What I have been working on.

One reason I haven't been writing too much on the blog about our lives is becasue I have been searching about our past lives. It is so cool to find a little tidbit here and there of a Great Grandmother or Grandfather 7-8-9 times ago. Anyway, it is a big project! and takes up too much time!
I am into the 1800's now, so things are looking up! Here is some information put together from various places about my 9th (Alyosha's and Luka's 10th) Great Grandmother from the Netherlands...

Margaretta Van Slichtenhorst
1628-1711
9th Great Grandmother of Jennifer Marie Bristow

Margarita's Poem for her Father, Brant Arantse van Slichtenhorst
I'm young Margarita van Slichtenhorst,
My father's the Master, we call him Baas,
Of de Heer van Renssalaer's Bouwerie,
This brought us here from the Zuider Zee.
My mother is dead, and I'm all alone
To care for my father's simple home,
But I try to do it as well as may be,
Though I long for my home by the Zuider Zee.
My father's a man who knows so much,
Though you'd not understand his Holland Dutch.
He is not handsome, and yet, you know,
He's brave and kind, and I love him so.

Hi Faithful people!

What a year it has been so far! So busy, and now Alyosha is 4! Yikes! We have been doing everything except sitting still. To the park, bike riding, tulip festival AND the 4th birthday party. Click on these links to see more pictures: Birthday Party
Spring tim in Portland

Spring, Tulips and Red

Ах весна! Наконец-то.

В эти выходные она просто ворвалась к нам, открыла все окна, подняла настроение, схватила нас и уволокла по давней семейной традиции (да мы уже как 5 лет здесь!) на фестиваль тюльпанов в Вудборне, что в 40 минутах от Портленда. В этот раз мы прихватили с собой друзей (Итана и Ко).

Фестиваль проходит в месте где в давние времена проживали индейцы племени Калапуя. Разленившись от праздного образа жизни в богатой дарами долине Вилламетт, эти хлопцы придумали следующий способ охоты на диких животных - они сжигали траву на огромной территории, оставляя свеженькую травку только лишь на небольшом отрезке, прилегающим к вигваму. Звери, не найдя чего пожевать сходились на этой единственной уцелевшей зеленой территории и мирно паслись, не подозревая о коварстве и предприимчивости Калапуйцев. А те, в свою очередь, лёжа на топчане и отодвигая большим пальцем своих обленившихся ног шторки вигвама, стреляли в бедных животных из лука. Так, Калапуйцы, практически изобрели первую в Америке схему доставки свежей еды на дом.

Так, вот благодаря лени индейцев, сжигавших регулярно траву, в этой долине была очень благодатная почва, в добавок к естественным погодным условиям Орегона. Всё это создало наиблагоприятнейшие условия для тюльпанчиков, всех видов и расцветок, на чём и решили зарабатывать предприимчивые европейцы, выгнав ленивых калапуйцев в более скромные, по своей природе, места. Но, предварительно, они заразили их своими европейскими заразами, коих калапуйцы пережить не смогли и, в массе своей, вымерли.

Обычно, на фестивале не так много народу, но в эти выходные там было столпотворение. Огромные пространства залитые яркими красками тюльпанов распологали нас с Женей к умиротворённому созерцанию плодов своего творчества (детей). Лёшка и Лукошко наслаждались, в свою очередь, плодами развитого капитализма, который остервенело собирал кровно-заработанные гроши у населения.

- Папа, папа, смотри, какие качели! Ах, я никогда не катался на таких качелях! А какой коровкин поезд (MooCow Train)! Это самое лучшее что здесь есть! Папа, папа, смотри какой вертолёт!

Кстати, о вертолёте. Эта сволочь, летала над полём с тюльпанами, нарушая идилию, весь день! За 30 долларов нашлось огромное количество людей, которым хотелось сделать два круга над полём.

Славный денёк. Фотки здесь.

The Pirate without a ship

There was a pirate. This pirate didn't have a ship but he really wanted one. So, since he didn't have his own ship he decided to build one for himself. So far he had one board and that was what he was sailing on.


Yes, he was in the middle of the ocean hanging on to one board and he was as happy as could be because that was the beginning of his ship. So, along came a shark. And the shark was so surprised to see a pirate just floating in the middle of the ocean-all alone and without a ship. (the shark didn't know that the board was the pirates 'ship')

The shark was so surprised that he stopped in the middle of his swimming to ask the Pirate what was going on. "PIRATE! Are you crazy? You are out here floating in the middle of the ocean with no pirate ship! A shark could come up and eat you any time he wanted."


The pirate replied, "First, I do have a ship. It is here, this board is the first board of the ship I am going to build for myself. Second, a shark could not eat me! If one even tries I will take my board and bop him on the head and he will swim away as fast as he can."


The shark was amazed that this pirate was so strong that he is going to build an entire pirate ship himself and so brave that he would float in the middle of the ocean just hanging onto one board. He was trying to decide whether or not he should just eat up that pirate or become his friend...so he decided to become his friend.


The pirate was pretty excited to get a shark as a friend. So the two of them swam around for a while, then the shark remembered that he was actually hungry. He looked at the pirate but remembered that he shouldn't eat his friends so he said, "Pirate, I'm hungry but I don't want to eat you. Do you have something I could eat?"


The pirate said "the only thing I have is this one board. If you would like to eat it I will give it to you."


The shark thanked him and opened his mouth wide to fit the entire board in his mouth. Then, the board got stuck and he could not get it out at all. The pirate tried to help but it wasn't budging! So, there the shark was with a big stick stuck in his mouth and the pirate didn't have is board to float on anymore.


The two of them made a deal...the pirate would sit on the back of the shark to get around and the shark would just keep that stick in his mouth forever.


After a while the head of the shark started stretching and stretching--and then the pirate noticed "Ha, ha, ha shark!! Your head looks like it is shaped like a hammer!! You are a hammerhead!!!"


The shark didn't mind being a hammerhead, actually he kind of liked it. Later he met a beautiful girl shark and they got married and had lots of baby sharks--and they were all little baby hammerhead sharks! And that is how there are hammerhead sharks in the world.


And, about the pirate...When the hammerhead shark got married he finally dropped the pirate off on a little island in the Caribbean Sea. There, the pirate built a ship so big that it couldn't even sail on the ocean. So it is just sitting there like a house and you can go visit it if you dare.

Pirates, sharks and Bananas

There was a homeless man in the park today, sleeping by a stump. He was snoring and the kids thought he was a bear—but he turned out to be a man instead. I guess that really made an impression on Alyosha because he mentions it every time you ask him a question about what he learned about in nature school today… He asked why the man was homeless, and that is a hard question to answer…but I told him one reason might be because the man doesn’t know that he has any skills so he doesn’t know what job to do. That is why we are helping you learn lots of skills like reading and writing and about bugs and nature and bike riding…

He said that if he could read he would read lots of books about pirates and learn everything about pirates that he could learn about—and I told him that if he learned the skill of writing then he could think up of his own story and write it down and share it with grandma and grandpa and all his friends. This is the story he helped tell and when it was finished he told me to go write it down because it was soooo funny and he wanted to show his friends….let’s see if I remember it!

There was a pirate on his pirate ship. The pirate was standing on the very top of the mast of his ship looking out to make sure there were no sharks around. Especially one shark—a shark as big as the pirate ship who could eat up that ship in one gulp. He was looking and looking but didn’t see anything, yet he kept looking out.

All of a sudden he saw THE shark. He yelled down to all the other pirates “the shark is coming, the shark is coming” All the other pirates started running around figuring out what to do. The pirate yelled again “THE SHARK IS COMING” He yelled so loud that the pirates ears popped off their head and then popped back on.

They couldn’t decide whether or not to jump off the ship and swim or just try to go as fast as they could. So they saw an island and started sailing towards the island. The propeller on the ship was spinning as fast as it could and the pirates had paddles helping the ship go even faster.

The ship was going so fast that when it got to the beach of the island the whole ship just popped up on the land! And it was a good thing it did, because if it stayed in the water the shark surly would have gulped it up.

The pirates jumped out of the ship to have a look at the shark in the water. He was so upset because he wanted to eat the ship up. The pirates were laughing and laughing because they got away. They saw some banana trees on the beach and pulled down all the bananas and threw them to the shark. They said “Shark, you should be a monkey because we can give you bananas but we won’t let you eat us!”

And that is Alyosha’s story (mostly his…)