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?!

100 Days of School!

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.

Little Miss Jumping Bean

Rylie loves Gymnastics! She frequently speaks of her Richland gymnastics coach “Teacher Heather” and how she misses her and her gymnastics friend Mya. We have to say, she is the little athlete when it comes to this sport and she has transitioned to this new form of gymnastics (trampoline) with ease. Coach Constatinavitch has the kids doing all sorts of exercises and every kid out there strives to do their best. The girls had a competition last Saturday with all of coach Constatinavitch’s students. You’ll be please to know that Rylie scored 4th place in an event (we couldn’t understand which one) for her age group (including boys) and Ellie scored 1st place in the Standing long Jump for her age group (also including boys); there were about 15 children in each group.

I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with coach Constatinavitch’s ability to get children (of all ages) to perform. Constatinavitch is a fantastic coach, tough as nails, yet knows how to praise the kids and knows how to bring out their best. He pushes them to the limits (and what appears at times to be beyond); yet many times the kids pull through and if they failed, they’ve learned and the next time they know how to succeed.

Most people don’t know, but Rylie is a little clown and looks for ways to get out of doing her best. But coach doesn’t let his little class clown get away with anything. At one point she was “cheating” on some exercises so he grabbed a light rope and tied her legs together to make sure she couldn’t “cheat” anymore. I have to say, I have missed seeing the “old school” methods of coaching back home (like a coach Troxel)….In my lowly opinion I think our coaches are too afraid of looking mean or hurting feelings, especially in front of the parents; so in general, kids sports have gotten too “gentle” on the kids. I’m reminded that without a good coach teaching and pushing athletes to their limits a person will never know what they can accomplish. We have seen remarkable success with the girls; if you could see what the Ukrainian children are doing at 7 and 8 years old you would understand what a good coach can get a child to do.

Six is Super!

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!

Winter's End!

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).