Hot Topics in Moscow This Week

 It is Sunday evening at 7:50.  I am drinking fruit and nut tea while eating peanut butter cookies and listening to Christmas music.  There is no snow on the ground yet but it is still pretty cold.  I made Dalton and Seth go with me yesterday to the souvenir market (all outdoors) and it was pretty freaking cold!  





I finally found a great craft store!  I emailed the guy at the school to see where they get all of their art supplies and he gave me two stores to try!  I love him and I have never actually met him!  

I had a friend teach me how to make peanut butter this week.  It was pretty awesome!  So, now when I run out of the "good stuff", I will be able to still get my fix! 

One of my favorite snacks is mixing peanut butter and honey together and spreading it on cookies (Vanilla Wafers) or crackers.  Delicious!

This is one of the first gas station convenience stores I have ever seen here!  We were shocked!  But, not as shocked at that guy was when he looked up and realized Americans were taking a picture of him.  Cracked me up.

Working with preschool aged kids, I often see pictures that depict how I am feeling to a T.  I feel this way a lot.  I am considering changing my facebook profile picture to this.

Ethan learned to do a fishtail braid.  I don't think I want to know how he learned it and where he has been practicing it.  But, it looks pretty good huh?

Our housing is a 3 story townhouse.  The stairs go up in the center.  You can look up and down the center of it.  I had Chris put in these brackets so that I can hang stuff.  We use to have Origami cranes but, I decided it was time for something new.  Dalton and I made these snowflakes to try and get Mother Nature moving on the snow.

Church

A few weeks ago, I was caught in Sacrament meeting acting immature and probably inappropriate.  The guy who took this picture was one of my primary girl's dad.  So, of course they all wanted to try it too...One of the girls borrowed my phone to show her dad and I over heard him say, "THIS is what you guys are learning in Primary?"  Heh heh oopsies..  I guess I'd better start teaching churchy stuff too.

So this was our/my week.  Life is just life these days.  We work, we go to school, we cook, we do laundry, we fight, we laugh, we watch tv, we go shopping...  We are so grateful to have each other.  To not have to be here doing this alone.  Life is full of crazy adventures and sometimes it is hard to remember that God is over all. But we know He is and that brings peace to our hearts!

Nothing Neat

This week there was nothing amazing that happened.  But, I feel strongly that there are always amazing things happening.  Things that are noteworthy and worth mentioning.  In 300 years when we look back on this, I don't want it to be a log of only the amazing trips and things.  I want it to be a true account of what life was like for us.  So, here is a snippet of that.

When you go grocery shopping here, most stores charge for bags.  This lady sure showed them by not purchasing any of their bags!  We are waiting for her parking place while she unloads her groceries one item at a time.  And then, she will have to get it all up to her apartment.  Seems like she should have just bought a couple of bags.  (you may also notice it is raining/sleeting)

This past week was my sister's birthday.  I felt sad all day that I was not there to celebrate with her.  So, we had cake and ice cream in honor of her.  We all made a wish and blew out her candles!  Happy birthday sis!





      

For Seth's birthday he got a telescope.  On the rare occasions that we can see the moon, we like to run out there and watch it.  It is super cool!  These pictures aren't great cause the camera on my phone is lame and it was starting to get cloudy.  But, this is something that we did this week.




We have cords everywhere!  The first picture is what allows us to watch Netflix and Amazon.  So many devices.  It is also our "Utah phone".  In the bottom left corner you can see a plant that our neighbor gave us when they moved.  I'm giving a half-hearted effort to keep it alive.

These lovely little boxes are what transforms all of our American devices from 110v to 220v.  Cords everywhere!

We have these little adapter plugs.  It doesn't convert the voltage, it just makes your plug plugable into a Russian outlet.  As you can see, you can plug just about any sort of plug into it and then the adapter plugs into our wall outlets.  This only works with things that are dual voltage.  Such as, our Apple devices and our smart tv.  But, don't be fooled!  Just cause you can plug something into the adapter doesn't mean it can handle 220 volts of electricity.  

This beauty, is our couch.  We call it "Cat Barf Couch".  It is the color of and texture of cat barf.  I have added a close up of the fabric nap so you can see how, when you are lying on it and you think about cat barf, it would feel like dried cat barf.  

Speaking of barf...  The boys bedrooms.  Somethings are the same no matter where you live.

The paper here is a different size than in America.  So when I put things in page protectors and such, it sticks out.  Of course I have to cut it off so it doesn't stick out.  Also, this was the best recipe ever!  I couldn't find asiago cheese but, I did find Parmesan and it worked great!

Milk in a box and stored on a shelf...  It is 1 liter and so we buy it by the case.  Otherwise, we are out of milk every day!

A phone with a cord.  This is our land line and when you dial a number, it does the dial sounds like when you use to dial on a rotary phone.  It makes me giggle a little. 

My oven is European and small.  This is a regular 9 X 13 cake pan.  It has taken some adjusting but, I barely notice anymore.

Pet peeve!  I can't tell you how many deformed paperclips I find lying about our house!  Stop the madness boys!   Paperclips are for paper! 

This is our street.  I have just left the school and our house is at the very end of this street.  I took this picture to show that at 8:30 in the morning, the street lamps are still on.  Also, this is a great picture of the Moscow winter sky.  It is almost always white/grey.  

This is the back view of our house.  The middle floor with the lights on is the kitchen.  The window on the top is the Master bedroom.  The bottom window is a spare room that we use for storage.  It has a table where I do my tutoring.  It also opens up onto the back patio where we have our campfires.

This is a picture of the front of our house.  The middle floor window in our living room and the top right window is Ethan's room and the top left is Dalton/Seth's room.   It doesn't look like it but the lawn is quite sloped on all sides.  One of the benefits to having an end unit is that we get windows on the one side of our house.  It is delightful to have so much natural light but, it takes away wall space.  But, we are happy and glad to have the windows!  

This little Thanksgiving sign is the bane of Ethan and my existence.  I prefer it to be slanted and he NEEDS it to be straight.  It took me days of fixing it to realize he was purposely straightening it.  Haha.  He thought it was just getting bumped and had no idea I was purposely moving it crocked.  

Walk in the forest

This is the forest across the street from us.  (It is the same forest that has the blessed water.)  Dalton runs through here for cross country and wanted to show me some of the places he thought were cool.  He sure was right about that!

Chris estimates that the forest is approximately 15 square miles.  There are tons of paved paths and little play grounds that run throughout it.  Also, 3 ponds.  It is so beautiful and very enjoyable.

There is a rivine that runs through this picture.  It is not super huge but is a pretty good size.  The boys ride their bikes up and down the sides of it.  During the winter, they snowboard down it.

Seriously huge leaves

One serious birdhouse!  I wonder who made it.  It obviously took a lot of time.

Photo bombing Dalton

This is one of my favorites.

Also one of my favorites.

Dalton's Russian pose