Since a few people seemed to be “begging” to hear how the kids’ costumes worked out for trick-or-treating, here are a couple of the best pictures taken just before they went out into the cold and rain to collect their candies!
Archive
I don’t have a long time to write now, so this vacation story may get broken up more than I’d intended but I don’t want to keep putting it off. I hope that I don’t bore you, but I kept no journal on this trip so this written record will be for my memory also. When Lena and her boyfriend Albert took us to the airport for our flight to Mineralnye Vody, just before passing through security where they could no longer follow, she told us that her cousin Roma would be picking us up at the airport and taking us straight to a wedding! We thought she was joking around with us. The airplane was small and cramped and it was too dark to see the mountains we were approaching, and then when we finally did arrive disaster struck! I headed to exit the plane and knew that Josh was right behind me, but when I made it down the stairs onto the tarmac and looked around he was NOWHERE to be seen! I stood there watching everyone else depart instead of boarding the busses waiting to take us to the terminal. The first bus left. I waited longer until finally a woman from the airline came to usher me onto the last bus so it could leave and I said I couldn’t find my husband and she said “well, he’s not on the plane, it’s empty.” PANIC Panic the entire bus ride to the terminal. Worrying about Josh who doesn’t speak a lick of Russian, and what my next step should be to find him! But as soon as I got off the 2nd bus and headed into the building I found him. Looking slightly less panicky than myself. Apparently he had been ushered by a stewardess on the plane to the front exit and made it off the plane before me and went straight to the 1st bus and thought I’d seen him do so. So, together again, we collected our luggage and headed out to see who would be meeting us! Lena was not joking. Roma explained that everyone else was at the wedding and that we had to stop and get some flowers and then we’d go straight to the wedding too! (Which, on the one hand, was great for Josh to be able to have the experience, but, on the other hand, we felt incredibly self-conscious because we had been traveling and were in jeans and sneakers and probably smelled weird etc. not to mention that we didn’t know the couple or have anything for them and our arrival was fussed over and we were given lots of attention.) The quick stop for flowers took a ridiculously long time, but we showed up with a beautiful big bouquet of white roses. 
We were greeted and seated and fed all kinds of good food, but we were still just very self-conscious about crashing in our jeans etc. (maybe me more so than Josh). So here we are fresh from our travels. 
And unfortunately it isn’t a great picture, but at least we did get to hear Boba play with his band! (Boba (pronounced VO-va) is our host “father” and he plays the saxophone professionally!) 
Wednesday, October 7th, my dad and the kids dropped Josh and I off at the Des Moines airport. We were both anxious and nervous and excited and just feeling very overwhelmed. Our first flight took us to Chicago and we had a few hours to kill so we had dinner at Chili’s in the airport and shared an expensive caramel apple. We also discovered that we had forgotten a few things, but it was too late to do much about it! Our next flight was approximately 8 hours long, over the Atlantic Ocean, with Lufthansa. Josh was pleasantly surprised by the airline food and we both got excited about the movie options. For anyone who hasn’t taken such a long flight in awhile (or ever on Lufthansa as I don’t know how much it varies by airline or plane) each seat had its own interactive video screen with all kinds of viewing options including tv shows and 12 different movies plus 8-10 more kid show options! One of the options was a movie that Josh and I had wanted to see together but hadn’t come to the theatre near us, so we first chose to watch it–”My Life In Ruins”. (Not “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” good, but a generally fun watch!) My headset didn’t work very well so when that movie was over I just rested and watched Transformers 2 over Josh’s shoulder. We had a four hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. It was exhilirating to have made it over the ocean and to know that we were in Europe, but the wait was long and boring and our feet hurt from the long cramped ride over. We were also still nervous about our bags and customs and getting into Russia etc. We arrived in Moscow around 11:30pm local time (I’m doing this from memory, my times may be off, but I know it was way late.) and we had no problems at customs. My friend Yana was there to meet us and I was so happy to see her again! She helped us until my friend Lena arrived and took us to her place for the night. On the way, we stopped at a gas station and got bottled waters to drink. It stuck out to me because the last time I’d been in Russia I’m pretty sure the only bottled water they had was glass bottles from the local mineral springs and most gas was purchased from big trucks at the side of the road!
Our first full day in Moscow it was cold and rainy–not ideal for sightseeing. We went souvenir shopping on Old Arbat Street and had a Cafeteria-style Russian lunch with Lena at a fun restaurant called “My-My” or “Moo-Moo” in English. 
Then Yana met us and took us to the largest book store in Moscow and bought me some cookbooks and then took us to see the new temple. I’m sorry, it’s late and I don’t remember all about it, but I know I saw a show about it on the History Channel not long ago. 
But by the time we got there it was late and closed, so we went to meet Lena again and her brother Roma for bowling. The traffic was outrageous! Yana’s GPS friend said that we should arrive at our destination in about 7 minutes–it took almost an hour and a half! Still we had a few minutes to spare so before bowling we checked out a bit of the giant shopping mall that the bowling arcade was located in…Josh was very excited to see a Lego store!
I almost won the second game! Back at Lena’s that night, Josh and I had to repack things for our flight the next day. 
Now Saturday, the rain had stopped and Lena and Albert drove us around for some sightseeing before we had to be at the airport at 3. First stop, Moscow University where there is a splendid overlook of much of the city.
Then it was straight to Red Square!
Some of my favorite buidings to look at! We did not have time to take any tours, but we did make wishes at the entrance and go inside “GOOM” for a Soviet-style cafeteria lunch–very good. But then we left for the airport because traffic was bad and the weather was getting worse again. Josh and I took some pictures through the car windows as we drove.
More to come, please stay tuned. 
(Comments welcomed!)
Sorry to bother folks again, I’ve recently had some issues with the blog and I just wanted to make sure the subscribers were still getting it, so if you are a subscriber and you got an email about this post would you let me know that it is working? And if you think you are a subscriber or would like to be but did NOT get an email about this post, would you also let me know? Also, I suppose if you got the subscribers email notification but do NOT want to be subscribed to get our blog updates would you let me know to take you off the list? Thanks. And next i promise I will put on some pictures.
A little warning that I now have the blog back up and running and will very soon be posting many pictures and possibly stories from our recent trip to Russia. Wait with antici……………………………………………………………pation.
I’m having one of those panic moments where I feel like I need to seel all of our belongings in order to cover our cost of living standard. I just got home from officially signing all the kids up for dance again this year and getting their dance attire ordered etc. Now I feel like I need to start selling my plasma or something to pay for my addiction to creating opportunities for my kids (preferably ones which also yield cute photo opportunities for me). Yikes! I mean, I really do like the studio that we are at and I thoroughly appreciate that they give discounts for boys and little little kids, but I still get heart palpitations writing out my check to cover it all.
Well, the Summer literally drove by, sometimes at 75 miles per hour! But today we begin working on our new routine for this school year. I, for one, will be glad to get back into a more stable and productive routine! Of course it’ll take a while because there are still a few weeks before all activities are in full swing, but today the three oldest kids are back to school…as for the “baby,” well, I don’t think any of them qualify as babies anymore. (motherly sigh)
It is still hard for me to accept just how much they’ve all grown–even just over the Summer! And now here it is, the first day of a new schoolyear and my first baby, Jacob, is starting 5th grade! 
It’s his last year at school in our backyard! His last year of real childhood before full-on adolescence! His last year at the same school with both his other siblings before his senior year of high school! Of course Elise is not far behind him. 
She broke her glasses AGAIN this Summer so she is having to start the year off without. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get them replaced. The boys, on the other hand, are having to start the new schoolyear without all the extra hair they’ve been mopping around with all Summer. To their dismay of course, Mom won the argument over whether or not to cut the “Disney hair” before classes started so last night the clippers came out! Jacob asked for his now standard soccer season fauxhawk, but while I was working on that, Josh took the clippers to poor Cameron who, while still adorable, may have to wear a hat just to keep his head warm! In case you notice the scrape on his forehead, that is not a result of Josh cutting his hair, he did that on the bottom of the pool last Saturday. 
Our school system is starting something new this year–instead of having early dissmissal once a month, they are doing a late start every Wednesday, starting today. Of course the kids were up, showered, fed and ready to go by the regular time and it was near impossible to get them to just hang around the extra hour! I tried to stall them as much as possible with pictures but they kept advancing to the school.
Well, technically, we are back at home, but for whatever reason (actually, there are many) I am just having a difficult time getting back on top of things. Still, I thought I’d just post a few pictures of the highlights of our little road trip so you can all see what we’ve been up to this month.
And I’m too tired to mess with getting them all in the right order right now or do much explaination, but I hope you enjoy!
Happy birthday my Elena! The years are just flying by! I just try to keep up and make them memorable. To quote the book by Robert Munsch, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”
I have been blessed by our creator with a wonderful loving and understanding Prudent Wife. (Proverbs 16:21 and Proverbs 19:14).