Curious Fashions

One evening we spent some time at the park.  This is not a park with a playground for kids.  It has fountains and walk ways and food vendors...  I found some most curious fashions happening that I thought, "I should document this".  And so, here it is for your enjoyment.  I am sorry, I don't know how to blur out the faces of the innocent.  I justified this post by knowing that somewhere, I am most likely in someone else's blog, being ridiculed for my American ways.

Do I need to draw your attention to the MAN'S sweater?  The thing that you can't tell from this picture is that he is wearing pink underwear.  Same color as her skirt.

Who wears these shoes to walk around the park in?

Maybe she was heading to the "Homecoming dance" after she was done walking in the park with her friends.  

Although this is a bad picture, the back foot looks pretty good.  These shoes are all the rave here!  They are half gogo boot, half sandle, half meshy something.  Super weird.  

Again with the high heels at the park.

You may think that this girl is propositioning someone on the bench but, it is actually her mom and sisters.  Seems like an appropriate outfit for an evening at the park.  By the way, that is our dinner and it was delicious!  Grilled potatoes and pork!  Mmmm Mmmm!

This is a toofer!  The only time I see any leg around here is when they are wearing a skirt.  So you can imagine my surprise when I saw two people wearing shorts!  I will choose to refrain from critiquing the choice of shorts and shirt of the young gentleman on roller blades.

This is the fashion view we got while we ate our dinner...  My boys were horrified!  Poor Dalton was sitting on the end of the bench...  I don't know how to say, "You need a bigger size" in Russian or I might have passed along that bit of advice to this little pretty.

Misc

Let me draw your attention to the lady in the green shirt.  I want you to notice her hair.  From this distance it looks a bit like a brown haired version of Marge Simpson.  But upon closer examination...

It's a hair accessory.  This poof ball/flower thing is an accessory, the size of her head!  I sat there and imagined what it would feel like to be wearing something on my head that was as large as my head.  Interesting...

This is a lady who sat next to me on the shuttle.  The reason for this picture is because I was wearing a t-shirt, capris, and sandles and I was SWEATING like crazy!!!  What the heck lady!  How these people don't pass out from heat stroke, I will never understand!

This is a picture is a traffic jam we are in.  The funny thing about this picture is the silver car who is driving on the sidewalk because he can't wait his turn!  The best part of this story is, about 2 blocks down, there was a big post in the middle of the sidewalk and he could not get around it.  So, he had to back all the way back down, passing all the cars he thought he was so cleverly passing!  How did that drive of shame feel buddy???

This is our vacuum!  It is so fabulous I can barely stand it!  I almost slept with it but, I was embarrassed Chris would mock me about that.  The embassy had loaned us one and I don't mind telling you that it sucked!  So, thank you Amazon.com for sending us this beautiful baby!  I vacuumed everyday for the first week we had it!  LOVE IT!!

We walked past this construction site and saw these mannequin legs lying around so, we put them up next to the building.  We crack ourselves up!

In each metro, there are huge doors that close on big metal tracks.  It always makes me feel uneasy as I walk past.  I wonder what it would be like to be locked in the metro and then I wonder what it would have to be like up in the world for them to feel like they needed to seal off the metros.  Neither of these options are appealing to me.  So, each time I walk past these doors, I try not to notice them.  But, that really just makes me notice them more!  

This ice rink is inside of a mall...  What?!?

Birthday flowers.  I love the flowers here!

There are no words!  The funniest part for Ethan was that I made a bunch of little kids get off so I could take his picture.

Exhibition 2014

Each year the 5th grade does, what they call, Exhibition.  It is a HUGE project that they start on just after Christmas break.  Each student goes through a process where they decide on their "passion".  Once they have narrowed it down to one thing, they are put into a group with kids who have similar passions.  Seth's passion was space exploration.  The others on his team were Star Wars, and Aerospace Engineering.  They complied some group stuff and some individual stuff.  At the end of it all, they set up booths in the Hall of Flags (this is a big hall at the school that displays the flags of all the different countries of the students who attend the school.)  The students from the elementary, middle school, and high school get a chance to come by and see everyone's work and info.  That evening, the parents get to come and see all the hard work.  It was pretty cool!  As it turned out...  One of the 5th grade student's dad works for NASA and is here working at Mission Control, Moscow.  One of the teachers arranged it so that our little "space" group got to go tour the Russian Mission Control.  I'm not gonna lie, it was AWESOME!!  We watched the Space station orbit the earth on the gigantic screen.  The room looks just like it does in the movies!  

Our First House Guest!!

Safety First!!

Our first stop was the American Embassy to see the Founding Fathers.

 Boat Tour
We took a boat tour around Moscow so that Stanley would be able to see more of the sights with less running around.  It is a much more relaxing way to see Moscow.  He loved it!

Russian Flag

This is a monument of Peter The Great.  He was a great leader for Russia many years ago.

This is a Russian Orthodox temple called, The Cathedral of Christ our Savior.  It has an amazing history.  During communism, Stalin had it torn down and turned into a public swimming pool.  In the 1990s, it was decided to rebuild the cathedral to the exact dimensions as the original one.  It re-opened in 1999.

This is a view of Red Square.  The red wall surrounds the Kremlin and other government offices.  This is where the president of Russia works (the white building)

Another view of Red Square and the president's working quarters.

 Fun Times 

The weather has been great!

A day of playing

We went and saw some pretty cool sand sculptures.  This was Stanley's favorite

 More sight seeing

Stanley finally got to ride the metro!

This is a monument of Lenin and Russian workers.  It is very big as is everything else in Russia.

This is the Bolshoi theater.  World class ballet happens right here!  

This is the clock tower on Red Square.  This is the view when you are not on the boat.

St. Basil's Cathedral.  Ivan the Terrible had this build and after it was done, he had the architect's eyes gouged out so that he could not make anything more beautiful.  Do you wonder how he got the title "The Terrible"?

When you stand in the middle of the Square you have St. Basil's on one end and this museum on the other.  It is beautiful!

This says I love Moscow.

 We were so happy to have Stanley come and visit!  We think he had a great time and are grateful to Eva Scheffer for letting him come and stay with us!