A day at the Lake!

Oh my! I haven't been to the water in Texas since the summer of 2003 and I have been dreaming about it for years! AND the water is just as good as I remember it! The water is warm and nice and we all just jumped right in. Well, Niki only stuck his toes in but he liked it too. Next week after Roma arrives we are camping on the lake for 4 days-right beside a nice little beach and hiking trails.

The boys are building a sand castle with the most important feature, a moat. We just happened to run into Sara McCall and her boys just as we pulled up to Sandy Beach.

Mama and Luka taking a swim. He is a little hesitant but if you take it nice and slow he likes it.

Auntie Trish is looking on while Luka fills my hair with sand--this is also a warning of the week to come. I just have to get used to being like a piece of sandpaper while we are camping.

That is our boat behind Luka--Joe Hall was great to let us just use it as much as we want while we are visiting. We will use it a lot!!! Niki rides well on it--he doesn't like his life jacket too much, but the motor of the boat puts him to sleep so he forgets about the thing around his body and head. (sorry no pictures, but it is kinda cute--next time maybe). The best thing about this boat is that next week when we have me and the 3 boys and Grandma and Grandpa and Trish like we had today, we will also be adding Jeremy, Roma Granny and maybe even Jeb and we will all fit comfortably!
Niki dipping his toes in to the lake

Nature School Tuesdays

Sellwood park again for Tuesday Nature School. This past Tuesday was the most beautiful Tuesday of the year. Roma studied in the park while everyone else attended their own duties, then we had a picnic lunch and stayed the rest of the day, lured in by the sun to forget any other responsibilites we may have.

Luka likes the see-saw, but I get a work out doing squats so he can go up and down. I noticed that in all newer parks that have see-saws, they have springs so the kids can do it themselves--I'm not sure which ones I like better.

Alyosha is a good tree-climber. We will work on this all summer so we can go apple pickng in the fall. Now he just climbs to shake the flowers down from the tree. Thank goodness it wasn't an apple tree--even the flowers fall pretty hard. That's gravity for ya.

The boys climb on Papa whenever they get a chance. It is great that he has the chance to spend so much time with them--but, even school takes up a lot of time so they take advantage of every minute.

Papa running with 2 boys. Look how long their hair is--tomorrow it will be all gone. :-(

A day at the Park

Saturday marked the first day of beautiful, beautiful warm sunny weather. We went to the farmers market (see video) and played at the park. It feels a little like we have been living in a cave, really hibernating for the past few months. It's great!

Alyosha can do the entire length of the monkeybars now..that means he is ready for kindergarden.

Even Niki enjoys the sun.

Family picture.

Keri Russel is in town filming a movie...Crowley. She spent her beautiful Saturday with her family at the farmers market and playground too. Luka and her son were staring each other down on the slide at the playground.

Slavic Breakdown

The car broke, but we were very lucky and it was an easy $95 fix. Gasoline was literally streaming out from under the tank, but with a little tape, glue and chewing gum, Roma fixed us right up--What a mechanic! (I'm kidding, a new gas filter and some kind of rings here and there and we are as good as new in our 2001 Dodge Caravan) This car WILL last for a long time, because it is ours (not the banks) and we will take care of it and we are lucky with cars. I am "Secreting" it.

We got to spend a whole day as a carless family with lots of plans all over town. We ended up only doing one of them, but it was a day well spent. This week was Old New Year and the Slavic Organization in Portland put on a full day event. We all hopped in the Max to SE 122nd and spent the day singing, dancing and listening to amazing bards.

It is so nice to see people who value culture and know how important it is to keep it for their kids. Not only giving value to your own culture--that is the root of understanding how valuable other cultures are too. At the Slavic festival, where many times only Russian was spoken, there was a regular white American family with their two little adopted girls from Guatemala. They spent the entire day, about 5-6 hours, just like us enjoying everything. There was also an Asian family who spoke Mandarin and Russian at home.

With all the wars and worldwide disagreements, it seems like countries and people who want to keep their monoculture are just asking to suffer. If people need to fight anything, the struggle is only with themselves; to keep the heritage they came from and not let it get lost in this globalized world. Then to be open enough to share it with others, without trying to change or judge others because of what or how they live. The world has so much value and things to offer beyond materialistic and monetary rewards.

To extend our cultural experience, we chatted with our co-Max Commuters on the way home. Alyosha sat next to a little boy about his age and his Mom was standing close by. Somehow we started a conversation over small talk and it turns out that this woman has 6 kids. Roma noticed the mom's red hair and the kids red, splotchy hair and he asked her if all her kids had red hair. She said, amazingly enough that they didn't and I told Roma that red hair is a recessive gene, so it is unusual for kids to get red hair unless both parents have the red hair gene. That is when the mom started to tell us more of her story..."the father of my first and third kid had dark black hair but their hair is blond and the father of my second kid has brown hair and so does she--but with red highlights. The father of my fourth kid was blond, but he has jet black hair just like your coat..." she didn't mention the father of the last two, but that was enlightening enough for the evening Max ride home.