Minor Injury

poor baby

We ALL want to snuggle her!

We are all laughing at her smile!

Just so everyone knows, Rylie is O.K.  She got a big boo boo, but she will be just fine.  As many of you have heard, we recently got bicycles for the whole family.  Rylie took to her bike (first time without training wheels), like a little pro.  She has trecked around town, up and down curbs, and through the forest trails quite effortlessly.  Despite the occasional wipe out, she gets right back up and gets a bandaid on her about every third bike ride.  Well, I guess it was her third bike ride last night.  The girls were riding to the trail and up and down our street, passing each other here and there.  We were getting ready to join them to make a quick run to the store, as we were putting our shoes on we could hear a faint cry from our youngest.  As Tony mentions he hears the cry I am already in motion out the door (I was closest).  Baby girl was walking up our sidewalk with a mild cry, her elbow is all bloody, and worse, her mouth was quite bloody.  I took a quick peak in her mouth to see if I should go look for teeth and I helped her to the steps to Daddy.  Tony began cleaning up the bloody mess and I ran down the street 3 whole houses to pick up her downed bike.  Of course, I'm thinking, "poor baby", she walked herself all the way home with little more than a muffled cry.  So now we know, Ry's blood curtling screams means minor injury and a soft muffled cry means major injury.  Turns out she was making too wide of a turn and ran into the curb/fence at the corner and while her elbow tried to catch her fall she tried to eat some pavement in the process.  With a little clean up, lots of cuddles, tears, kisses, and ice we determined that we would not be attempting a Polyclinic or the hospital visit.  Ry is pretty excited to have a loose tooth; the bottom front left tooth is definately shoved back and will probably come out in the next few weeks.  Hopefully that is the only real damage.  She also sliced up her top gums pretty good eating the pavement they bled for an hour at least, and every time we peeked too much.  She is in good spirits but she has the fattest fat lip that Tony and I have ever seen!!  Sigh!

mug shot

1st day of summer!

There is another benefit of living in Ukraine, their seasons start by calendar month, meaning that summer started June 1^st……what does that mean you ask?!  Well, for this family, the tradition is to go out for ice cream on the first day of summer and watch the sunset; so, when in Rome, do as the Romans.  We are going to be taking advantage of celebrating this tradition twice!  We walked to the store bought some ice cream cones and sat in the square to celebrate the first day of summer; we almost started to feel like a local (the girls gave us away…I’m sure you can see why)!  When we are in the States, we’ll certain take advantage of that tradition again June 21^st to go to “sunset rock” and enjoy a BR or DQ ice cream cone….oh what a sweet tradition!

 

Bike Excursion

What a beautiful and awesome time we had on our first MTB excursion through the forests of Slavutich.  Rylie got up to speed (no pun intended) very quickly on her bicycle which allowed us to tackle this super fun trip.  I have to say, I was very concerned with the girls’ ability to navigate over roots, brush and between trees without major wipeouts.  But the girls took to the trails like they were born on them.  They rode flawlessly through every obstacle that came their way and even shrilled with excitement when we got to go down a few small hills to get “extra” speed.  We hit the trail mid morning and we traveled through forest groves and meadows and eventually ended

up in the village Mekshuneeka (мехшуниука).  The village is pretty indicative of Ukraine; still has homes with thatched roofs and a bucket well for water.  It was as if we hit a time warp from where we entered the forest to where we “popped” out.  If I didn’t know better I was back in the late 1800’s.  We returned home stopping to have a picnic lunch about halfway back.  What a fun adventure we had, we built so many memories and we think it might become a weekly family outing and eventually a family hobby.