Bits of daily life

Here are few things that have been going on since I last wrote. First, some pictures of one of the first warm days in April. We walked a few blocks north to the Neva River and enjoyed the sunshine.

One of the things we have enjoyed while living in St. Petersburg is having opportunities to host several guests. Recently we have had Alyona, a colleague with our organization, staying with us. Lydia loves to spend time with her. She has been so much fun to have around, and has also helped us on many occasions when our Russian language skills were lacking!

We also recently had Luciana, the fiance of a friend from church, stay with us for a few days. Lydia loved her too, and she got a lot of practice speaking Russian, since Luciana doesn't speak English.

We, being the scrabble-lovers that we are, had a real treat while Luciana was here. We got to play Russian scrabble! We had the help of the dictionary (and our friends when we got really stuck), but we did better than I thought we would. Of course, we still came in last place. The first 3 letters on our board spell a word we used. Any guesses what it means?

We've been getting good use out of our Settlers of Catan game (thanks, Mom & Dad M.!) Here we are teaching Alyona's friend Yanna how to play.

On May 11th we took a bus about an hour outside of the city to a place called "Oranienbaum." The town is called Lomonosov. (I think I have those spelled right). There is another palace there, with a large park to walk around in, although this one is more run-down than some of the other places. The weather wasn't quite as nice as we were hoping for, but it was still nice to get out of the city and into a more natural setting. We went with some other American friends, Kevin, Emily, and little Josiah.

Spring flowers!

Here's our future coffee junkie- drinking straight from the pot!

Alyona is gone on a trip right now, but she'll be back with us for a couple of weeks in June. (Then our next guest will be Aaron's mom- here for the birth of her newest granddaughter!) Alyona's birthday was going to be while she was gone, so we celebrated before she left.

I think I'll end this long post for now, but not without some funny quotes from Lydia:

Lydia: "Daddy, do you know what 'eagle' is?"

Daddy: "Well, it's a big bird."

Lydia: "Oh, I need to go to the store and buy some eagle."

Daddy: "Why?"

Lydia" "Because I need to make chicken breast."

Alyona: "I'll be leaving tomorrow."

Lydia: "Oh, but now it's already tomorrow!" (The previous day I had been telling her that her nanny was coming tomorrow, and now her nanny was there, so of course, it was tomorrow!)

Lydia (watching Daddy scratch his ear): "Daddy, don't poke your eardrum!"

Lydia (later, at bedtime): "Dear Jesus, I pray that we don't poke our eardrums." (This was all after a speech by me about how we should never stick anything in our ears.)