Rewind #5: Stephen!

(I'm leaving these to post automatically while we're at our dacha.)

For those of you who don't know, Stephen is one of my "little brothers." No, we're not related in anyway, but our families were neighbors and very close friends for as long as I can remember. He was on a missions trip in Russia, and then he came over here to visit us.

Stephen arrived on the day of Pentecost. His train got into Zaporozhya just after noon, so I skipped out of church a little early to go meet him. We had an uneventful trip back from there, dropped his luggage off and headed right out to dinner at our friend Lena's home. From there we took him to the evening church service, and then out to our dacha to sleep. We welcomed him by making him blow up an air mattress for himself.


The next morning our first butterfly emerged from its chrysalis!  Of course, Stephen got to be in on the excitement, taking pictures and watching with us.

I really didn't take too many pictures of Stephen with our camera.  He was doing more of the photographing while he was here.  (I might get around to posting more of his photos later.  He have me permission, but I'd have to sort through them still.  He did put some up on his blog.) Here's one of the few I do have from when he was at our dacha. . . Jaan and Stephen by the fire one night:

Stephen's visit flew by way too fast.  After the Sullivans left, we had one night in our apartment, and then we left, too.  These next pictures are from that short time in our apartment.  Reading together:

And a pillow fight!

I thought it was funny that the whole time Jaan and Raia were attacking Stephen, Asya was quietly sitting with a book right next to them.  She hardly ever even looked up, and it was a WILD pillow fight.

Rewind #4: Poor Yozh!

(I'm leaving these to post automatically while we're at our dacha.)

I said Stephen was next, but I forgot one little event. Our poor hedgehog scraped his nose somehow. I was afraid it would get infected because he's so dirty, so we fought him and got some antibiotic ointment on it. Can you imagine how hard it is to get something onto a hedgehog's nose? When they're angry, their spines come down over their noses. We would hold out a cookie, and he would stretch out his nose, then we'd reach out to spread the ointment, and he'd curl up again. I finally got some onto the spines over his nose, and he spread it himself when he folded them down.  And he's fine now!

Rewind #3: Sullivan's visit, part 3

(I'm leaving these to post automatically while we're at our dacha. I also added a photo in down below here.)

We got to celebrate Roz's birthday a few days early with a simple little surprise.

Raia gave Aunt Roz a wilted peony that she had found.

"'Sazh"

This isn't a great photo, but it's something really cute that Asya often does. She loves to give "massages." She'll come up to someone, say, "'саж" (массаж) and then gently squeeze their shoulders for a few seconds. I say that if she'd just learn to do it for a few minutes longer, it would be heavenly!

Later, Aunt Roz bought special straws that flavor milk as a treat!




And then, sadly, they had to leave:

Next up, as I go back over recent events, is Stephen's visit!

A peaceful day

Remember our jellyfish last year?  We went swimming this morning, and there were hundreds of them!  They seemed to stay all in one area, out where the water was almost to my shoulders.  Even the very biggest ones are only about the size of an American quarter; they're little.  Asya was especially enthralled with this new kind of "baby."  When it was time to leave, I dragged her out of the water, with her protesting and trying to tell every single jellyfish goodbye.  Unfortunately, it looks like the whole web site on them that I read and linked to before is not working, but there's a Wikipedia article.

I was sorry I didn't take the camera this morning.  Last year I took our children down to the beach quite often, almost every day once it got really hot.  This year we're spending more time at our dacha than the beach, but I still wanted to get in a good bit of swimming.  I was just a little nervous about how to do it, now that I have three active little ones to keep up with.  I mean, I had three last year, but Asya wasn't very mobile, and Jaan and Raia were very cautious about the water.  All that has changed now!  However, this year is easier than ever.  Two sweet girls from church have started going with me.  They are sisters, 14 and 10 years old, who live right near us, and are ready whenever I call.  It's almost unreal how easy it is with them helping me.  This morning I spent most of my time just sitting on the blanket, watching everyone play happily, or swimming with one child at a time.  Hopefully we'll make this a Monday tradition.

Everyone is napping now, and then we're headed out to our dacha for the rest of the week.

The many faces of Raia

I still have more catch-up "rewind" posts coming up, but here's something different first.  Raia's fourth birthday was a week ago. In honor of that, I'm posting some beautiful pictures that Stephen took of her. (He is a great photographer!) We actually celebrated her birthday in Kiev, but those photos will be coming later. For now, Beautiful Blue Eyes. . . .











(All the photos here are by Stephen Icardi.)

Rewind #2: Sullivan's visit, part 2

(I'm leaving these to post automatically while we're at our dacha.)

The Sullivans also weeded our garden for me. That's one of the most impossible jobs for me to do with my helpers. They tend to pull up everything all together, so to protect the garden, I don't get around to weeding very often. I don't have a before picture, but doesn't it look beautiful after?


While they were here, we had a wonderful visit with our friend Lena and her mother.

(Raia learning about how to make manti, the Kazakstani version of pelmeni/pozi/vareniki.)


That's when Stephen arrived, but I'll write about his visit separately later.



This photo makes me laugh. Photographers at both ends of an onion:


One night the Sullivans made delicious chicken shashlik for all of us. Jaan and Uncle Tom worked hard to cook it. I didn't get any photos of that process, but here they are enjoying the last piece of meat:


And then ice cream:



Campfire:

Rewind #1: Sullivans' visit, part 1

(I'm leaving these to post automatically while we're at our dacha.)

I think I left off writing somewhere around the time that the Sullivans arrived. Like last year, they came to visit us while renewing their Russian visas. We had such a wonderful time together! Just being with them was a treat. They also were determined to bless us beyond that, and they did that by working on various projects around here.

Like I said, they cleared our weed patch for us. Their before and after photos of that are just amazing. If they don't post them later, I'll see about doing it myself. Andrei also worked on cutting up wood for us to use in the stove at our dacha.  (And I didn't mention that they painted the church fence and our living room, too.)

We went swimming often while they were here. It's extra fun with friends!


(There are two friends from church in that photo, too.)

In between projects, there was time for food and fellowship at our dacha. I love this photo of Roz and Andrei photographing caterpillars and a chrysalis for me:

(Asya's favorite food is ketchup.)

Kansas postcards

Could the family who sent us three postcards from Kansas please email me (mayakovsky@willphyl.com) your mailing address? We want to send a thank you!



The Postcard Project is coming along beautifully! If we haven't answered you yet, I'm sorry. We will. We're just moving slowly. We have been so busy lately that the incoming postcards have just been added to the pile. When we're home we have a wonderful time working through that pile, but we only do one or two at a time. Each postcard "lesson" involves reading the postcard, finding the state on our map and coloring it in, hanging the postcard, discussing the state and the card, and putting together an answer for the sender. Such fun!

(Pictures from recent busyness coming later. There's a lot to sort through!)

Here today. . .

. . . gone tomorrow.

I'm just checking in quickly. We saw the Sullivans off yesterday. () Please pray for them as they travel! Today we're leaving for Kiev with Stephen. Check those blogs for updates while we're away. I've been linking to Stephen's posts, and the Sullivans will probably put something up once they get home.

Bye again for now!

Second dacha week

I quickly posted photos, but I never did say much about our second dacha week. (Actually, I have more photos to add, but I don't have them with me right now, so I'll do it later.) Now that we're almost up to the third week, I'll tell you a little. Some highlights of the past week were that Jaan's caterpillar hatched! We saw a pheasant on the hill right above our dacha, and while we were out walking, I almost stepped on a hedgehog. I was holding Asya then, and after that experience, she kept pointing everywhere in the woods, saying "Yizha? Yizha?" (That's how she says hedgehog.) Will got our shower set up, and I'm really enjoying having that. He worked all day Wednesday to get it ready, since the water is supposed to come on Wednesday evening. It didn't ever come on that night, but we got it filled up on Friday. It's cold, but it sure is nice and refreshing!  Also, we celebrated Ascension.

The biggest treat of the week was that the Sullivans arrived late Thursday night! Saturday they came out to see our dacha, and they cleared our "weed patch" for us, all in one day of hard work. We have a separate garden patch. If you remember in one of the older photos I posted, there's a tunnel under old railroad tracks visible in the background. Our garden is on the other side of that. It was covered in weeds, higher than my head. We had pretty much given up on doing anything with it this year. Now I can plant pumpkins and watermelons and whatever else I want to over there! I just need to get moving on that. . . .

Oh, while they were clearing out the weeds, the Sullivans and Jaan found a huge snake skin! They also discovered new caterpillars that we're very excited about, but I'll write more on that later.

Day of Ascension

You may have noticed that the Easter music is gone. The Easter season is wrapping up. It officially ends on Sunday, with the day of Trinity or Pentecost. A week ago today we celebrated Christ's Ascension. Instead of going to church, we had our own little holiday at our dacha. First they climbed the "mountain," to "find Jesus" one last time.


Jaan found him, and then we sat and read the story of Christ's last appearance to his disciples and how He went up into heaven after that.  

Once we had read the story, they acted it out. Jaan took care of the technical details, while Raia managed the clouds that hid Jesus from sight. Asya was just excited. They enjoyed that so much that we did it several times over.  

Then the Bible says that Jesus' friends "worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." So, we worshipped and lit fireworks to show our joy!