The last months of winter are usually long, slow, and never ending, did I mention long?! Well, I can’t say that was the case this year. In fact I am pretty sure this was the fastest winter of my life, excluding the winters Ellie and Rylie were born. At this moment I don’t remember January happening and I am stunned that it is already the first of March. Even here in Slavutich we are expecting spring to show up in a couple of weeks. Amazing, considering there has been a steady 1-2 feet of snow on the ground since Thanksgiving. The winter has been quite beautiful always seeing the white ground, but I have especially enjoyed the last few weeks because the sun has been out (which means -25C temperatures), but the beautiful sparkly snow with blue, blue skies! Just beautiful! It’s worth the extra cold.
February started with the four of us going to Chernigov to watch the Nutcracker ballet. I know it seems odd to see this after Christmas, but with many failed efforts meant we were not going to pass up the opportunity and disappoint two little girls. Although Tony and I did not feel the magic, the performance was very beautiful. Ellie was reliving her moment as an angel when the 2nd act begun, I could feel her butterflies and see the pure joy in her face when she heard “her” music. The scene unfortunately was not what she had expected, but mommy will never forget the moment I saw I felt through her! The whole adventure was worth those few seconds!
Ellie and I had the privilege of attending a performance of the Georgian Ballet a couple of days later. I can’t even describe how amazing the Georgian ballet was, the energy, the strength, the talent, and the costumes were all out of this world! I simply told Tony that he missed something so good I couldn’t describe it. Check out the short YouTube clip just to get a small idea of what Ellie and I got to experience; we hope they return next year for a performance!!!(
Georgian Ballet) Tony and Rylie went to Chernigov earlier in the day to have some Daddy Rylie time. They had a blast, hanging out with another American friend, riding the train, eating at McDonald’s, and finding the big toy store in Chernigov! For Rylie this was probably the start of her six year old birthday (keep in mind her actual birthday was still about 10 days away). Tony and Rylie had to brave the biggest winter storm of the year on their walk home from the train station. The wind was howling, snow was blowing sideways and I’m sure it was near -15 C not counting wind chill (Tony said his wet pant legs around his boots froze solid in a matter of minutes). Thanks for the awesome winter gear from Grandma James we all stayed warm!
Valentine’s Day was a fun day….the girls decided to write love notes in the snow to Dad, Mom, Babooshka and each other. It became so much fun that Babooshka got in on it and wrote a huge Russian “I love you” in the snow out our back window.
Then Rylie’s birthday came and with the extra short month, the next thing we knew it was already March and the official start of the Ukrainian Spring March 1st (it also was -15C….in Ukraine the seasons are based on the calendar not celestial, in other words, Spring is March 1st to May 31st, Summer is June 1st to August 31st and so on). So much for slowing things down by coming to Ukraine, I’m pretty sure it sped things up twice as fast (although I’m sure our parents would not agree with that assessment).
Just a little clip of Rylie doing a little boogie on our 100 days of school celebration. She always has some fun and funky moves up her sleeve just like her cousin Gunner! The whole family got into some of the fun and we all made a poster to represent 100 days of school.
It’s Smiley Rylie’s birthday! The four of us went to Kiev for the day to play at the Aquapark. After a three hour taxi ride (full of “are we there yets”) we arrived at a day of fun for Ry. We started with bowling and then grabbed lunch. Even though it was about 1pm the restaurant was empty, we were the only customers in the restaurant (Ukranian’s do everything late). After studying the menu (which was in Ukranian, which is not similar enough to the little bit of Russian we know), we politely asked for chicken fingers and French fries with a Sprite for the girls (yes, in Russian). The waitress kept offering Tony a steak so he finally relented to that with a Greek salad (it was written similar to Russian). I ordered Rissotto, because it sounded good and Rissotto is risotto in every language! Tony’s steak (which I’m certain was veal) was the best steak he has ever had, ever! Poor baby cow (don’t fret, they don’t let the boy cows grow up, hamburger and steaks are still a bit foreign to the locals). On par with our normal life in Ukraine that of course the light over our table burnt out while we were dining, I’m not sure how in a restaurant with the capacity of 100 tables and being the only patrons, that ours went out. 
Ry and I went shopping (the store was much like JCPennys, even with awesome sales). We shopped 1 ½ hours in the small store; I was trying to not shop for Ellie and myself even though there were great sales (it was Rylie’s special day)! We got Rylie a fun and spunky birthday outfit and grabbed a few other great items for a great price (for both girls, couldn’t resist, I miss shopping for them). In the mean time Tony and Ellie did a scan of Megamart (the grocery store that is very similar to an American store). They were on the hunt for specialty items (there was a rumor of American bacon); Ellie spotted the bacon first. I think half the store heard the little American girl jumping and singing “the bacon station, the bacon station we found the bacon station!” We finally met up and went to the Aquapark for 3 hours of splash time in the wave pool and fun water slides. I believe this was the highlight of the day for Rylie, but it’s hard to say, she was a bouncing happy little girl aaaaallll day long! Rylie continued to sing “happy birthday” to herself all the next day as she eagerly waited for her real birthday to come the following day. The girls and I took Monday off to celebrate Rylie all day, they played, watched a movie, scrapbooked and had box mac n cheese for lunch and also homemade mac n cheese for dinner (birthday girl request)! Friends came over for some fun games, gifts and prizes and delicious chocolate cake that used the last of our semisweet chocolate chips! It was so worth using them on our bubbly, wonderful, bright, very silly 6 year old Rylie Anne! Sigh, I still can’t believe that she’s no longer 8 months or 2 ½ and Ellie 3 ½ or 5. Happy Birthday Rylie!
The last months of winter are usually long, slow, and never ending, did I mention long?! Well, I can’t say that was the case this year. In fact I am pretty sure this was the fastest winter of my life, excluding the winters Ellie and Rylie were born. At this moment I don’t remember January happening and I am stunned that it is already the first of March. Even here in Slavutich we are expecting spring to show up in a couple of weeks. Amazing, considering there has been a steady 1-2 feet of snow on the ground since Thanksgiving. The winter has been quite beautiful always seeing the white ground, but I have especially enjoyed the last few weeks because the sun has been out (which means -25C temperatures), but the beautiful sparkly snow with blue, blue skies! Just beautiful! It’s worth the extra cold.
