School's Out!

Our last year of school came and went and this spring has just flown by for me.  I think with all the activities we have been doing; Fundraiser for the hospital, ballet recitals, piano recital, trip to Italy, the end of school and our trip to Turkey time has just been disappearing.  Not to mention that we know this is our last of everything so we are trying to treasure every moment, but it is still going too fast.  Zoe joined us for a fun last day of school, the girls made pudding, played math Bingo, did a picture scavenger hunt, and watched Pollyanna.  Ellie and Rylie did such a good job at 4^th grade and 3^rd grade!  They learned a ton and we had a wonderful year together.  I am so relieved to be done teaching and look forward to the input from trained teachers!  I will be glad to be in the support role again.  I will not be happy sending the girls away for the school day, I really never got tired of getting to be with my wonderful daughters every day (at least when they or I weren’t having a bad hair day).  =)

Fundraiser Mania

Our latest fundraiser has been a big endeavor and is turning out to be a great success.  We started raising money for the children’s wing in the hospital about three months ago.  We worked with community leaders and coordinated several local fundraisers as well.  Slavutich and Westerners participated in more than six different types of fundraisers for the children’s ward and now Slavutich has a group known as the Slavutich Community Service that aims to raise funds for charity events year after year!  Ellie even performed her solo Waltz at one of the fundraisers.  It was an honor and a pleasure for her to dance for the business leaders in Slavutich.  We are so happy to have participated in and helped spark the idea and understanding of how a community can improve life for each other!

They just keep growing.



 

The girls have grown up so much the last three years.  Here are a few photos that our local friend (Natasha Tomsha) has taken as the girls have grown.  Although they have not just grown physically, I believe they have learned so much more about people, community, the world, themselves, the consequence of choices (good and bad), and their growth in the Lord.  This opportunity has taught them in ways that they could have never learned living in Tri-Cities.




 

Slavutich Days 2013

Our last Slavutich Days was a huge success!  Ellie danced on the stage for the city with her class 3 times.  The girls had a free for all with the slides, shopping for trinkets and hidden prizes, and all the cotton candy and sweet popcorn two girls could stomach.  They weren’t the only one’s gorging, Tony and I ate Shashleek 4 times from the same vendor in one day.  Their shashleek was so good the first time we saw no need to shop around this year.  By our last trip to the booth, the vendor brought us to a covered table that was reserved for VIP, yep, we were the VIP.  =)  We even made it to the firework show at the end of the night.  We stood in the square, the 4 of us, surrounded by “our” community watching the wonderful explosions of light and colors over the trees and the angel statue.  It was quite surreal and felt like a nice bit of closure to our amazing time here in Slavutich.  As I figured from the moment we decided to take this adventure, the hardest part of it was going to be saying goodbye to our time here.

 

Off to Turkey (the country)!

Our last big trip to another country has come and gone.  Just like our entire time here, it went too fast.  My good friend Marina, and her husband and son, Gena and Vadim also joined us.  We really have had our fill (temporarily) of history, ancient ruins and tour guides, so we chose southern Turkey to simply relax on the Mediterranean Sea and get some sun.  Plus, it was an easy place to go with our Ukrainian friends.  We chose ClubMed Palmiye and went right before peak season.  We were blessed with gorgeous weather (the week before we came they had several days of torrential rain).  It was a lot of fun walking our friends through all the experiences of first time international travel: security, customs, flying, and just being in a different country, it was all a first for them!  They handled it beautiful and settled quite easily into the mode of eating too much, swimming often, and sleeping when not doing the other two activities!  The girls spent half their days at the kids club and participating in all sorts of activities: sailing, kayaking, water skiing, archery, trapeze, swim and on and on.  We all managed to get a little too much sun, but we recovered.  Swimming was on the agenda as much as eating was, so we did a lot of both!  The best was watching the girls try new brave things, Ellie got up on the water skiis briefly and Rylie did the flying trapeze several times.  They were awesome!  Ry made a friend at Miniclub and Sophie and Rylie became practically inseparable.  Tony advanced to the second level on the trapeze and became a “flyer”.  Since he received a certificate for his new skills on the trapeze he is seriously considering a new career with the circus (ha ha).  Tony and Gena did several activities together and they seemed to enjoy playing tennis a lot; nothing like a little competition I suppose.  Marina seemed pretty content staying cool by the pool most days.  Of course Vadim tried to spend his every waking minute in the water.  Marina says Vadim still wakes up every morning and says he is packed and ready to go back to Turkey!  We all had an amazing time building a lifetime of memories!