purchased at Michael's. However, today's activity was a big hit: colored clay. While Seth was able sculpt meaningless blobs, Denara appeared to be in her element constructing a man, a woman, and a house for Kostin.
Blythe has really developed her English lesson plan now. She used this exercise to teach the kids the names of the colors. Even Kostin asked how to say "green" in English. He wouldn't actually do it himself, of course, but it's a start. Alina made a sculpture for papa after Blythe told her that Sunday is father's day. She would not let Seth see it and is keen to give it to him herself.
Alina spent most of the time painting with mama. We have to say we are quite impressed with her abilities. While she painted, Blythe read off words in Russian from one of the many language books we bought for ourselves before the trip and never bothered to use. Alina recited back all the English and corrected Blythe on her Russian pronounciation. Seth chose to absorb this information by osmosis.
Afterwards we went outside to play. We hate to tell all you east coasters, but the weather here has actually been beautiful for the last week. We wish we could bottle it up (sans the ozone) and send it home to you guys. Papa managed to keep any pictures from being taken of him while he was teaching the kids to play hopscotch. It was really embarassing to realize he remembered how to play and Blythe did not (embarassing for both parties). Alina took right to it; Kostin took to the piece of chalk we used to draw the board and ran off with that. We ended the day with Alina showing off her acrobatics again. One of these days we'll get a picture that does her justice.
After seeing the kids we tried to go somewhere healthy for lunch. Seth tried to describe the American style of salad to Denara. When she had to look up the word "lettuce" he gave up. Ultimately she took us to a different Chinese place than the one we had been to last week (not the same chain, even). We knew it was a good place when we realized they didn't have any menus in English. Blythe was on cloud 9 with an eggplant based vegetable dish, and Seth was happy to find beef dumplings that reminded him of good old American Chinese food. A little strolling around in the market place afterwards and here we are.We appreciate all the sympathetic responses to our lack of couch potato material. We are definitely going to check out that web site for TV shows. Nobody tell us what happened in the "Lost" season finale, okay?
Not to go into great detail, but we are having some bureaucratic/ flight scheduling difficulties getting home in a timely fashion. Some heavy duty prayers would be mighty appreciated.
2 comments:
As luck would have it, it is cooling off here in the east coast so all that hot weather training may not be immediately useful.
We'll be praying for a fast and comfortable trip home.
Seth, Marina, Andrei & Anya
Just the other day someone was mentioning a 7 foot tall man who does a street show in Boulder by folding himself up into a tiny little box. Maybe I'll hunt him down and get some insight into his skills, pass them along to you. Sheesh! Sending good vibes your way right now for a timely and safe trip home.
As for LOST, we had to watch the finale a day or two after on abc.com. It comes in quite nicely on the new HD version. We highly recommend it. It's a regular occurance here a the Mizia home since Miles is often not quite asleep at 9 pm mountain time. And the advent of watching TV shows on the website is just another mark in favor of my campaign to rid our home of a TV.
Seth, you really should have allowed some photos of hopscotch. And don't be ashamed, after all you and I played together often with that kind of stuff. And now aren't your abilities to hop on one foot so impressive? Ah, an easy way to dazzle the little ones. Kind of like when I was running before and after school programs and the kids thought my artwork was good. Stick figures unite!
Love you both- sending prayers and hugs-
Hillary, John, Miles, Mini Miz, Buddy and Pico
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