarters for 8 hours!)