Gunny and me on Independence Day

Holiday modelling

Ho, Ho, Who?

The Embassy community tries to set up a normal set of events that celebrate U.S. holidays.  Here we have the Holiday party at the Deputy's house.  Miss S was quite excited to sit on Santa's knee, in part as she realized it resulted in a treat at the end.  Our dear 3 year old wouldn't sit still, and had no interest in getting a photo taken.  She is a smart cookie, and realized she'd get treats anyway (which she did.) 

And for the record, the requested toy was a Mermaid Barbie, which Santa managed to deliver, so well done, Miss S!

Christmas Safety Swim!

Miss G took swimming lessons last year through EasySwim, which is a great program near our house.  (She had to take a term off since she refused to wear the swim cap and goggles, but that's a different story...)  The last lesson of each term, they do water safety, a highly logical undertaking given that we live on an island surrounded by cold, fast-moving water.   

This photo is from 2 days after Miss G's 3rd birthday.  They put the kids in life jackets, put them in a boat, and flip the boat over.  Sounds cruel, right?  But much like our endless earthquake drills here, it's quite useful. They do it gently, and the kids in the group then grab each others' life jackets, to make sure they stay together.  Hope we never have to use it but, like those earthquake drills, we may just have to...

Oh, and the hands under chin is her favorite way to express happy/sad/overwhelmed feeling.  My girl... 



Moving from pre-school to Kindergarten (or Year 1 as they call it here) is quite a big deal, not least as the girls graduate to the uniform you see here. An idiosyncracy of New Zealand is that the kids move up to Year 1 the day after they turn 5, regardless of when it is during the year.  So we had our transition in September of 2012 to Ms Ongley's class, with a whopping 6 kids in it.  Girls who come in after June 30 complete the year and then do another full year, those before June 30 may end up only doing six or seven months of Year 1.  Got it?

And now on to the uniform: A full tie - with Windsor knot - for 5 year olds?  Still beyond my capabilities.  And what you are viewing is the summer form, with light blue Orphan-Annie-workhouse-drab as they key component.  We wear this from October to April, and then the winter uniform, which has a navy jumper and light blue button down, is actually quite a bit cuter.  Although the initial financial outlay is a bit steep, over time I figure the cost per use makes it a wise investment.  Not least because no one but me in the family is a morning person. I am typically dragging people into the car half-dressed and grumpy (me AND them.) 

Aargh!

Miss S decided on a Pirate Pricess-themed 5th birthday party in September.  Conveniently, GranDora and Aunty Voo sent along an amazing couple of costumes.  The youngest child, of course, only wanted to wear the fairy underdress, and not the lovely pink overdress with sparkles.  Then again, at this point, she was in week 3 of her "defining boundaries" stage - she had refused to wear pants (only dresses), socks or shoes.  Drove me batty.  At daycare they told her she couldn't go outside without shoes - her response?  "Ok."  Future lawyer or politician, that one....

But back to the party - she was delighted to be a pirate, and we eve had a spare eyepatch around.  She kept saying "aaaargh", and squinted her eye just so.  I organized a treasure hunt in the backyard, and we painted ceramic pig piggy banks, and glued/stuck sparkly fake gems on pirate hats.  It was a beautiful, beautiful Spring day, and to give you a sense of how well it went, when I called them all in from playing outside to come have some cake... they didn't want to!  

And jsut to compete with Aunty Lisa, I made a giant cupcake shaped cake, frosted it brown, stuck jewels in halfway around, and it made a great treasure chest. 

Cousins

Here's the wonderful Miss S at Lindale in Paraparaumu with her much older, cooler 7 year old cousin Jovahn.  They fed the animals there, hence the packages of pellets.  They went with Nana, who told me a funny story.  When they were getting ready to go home, Jovahn asked if he could ride back with Nana, not his Mum, since on the ride up Miss S had talked the whole way.  That's my girl!

Ballet and Rugby aren't all that different

Miss S had her first ballet lesson last Saturday.  I was afraid that she would arrive and be overwhelmed with shyness, or decide that it wasn't her cup of tea.  You can get a sense of my reticence in the fact that she is wearing old, black dance slippers.  I refused to shell out for proper slippers until I was convinced she'd do this more than once. 

As you can see, I needn't have worried.  Her teacher, Miss Amy, was wonderful and the 30 minutes flew by.  You couldn't wipe the grin off of her face. Except, that is, when she was imitating an alligator, or practicing her face for her "sad toes."

At the end each girl stood in the hula-hoop, put their hands on their shoulders and one leg on the other knee, and balanced.  Some more successfully than others, but they all loved it.  We're hooked!

 Later that day we went on a great adventure, to Mangatinokoa, pop 200.  Also the home of the famous Tui Beer Brewery.  They had arranged for the Wellington Hurricanes to play the Christchurch Crusaders in a stadium built on a paddock, with seating for around 8,000.  To give you an idea, this is akin to asking the Washington Redskins to play in your front yard.  These guys are "bloody legends" around here, not least because many of them are All Blacks, and just came off of a successful Rugby World Cup campaign.  In fact, the guy carrying the Tui keg-shaped trophy is none other than Richie McCaw.  Wow...

Alushta and the Yalta Zoo

Still being hung on by my little helpers...

We stayed in a well-advertised but slightly more primitive than we thought cabin in the “town” of Alushta, about 20 minutes from the thriving metropolis of Yalta. The coastline is really lovely, reminding me a bit of Wellington with its steep hills and narrow beaches. This being Ukraine, however, it is still chilly in May, so we largely ignored the sun-bathing sights. The hotel was called the Green Mussel “Zeleny Mis” or maybe the Green Harbor-Protrusion. My Ukrainian is still shaky. The photos on the website looked good, and the room itself was excellent. What was not mentioned was the substantial renovation of the hilly and mud-covered driveway and paths to the cottages. Since it was wet and rainy, this meant a lot of dirt. And they said they had a restaurant. Which apparently they did, if one was willing to stretch their understanding of that phrase, and include a restaurant a 5 minute drive back towards the main highway. Whatever, we are easy customers, and bring our own bananas and yogurt and breakfast bars everywhere for just this type of emergency.

Our first outing on the Monday was to the Yalta Zoo. You may remember from way back that the Kyiv Zoo is an abomination, and actually lost its accreditation as a zoo during our tour, due to the death of a large number of animals, including an elephant and some monkeys. But we had heard that the manager of this zoo was serious about animal well-being, and really criticized the Kyiv Zoo. So we gave it a shot, hoping it wouldn’t scar our young charges for life. As you can see, it was an excellent mix of animals, amusement park, and weird and anomalous sculptures and rococo architecture. Just what one would expect. And so, we all rode plaster camels and elephants, stood in plaster kangaroos and pretended to be eaten by alligators… and basically just monkeying around (ha, ha, get it?)



The amusement park aspect was the most interesting for our big girl (I though the white peacock was quite cool, myself), especially the bouncy castle (or batuta in Russian.) So we rode the ferris wheel and watched her jump on the batuta for half an hour. From the ferris wheel you could see down the gorge to the water, and get a sense of why Crimea is a tourist destination, and why the Russians fought many wars to keep their warm-water entry point for their navy.

Yalta - Of Castles, McDonalds and Just Chillin'

 (I'll edit this and make the pictures the right way around, once I am not being hung on by two dependent humans..) Our next port of call was Yalta itself. Keep in mind, as my dear husband did since I kept reminding him, I had been to Yalta once before – 15 years ago. Wow – a lot has changed, and yet nowhere near as much as I had hoped or expected. If they really want to attract tourists (other than Russians) they need to renovate, develop a service culture, and stop being corrupt. Hey – it could happen… So there are examples of famous architecture, and also examples of more familiar architecture (photo of McDs food.) The central area of Yalta is a sweeping expanse of concrete boardwalk. There are hawkers and buskers and strollers and rides and kiosks, hotels and cruise ships, and lots of variety. We had a nice walk, despite the gloomy weather.


We headed back in the direction of our hotel, stopping at the scenic overlook for a brief break in the clouds, which let us shoot a photo of the harbor in all of its majesty. We then stopped at the ??? Castle, which unfortunately contained no princesses. Since our kids were small, we opted out of the tour since I was afraid the little “destructor” would trash the 18th century furnishings, or run amok, as she is wont to do. So we toured the gardens and took some photos again of the coastline. Everyone was getting tired, so we ate dinner, headed to the hotel, and set off the next morning for the quick drive back to Simferopol. The only hiccup was the damage to the car we had to pay for. I argued (it ended up being about $50) but in truth, we did bounce the back bumper as we made a 270 degree turn straight down to get to our hotel. So there was a scratch, albeit under the car. Not a good ending, but the flight was easy and we were back in Kyiv in time for dinner, and our dear teenage son had neither burned down the house nor appeared to have a party, although I’m still suspicious on that last point…

Final (Sniff!) Embassy Playgroups

It was with great sadness that we started counting down our last Wendesday afternoon playgroups with the Embassy kids.  I managed to stop by Abby’s house for one in early May, and snapped some shots of the girls, well, running around.  Here’s a good one of Lyuda and her girls.

We love Lyuda!

Crimea - From Simferopol to Alushta

Although my plan had been to meander slowly from the capital of Crimea down to the tourist-laden coast, stopping at the majestic ancient cave city of Bakchisaray and taking in a stroll along the port of Sevastopol, home of the Russian Naval Fleet, this was thwarted by extremely tired children.  We ended up doing what we in the State Department call a “windshield tour” of the city. 

We drove up to the overhanging cliffs and past the restaurant hawkers at Bakchisaray. 

We stopped in Sevastopol just long enough for Aaron to walk along the river, capturing photos of the ships and a pro-Russian group waving their flags.  (This was May Day after all.) 

I enjoyed an ice cream, blissfully for once, since the girls were asleep and couldn’t each eat half of my share.