America’s got Talent:

You have to be a patient parent to enjoy this event.  A talent show was setup for the six American kids that have recently picked up music and dance.  We had guitar, piano and trombone players ranging from six years old to six-teen years old…they all started learning their respective instruments in September (7 months ago).  The kids did a fantastic job and are much braver than I.   There was an audience of 25 people, friends, families and instructors.  Rylie’s highlight was when Babooshka gave her three lovely roses in honor of her performance…Rylie exclaimed “these are my first roses ever!” (Meaning from a performance…she’s seen her sister

get them after performing at the Nutcracker) and couldn’t stop smelling them and was excited to get them in a vase so she could enjoy them all the more.  Ellie, ended up doing an impromptu piano piece after there was a slight mix up, she did a fantastic job, stepping up and playing her piano piece with no practice on it.  Way to go girls!  

I see London I see France…..

Our trip to London was great!  Unfortunately this was a business trip for Tony so we had to sight see without him and our trip was shorter than had it been for pleasure, but we can’t complain it was a nice break from the doldrums of Slavutich.  We knew we didn’t have time to see and do everything so we decided to hit as many of the highlights as we could without spending too much time in any one place.  Tony would catch up with us after work and we would go to some of the better known highlights as a family (London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abby).  What an amazing city, it is full of diversity and culture and the architecture is so beautiful.  It just amazes us how different each city has been throughout Europe.  The girls’ highlights were Hamely’s Toy Store (a six-story toy store that’s as old as the States), the Museum of Nature History (dinosaur exhibit) and Museum of Science (“space the final frontier” and the boats), these museums were fantastic for kids and great for parents - it was free, which was especially nice knowing we wouldn’t be able to see everything and made it leaving easier.  Our highlight was eating pastries and drinking coffee in some of the different cafes in the city.  Tony’s very favorite thing was biting into a big juicy bacon burger for the first time in ten months!  We came home with some fun souvenirs and tons of memories.  Oh about the title – while we were waiting to see the changing of the Guard there was a young lady (I think from Italy) that wore her pants so low that her cute little purple undies were completely showing, what’s worse she was standing up on the fence wall so her hinny was right at face level….nice (it really was quite unpleasant).

Another Night out

We never know what we are going to get to see or do on any given day, our plan was to have a quiet evening at home, watching a movie and eating some popcorn….but on the 11^th hour Friday at work I had the opportunity to get tickets to the International Sport Dance Competition (truly international the couples and judges are from all around the world), why not?  It sounds like it would be fun and besides, real life is far better than watching anything from Hollywood.  Little did we realize that when I got the tickets these were premium tickets!  We had our own table (yes table) at the edge of the dance floor catered with sushi, fruit and drinks; we couldn’t get any closer to the action unless we were on the dance floor itself.  The dancers were amazing and the dresses were incredible.  What these dance couples could do was in a word magnificent!  We were expecting to be at a “stuffy” event, but that was far from the

truth.  There were kids dancing between the bleachers and the tables, people rooting quite exuberantly for the crowd favorites.  It was a very fun evening.  We were unable to get any really good photos – they move way too fast so enjoy the link if you want to learn more about it. http://www.worlddancesport.org

March Madness

Here we are in April and we are not sure where March went.  The month seemed to start out simple enough, with the Ukraine celebration of Spring coinciding with pancake, red caviar and vodka week…what a great way to

bring in spring!  After that we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, Tony’s birthday, International Sport Dance Compitition, American student talent recital and coupled with a short trip to London, the next thing we know we’re in April.  It really is amazing what can happen in a month’s time, it’s hard to believe that Tony has been here a month shy of a year.

The girls have been excited about the warmer weather; they are constantly going outside to play (finally).  They keep asking about getting bicycles so they can start riding around town….hopefully we’ll get them soon and head out into the forest for some weekend trail rides.  I’m sure that will open up a whole new set of adventures….yikes?!