Slavutich or is it Slavutych?



Going home from the square

That’s the same as Kiev or Kyiv – the difference is one is Ukrainian (Slavutich) and the other is Russian (Slavutych), they are both correct…well that depends on who you talk to (we’ve learned the safe pronunciation is Ukrainian; when in Rome…..This is a fun one to see in Cyrillic славутич, imagine trying to understand that road sign upon first arrival. We keep getting asked “what does the town look like, what do you see?” We’ve tried to describe it in words and through events, but we thought we would show you physically what it looks like…at least in winter. These are the paths we take and the sights we see daily, enjoy!

Work!

Part of our Neigborhood



Sports Field (Soccer stadium)



Walking home from work



The Bakery!!



The Poly Clinic #5 don't get sick



Inside our Magazine

The Naked Family



To Prespective's School



Walking towards the square



Gymanstics



The square and White House



Walking to Cilpo



Cilpo and Renok



Walking home from Magazine



Train Station

To ballet

Our Magazine

Coyuz & Minsk "shopping mall"

To gymanstics

Part of walking home



Prespective's School



The ballet Studio



Renok



Our Neighborhood



Sledding hill



Looking towards town square



Walking home form work



Walking home from ballet



Columbino's



To the garbage







10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Happy New Year!

It’s kinda weird to celebrate New Year’s ten time zones ahead of you – while we were ringing in the New Year, you guys were just finishing lunch! We really had a wonderful time as a family celebrating the New Year together. We took time to thank the Lord for this wonderful adventure and it just reminded us how unbelievable it is and what we have done since our last New Year celebration!  We are very excited to see what the Lord has iin store for us in 2011!

We kept the girls up, playing video games, card games (thanks Uncle Troy and Aunt Marci) drinking coffee punch; nothing like high concentrations of caffeine and sugar to keep the mind awake…Imagine what that does to a five and eight year old…but we asked for it! At a quarter till, we went to the town square, popped a bottle of sparking juice and toasted in the New Year in the middle of Slavutich…..it really was very, very cool!

We thought there would be a lot more going on in the square but it was dead quiet. Remember this is the biggest celebration of the year for them, it’s Christmas! We were told what to expect and what the traditions are so we thought there would be a lot of things going on….well we were just too early. At midnight, everyone is toasting in the New Year at home then at about 1am they go to the square and meet their friends for more drinking and visiting – then the fireworks come out! By 1:00 I think the town became a nonstop fireworks show from the countless individuals who were setting them off – from about 12:30 to 3:30 there was large booms and bright lights over every house…..it’s a good thing it’s winter with a foot of snow covering everything! It may have gone on longer, but that was my last coherent remembrance.

Eight Is Great:

What?! Who?! Ellie just turned EIGHT! I don’t know about you, but that just isn’t right! I think we didn’t read the fine print on this contract very good…..it’s not supposed to go this fast! We had a unique challenge to getting her birthday together, what we wanted to do and what we ended up doing was two completely different things. Before we left to Switzerland, we decided to go to Kiev and watch the Nutcracker for her Birthday, I was able to give all the information and money to the wonderful secretaries at work who were going to get it done…..however, just as were leaving, we were told that there are no tickets available as it is a big time of year here….remember New Years is THEIR Christmas equivalent…they open gifts, have parties, they even have a New Year tree; so finding anything available was impossible. After Christmas we talked with Ellie and we came up with a good plan….horseback riding and bowling then finish the day with cake and presents with friends. It was a long day, but fun, but as usual nothing ever goes exactly as planned but the good Lord saw to it that Ellie had a great time and we got everything in that we said we would. Eight is great!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas our dear friends and family! We miss you terribly; this time of year has always been about you. We found that even with all our wonderful adventures in Luzern and Vienna, it just wasn’t the same and we missed you incredibly. Even the girls would say that something was missing and then they would come up with what it was….it was you!

We wanted to make this Christmas as special for the girls as possible (thank you to all of you who sent gifts….it meant a lot to the girls to open something from their friends and family). They kept saying that this was their best Christmas ever and loved every gift that they got…..they were especially happy that Santa didn’t forget them. So I think we pulled it off, with the help of you.

I think our biggest highlight was the girls performed their first ever piano recital for Grandma’s and Papa’s via Skype, our precious neighbors Anna and Viktor were kind enough to allow us to use their house and piano (and computer) for the recital. It was enough to almost bring you to tears. The girls’ piano instructor did an amazing job making it special for us, the girls did fantastic playing Christmas songs on the piano and then singing Christmas carols, they were even telling jokes to their audience.

Merry Christmas!

Vienna

We took the train from Switzerland to Vienna so we could do some sightseeing through the Alps, it was a beautiful trip and again it was so surreal….but here’s the funny part. We paid for a first class cabin, yet our cabin happen to be the one without heat, so out of our nine hour trip we spent six of it with our jackets on but we made the best of it, we snuggled up to watch Christmas movies, enjoying snacks of more Swiss chocolates.

The hotel we booked in Vienna, was actually an apartment with a reception area and continental breakfast (Levante Lauden Apartments). Now this breakfast was the complete opposite of the one we enjoyed in Switzerland, but it filled the void and we were able to take advantage of the refrigerator in the room and filled it with juice and yogurts. We have found that we really enjoy not having a hotel room it really adds to the feel of the vacation, it makes the place feel more like “yours” and it gives you the feel like you’re living there or at least could live there. Vienna is a beautiful city with Baroque style architecture and the Christmas ambience really added to the feel of the city. We toured the Belvedere Palace and the Schonbrunn Palace as well as the many cathedrals that were there. We saw the Lippizzaner stallions, Sissy’s residence and visited endless Christmas markets. Of course eating lunch was still difficult, but we managed by stopping at every bakery that served apfelstrudel (apple strudel German style!) and one stop at McDonald’s just before the kids were going to revolt (it was very COLD and they needed to warm up). We did stop once at Figlmuller’s for their famous wiener schnitzel and it lived up to its reputation, delicious!! Other than that, the dinners were all over, we had Italian (by real Italians’) to Chinese (yes, by real Chinese), it was really nice to eat foods that are difficult to get in Ukraine. We however, made every effort to eat as much Viannese and Swiss traditional food s as we could….that’s why we bought ten apfelstrudels to take home with us.

The one thing that really struck us, was because this trip occurred so close to our last trip to Egypt we had barely finished the research before we were on the plane. So standing on the Chapel Bridge in Luzern to watching the Lippizzaner stallions felt incredible, it was like living inside an Encyclopedia, we saw a place on the internet and then BAM there we were standing in the very picture we just saw. There was another one of those incredible moments of “I can’t believe I’m here doing this” as we were resting on a bench at an open air ice skating rink looking at the Baroque style buildings around us….just thinking, WOW!

Switzerland

We stayed at the Hotel Balm in Meggan just outside Luzern Switzerland, the hotel was very quaint and seemed more like a “bed and breakfast” than a hotel. The staff was so amazingly friendly and the food was incredible. We had the best continental breakfast that we have ever seen in our life. We actually sat in their gourmet restaurant and are served hot chocolate, tea or coffee right at the table with our own crafts. The tables are set in full linen and the buffet table was amazing. We had our choice of many fresh fruits already cut and ready to eat, MANY French and Switzerland cheeses (brie and vacherin) and MANY meats (Prosciutto and ham) with a huge assortment of breads (multi grain and the fluffiest croissants you ever saw). There was porridge, cereals and yogurt to compliment the rest of this FREE breakfast. It felt magical every morning, we would sit back enjoying a great cup of coffee, eating vacherin and meats, watching it snow overlooking the lake with the Swiss Alps in the back drop, thinking how amazing it is to be here! It’s a good thing we could have this breakfast, because finding a good place to stop and eat proved to be a challenge for us. We would typically stop for dinner, but we were moving too fast to stop for lunch; so we lived on Swiss chocolates and bakeries throughout the day…..and they had roasted chestnut stands to help curb the appetite.

We took in as many sights of the town as possible and took the opportunity to Ski (well Nichole and I snowboarded); but the girls had their very own ski instructor teaching them….how crazy is that?! They did great and by the end of the day they were having a blast racing down the mountain. We also took them sledding down Mt. Titless!

Now, the one thing that we were warned about before our travels was that Switzerland was expensive…..WOW was it. Just to give you an idea, the public busses and taxies are Mercedes and I know ski lodge food is expensive, but we literally had four cups of beef soup for $65....ouch!