Another Milestone....

Today was the big day - Richard turned 65 and the grandkids had a great time celebrating it with him! Misha was even up early wanting to celebrate which was cute. The day started with Misha organising a "Treasure Hunt" for his Papa to try and find his cards and gifts....quite fun. Misha had done this for his 5th birthday recently so I guess he thought it was a good idea.

Going to church on Sunday is a little different here - we didn't go until after lunch with the service being at 2 p.m. so we had a quiet morning I guess, only going out to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies. One realises how much we take for granted both in the States and in New Zealand when it comes to grocery shopping - we just hop in our cars and go to the supermarket and buy as much as we want for the week or whatever and drive home. Not so here.....we walk to the market and only buy what we know we can carry home with us!!! And, walk up 3 flights of stairs when we get there too - no wonder Debbie is looking so nice and slim these days ;-)
Anyway, back to church.....we all walked about 5 min to the bus stop where we boarded a mini-bus which took us 'near' their church where we walked again. They hold their church meetings in a rented room at a school- everything is very old and not well cared for which is a shame.
After church (we only stayed for an hour as it's pretty tough when you don't understand anything!!) we went for a walk to see where Misha's school is before walking to the Metro train which took us back to near their apartment where we walked again to a typical Russian restaurant to have a celebration birthday dinner. This restaurant was really cute and old fashioned looking with Russian style food - which we enjoyed very much. We then walked back to the apartment where we had birthday cake (that Debbie had made) and ice-cream.

The sun still doesn't go down here until around 9 or so, so the days are long and we are still suffering a little from jet lag, but it is getting better. It is hard to get kids to bed when the sun is still shining.

Tomorrow we go to the school where Les teaches English and through which we got our visas - we have to take a few classes in the Russian language and learn a little about the culture or something - I'm not too excited about the study side of things but it will be interesting to see what happens. I think we are to take about 5 classes or something - will keep you informed.

It has been interesting to get to know our grandkids again.....Misha is a very strong willed child so keeps his parents on their toes, but is a loveable kid! Very bright and will go far. Sydney is a honey but a very independant child and wants to do EVERYTHING by herself thankyou very much!! Dresses herself and puts her shoes on and all that kind of thing and is speaking very well. The only thing she doesn't do well is grow hair!!! But it is coming in a little bit now and looks like it might be curly.

We are enjoying being here and seeing just how Deb and Les live - they have a beautiful apartment but life isn't easy here from what we see - reminds us of early days in Colombia where you take public transport everywhere and the city is dirty and drab. But, they are very happy it would seem and these things come naturally to them now.

Until the next instalment.....