A little of everything

About 8:30 Alyosha jumps out of bed to tell me that there was something he just couldn’t wait another minute to share with me—their class has earned 28 pom-poms and when they get to 30, there will be a hot chocolate party.  At 9 o’clock, Alyosha gets out of bed to tell me that he can’t go to sleep because there is already a party going on in his brain and it won’t let him sleep.  I thought that was a good one…The scientists, working. 

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone.  We had a really nice one and even though I thought I was going to do a simple meal, it seems as though I spent the whole morning last Thursday in the kitchen.  It was a pleasure though—cooking the turkey, dressing, roasted vegetables and an apple and pumpkin pie.  The holiday felt like a little pause in our regular life of trying to just get things done.  We spent it walking in the city together—sharing stories of our life with friends—and eating yummy food.  Cheryl came down for 3 days from her new job in Alaska.  The kids love Cheryl and she just makes us feel special since she thinks we are worth coming all the way here for a visit.

Alyosha helped with the turkey, he likes the gadget part of Thanksgiving.  I brined it for 12 hours, seasoned it with fresh sage and basil and cooked it covered in cheese cloth to make sure it didn’t get too dry for Roma’s taste.  Rome said the juice squeezed out while he was carving it, so I guess it worked!

   The wish bone.  Our turkey had strong bones, but Alyosha finally won.  I totally forget what he wished for, I will have to go ask him and update tomorrow!

 

 

See, a little of everything in this post.  I couldn’t narrow down these pictures-they are just too fun.  We went to the tree lighting just before we said good-bye to Cheryl.  Alyosha and Luka got a picture with Santa (we get them Friday) but Niki would have nothing of it.  He is pretty good at posing with his brothers though.  Alyosha said cool and calm that he wants a microscope from Santa this year and Luka said with eyes wide open that he wants a horse.  One of two isn’t too bad, right?

We found out, through only unofficial sources, that our water was found tainted with e-coli since Wednesday.  We found out on Saturday eve that we should be boiling our water before we do anything with it—since Wednesday!  When we found out, at the tree lighting ceremony, we decided to stop by the grocery store to grab a couple of bottles of water to tide us over.  We ended up grabbing the last few bottles on the shelf.  That was actually amazing to me because here we were, on Saturday evening reacting to something that the Portland Water Bureau knew since Wednesday.  I understand if we didn’t know what was going on because we don’t have a TV, but no one knew until Saturday which was when the shelves were emptied of their bottled water.  Well, we are all fine and we only had to live 24 hours with the inconvenience of boiling water before we used it.  Thank goodness we can trust our water supply most of the time.  Roma’s aunt said that she always uses boiled water to do anything in Moscow.  My grandma didn’t even have running water when she was growing up, they hauled it in barrels from town; she fought with her brother to get to the bath first because the first one had the fresh water! 

I just like to turn on my tap and chug that fresh water.  24 hours of not being able to do that really put into perspective some of the things to be thankful for!