My previous posts about our trip to Russia this past October only covered about half of our trip, and then I started to get busy with holidays and birthdays and such and kinda just figured “oh well, nobody really cares about seeing all our trip pictures anyway.” And then while we were traveling and visiting families etc over the Christmas break I was really surprised at how many people were commenting on enjoying seeing the pictures and wondering about the rest of the trip. So now that things are kinda starting to slow down–at least during the week a bit, I will try to finish posting about our wonderful time in Russia. First, to give a better idea of where we were, I’ve found some map images online. The first map shows Russia in relation to the rest of Europe, you can see Moscow, and down to the south is the area between the Black and Caspian Seas. The second map is a closer view of that southern area. You can see Min. Vody, where our local flights arrived and departed, Piatigorsk, one of the bigger cities we visited, and Dombai and Mt. Elbrus, the mountains pictured in my “Spot Josh” post. And Kislovodsk (although not shown) is located in that small area of gray just southwest of Piatigorsk between Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Some of the pictures from our travels into the mountains are from these areas.
Ok, so we left home on a Wednesday and I’ve posted up to the next Wednesday which was the day that we went to the school. School No 2 is the sister school of the Muscatine High School, where Josh and I attended. I spent the entire second semester of my sophomore year as an exchange student at School No 2, and I visited again the summer between my junior and senior years, and went back for the entire schoolyear after I graduated 95-96 to help out in the English department at School No 2.
The building hasn’t changed all that much, and many of my teacher friends were still there too!
We just had a moment to meet with Nonna who is now the principal, and then we were taken up to a very large classroom where students of many ages were already gathered and seated and waiting relatively quietly for us. We answered questions for about a half an hour or so and then were swarmed with requests for autographs and short messages in english. We felt kind of like rock stars! When the teachers had finally cleared the room we were taken to another room to have our pictures taken with the senior class, and then we had a small visit in the teachers lounge.
Josh seemed to really enjoy the experience at the school. It was really cool for me just to be back there and to see so many familiar faces, it made me sad that the teachers there–who work so hard for practically nothing, explained that Americans don’t come there anymore and that for most of the students we were the first Americans they’ve ever seen. They are still very interested in all of the friends they’ve met through the years of exchanges with Muscatine, and hope to continue and expand the relationships in the future.
Why is it, that I so loathe toothpaste, a paste of mint–a flavor which generally I enjoy, but I thoroughly enjoy other pasty foods in flavors I would normally turn my nose up at? Example? At this very moment I am eating a ham salad sandwhich. I also enjoy tuna salad which is, essentially, a paste of fish. GROSS! But I like it and will eat it and would WAY rather have “salad sandwich” in my mouth than toothpaste. Any help on this one?
Well hello 2010. You kinda snuck up on me. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be calling you “two thousand ten” or “twenty ten” or some other bizarre nickname, for now I leave it to my readers to insert their own voice in reading you, 2010. You know 2010, you have some big shoes to fill. 2009 was an enormously eventful year for us! We were so busy that a lot of stuff never made it onto the blog. I guess that will be my resolution this year, to do a better job of keeping up with the record of our lives as they happen via blog, correspondence, photos, and scrapbooking. We did manage to sqeeze in a quick family photo session before 2009 ended. If you haven’t received a copy of our family photo, don’t worry, you may still, I have great intentions (as I do every year) to mail them out. I may need some addresses though… But I will insert the photo here also so you can see–like a sneak peak reward for reading our blog! 
Josh and the kids love to tell the story of what we went through to get this picture. Of course there was the usual amount of fretting over corresponding outfits for everyone etc, but the part of the story that they really like is that in order to find a clean backdrop for us all I made Josh pull the couch away from the wall. Then, in order to place the camera high enough to use the timer feature and get us all in the shot, I had to stack wrapped present boxes on top of the electronic piano box that is living in our front room all in front of the couch without having them topple all over the couch or backwards into our Christmas tree. You probably had to be there, but the kids and Josh got a real kick out of watching me set up the camera just so and then having to hop up and over the couch without knocking anything over and sqeezing into my place on the wall before the camera took the picture. There were a couple times I didn’t make it. But keeping them amused seemed to work well enough for getting pictures with nice sincere smiles and I had a keeper with all eyes open etc after only about 6 takes!
So, I’ll probably forget or run out of energy to mention every major thing we kept busy with this last year, but here is just a quick overview of highlights according to me. In January, with the support of many wonderful friends and family, Josh reluctantly turned 30. In February, Cameron got staples in his head for the second time in his young life and he lost his first tooth! In March, the kids each got their own brand new bicycle! In April, they were actually able to ride them! Also, with the help of my parents, we made a raised bed vegetable garden in the backyard. In May, the kids had their big dance recital! I had a fun birthday weekend with good friends and chopped off almost all of my hair to donate to Locks of Love. In June, Elena had her first “Grandma Camp” while Josh and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a fabulous Ruby cake! Josh received an award for training and development at work and ended up in the ER for swallowing a pop tab. In July, we rode on the trolley in Muscatine’s 4th of July parade once again and then left our two oldest children in the hands of my parents to begin their 2-week road trip east through many points of interest as far away as the coast of Maine including but not limited to Niagara Falls, Boston, Dad’s old cabin in New York, old homes of literarians, an old whaling ship, and familial houses, churches, and gravesites. In August, our whole family embarked on another long road trip looping as far to the west as Utah for a family reunion and along the way stopping through Rapid City, SD, the Devil’s Tower in WY, Yellowstone National Park, the corner of Montana just to say we’ve been, a hotel in Idaho, a visit with old friends and family in Colorado, and a theatre in Kansas to view Harry Potter Half Blood Prince for Cameron’s birthday. In September, both boys started soccer season again and all four kids began dancing lessons again. Jacob, now a 5th grader, joined band at school as a percussionist–like his dad. I began the overwhelming task of preparing to travel abroad and leave my children behind for 2 whole weeks. In October, Josh and I completed a fabulous trip to Russia, then came home and cooked like we were still in Russia for about another two weeks! We made it home just in time to figure out a “Link” costume (from the Zelda video games and books) for Cameron to wear for Halloween (and the rest of the year!) Somewhere in all of this Jacob started to grow! He is taller than Elise again, going through “some stuff” like a deepening voice and armpit hair that he likes to show off, and did I mention that his new tennis shoes are MY size?! In November, we welcomed Josh’s brother Brian home after two years in Brazil and hosted Thanksgiving at our home again. Finally, just last month, in December, Jacob got glasses and had his golden birthday, Elise got a filling, I found a yummy new cheese and we all had a nice break over the holidays despite the weather’s attempt to seriously stress me out about travel plans.
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So I have a four year-old daughter, most of you know her. So many of you will understand what I really mean when I say she LOVES her daddy! And everyone else, including myself, well…it’s questionable. For example, last week I was alone watching a movie (one of those touching Christmas family comedy dramas made for tv) and I was feeling very overwhelmed and had uncontrollable tears. Just then Elena woke up and came downstairs and came over to me and looked at me quizzically–questioning the tears. Then she offered up a rare hug and climbed upon my lap with her blanket to settle in and watch the movie with me. I said “I love you Elena.” And she replied “I love…my daddy.” To which all you can say (and I did) is “I know.” Well. Today when she was demanding that I pour her milk while she nuked a second hot dog she was all caught up in some excitable chant/cheer/singy storytelling which had in it somewhere “mommy-riffic.” Then she said, “Mommy, your name is Becca, so you could say Becca-riffic.” So I asked “oh, and when do you say Becca-riffic?” “When its good.” “oh, so like if something is awesome I can say it’s Becca-riffic?” “Well, you coooould…if its soooo beautiful.” Now I’m gonna stop the day right there and just milk that thought for all I can. Loved.
For the first time in over four years Elise has consented to cutting some bangs. I’m hoping somehow this will help her take better care of her hair and just might keep some of it out of her food at mealtime! I also let her change her earrings this week for the first time in over a year since she had them pierced!
So I went out to help Josh dig out the driveway today. Apparently it was time to break in the new boots and snowpants. The wind blows through our side yard like a tunnel and so the side yard still has visible grass, but the driveway has like a three to four foot drift! I made a lot of progress but then I got tired and bored and decided to see if I’d have better luck tunneling through the driveway. When the kids saw my awesome fort they decided to come back out and play. Between my sitting in the snow trying to keep the ceiling from caving in and the boys with their lightsabers, I had a lot of quotes from “Empire” running through my head! Some of the pictures Josh took especially remind of scenes on Hoth.
Today, Elise is 9. Yeah, we had a party, and then we had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse where both Jacob and Elise were put up on the saddle and “Yeeeeee-haw”ed at. They also got to open their presents from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Scott who joined us for dinner.
It seems to be impossible to get any good pictures or video from inside the school “auditorium.” But here is Jacob performing at his first band concert!
Wow! I haven’t finished with our Russia trip on here yet, and it already seems so long ago! We’ve been keeping plenty busy. We hosted Thanksgiving for my family at our house again this year, and that went swimmingly. Everyone pitched in.
Big Helper
Mom did her part to save the environment, Dad and Sarah fixed our garbage disposal, even Bertie helped make sure the dishes and floors all got clean! And there was plenty of quiet relaxing time too.
And family togetherness. 
It was a nice long weekend. Josh and Sarah and I went Black Friday shopping and the Strums came over to play for a while Saturday, then we put up the tree and the Hintzes joined us for dinner on Sunday and taught me how to play Settlers of Catan.
Then it was back to our regular weekly schedules, except this week also included eye doctor appointments, dentist appointments, making all the plans for Elise and Jacob’s birthdays along with all the usual holiday planning and Jacob has his first band concert tonight! I’ll try to add a picture. So I’m ALMOST ready for this weekend, but in a way I am already exhausted!
