Thanksgiving Fest

Back at the beginning of October our church hosted a wonderful Thanksgiving Fest for the neighbourhood. In the past few years, all the city churches have worked together to do something like this in a central location. Since that wasn't possible this year, our church did a smaller version on the church property. 

It went really well, and people seemed to enjoy the time outside with their families, doing fun activities and eating good food. The art school had an exhibit that included some of our kids' work. There were several bounce places and trampolines; Raia and Asya helped with those. And games, and balloons, and weird people in costumes (), and more....

There's one short video clip here; I saw Bogdan right at the beginning of it, and Raia a little further in. These are the photos that the church kids club shared, and Asya is in one of them.

The only sad bit was that our neighbours were planning to go with us, and the kids were looking forward to it all the week before. But then their father had a terrible toothache, so they stayed home. Bogdan was especially heartbroken. But maybe they'll come next time.

Airport field trip

This was way back on September 12, but I already have the photos sorted out, so here they are. We had tried to sign up for a joint field trip to the history museum and airport this summer, but it filled up way too fast. They called again in September, though, and asked if we still wanted to go on a second excursion... tomorrow. The older kids were busy, but Bogdan and Will went. They had a great time!

The last photo is a souvenir that Bogdan made for himself afterwards with a bolt that he found at the airport.

Fall Break

We're in the midst of fall break. It was set for this week, and schools were supposed to go to distance learning for a week before that, then Kherson schools decided not to.... I'm glad we homeschool! But we do have to keep up with other schedules, too. Art and music school had slightly different breaks, and Asya's individual music lessons are at two different elementary schools. Music school just announced that their break is extended; will we hear that from other directions soon, too?

The covid situation in Ukraine is not getting better. Kherson region was green all along, then all of a sudden went yellow, then orange, which is were we sit now. Local elections were on Sunday, and many people were expecting changes after that, but I'm not seeing any. Several people we know have been sick, but they're getting better now.

I've asked for prayers for documents off and on for a while now. We're actually getting down to the line with one. It's something the local Christian college needs in order to be able to register us again, and it's been stuck since March. Lately they've been told every week that it will be ready, but it obviously hasn't been. Please pray that it actually will come through today! Otherwise we're going to have to get creative.

Here are some random photos. One day Will and I went out for lunch at a beautiful place while our kids were busy:

Morning glories are still blooming:

Lots of art going on--one at home, others at school:

And a little bit of fall colour:

Hopefully I'll be able to put up some more posts in the next few days, while we're free from school.

Art contest voting

 Raia's and Bogdan's work for the Lviv art contest is up for voting!

Raia's picture is here in the older category, and Bogdan's is here with the younger contestants. They each had 5 or 6 votes before I even noticed that the pictures were up, and, of course, we'd love to see lots more from our family and friends. 

I'm editing this post to add in the illustration Will made about how to vote:

After voting, that blue strip turns green and says "thank you for your vote" (in Ukrainian).

A few photos

 The first month of school has gone well, and we're started into the second. This year our neighbour kids are going to school, which makes for less interruptions, but we miss them. They're back and forth a lot, though, because they're supposed to stay home for any suspicion of any sickness, and they do. The littlest one is still at home, and there was one morning when she had wandered over to our side while we were doing school. I heard her mother calling for her to come back, and her little voice answering very tragically, "I can't!"

Photos of 1) a wet afternoon, 2) all the nuts the boys have collected, 3) Jaan practicing, 4) Bogdan hiding from going to solfeggio, and 5) Raia's art class working outside.