Arboose

Ar-boose is Russian for watermelon. We found a great one today. Or I should say Tom did. There is a vendor down at our market that he likes a lot. It was a good size and very sweet. Lena says the best watermelons will come a little later when they are bigger. The one we had today was just a little guy!

Spencer came home all worn out. He didn't even make it over to Andrew's for his regular Friday visit. I got a text message from Judi saying she missed him. He is one of her extra kids! Spencer said the family he worked for had a big patio area that he swept completely clean in front and in back of the house. He was happy to have made some money. Knowing Spencer he is saving it for his time in Moscow.

We got a package of books today. It was great to read a new book. I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I enjoyed it a great deal. It was a fast read. I finished it while Tom and Nathan were watching Blade Runner.

Nathan went over to the post office with Olya's passport. At first they told him "no!". But, Olya called over there and straightened them out! Don't mess up the plans of a pregnant woman... she was not going over there no matter what they said. They finally conceded and gave the package to Nathan. I doubt Olya will go to the post office anytime soon. Hopefully, the gals over there will get used to seeing one of our guys picking up packages!

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is not just an American show. We stumbled across it a few weeks ago. And now it is a Sunday evening highlight. Because the questions & answers are printed on the screen we can play along. In Russian the title is кто хочет стать миллионаром?
Which would be pronounced Ktoh khochet stat millionarom. The highest prize is 3 million rubles...according to today's rate that is $111,104.83.

One of the teachers at school Madina, also watches the show. She enjoys playing along as well. At the end of the show they ask a question for the audience. If you are the first to phone in with the right answer you will win a prize. If we win we'll let you know!

Raining night and day!

It rained fairly hard last night and just stopped raining about a half hour ago. Lena is here cleaning ( she took over to give Olya a break in the final months of her pregnancy).

Nathan seems to have slept in as he is still in his room... When Lena peeked in there to see if she could clean his room she found Brownie asleep near Nathan's feet. Tom went in to look and wanted a photo. By the time I took a look it woke Brownie up. Photo op was lost! I led Brownie back to her kennel. And will tell Nathan when he wakes up about his visitor.

Spencer went off to school. He is so faithful to get up and make himself breakfast and a lunch and ride across town on his own. In California he never rode on public transportation alone. Here, even the smallest of children can be seen riding the bus to school on their own. They are shown the route once. After that they are expected to do it themselves. It is not that hard. Usually the conductor knows where the child needs to get off and makes sure it happens. Spencer said he doesn't get asked to show his bus pass most days. The conductor knows that he has one so why bother walking all the way over there to see it!

Tom told me that he and Tim had lunch at the American Diner yesterday. Tom was happy that he got a cheeseburger. They guys have all been there and speak highly of it. Maybe we will head there for Father's Day. It is not a holiday here so it shouldn't be overwhelmed with people.


We do have another Russian holiday coming up on Monday. It is like their independence day. That means we will not have school on Monday. Long weekends are always nice.

Wednesday Blahs

Today was my last class with Judi H. Her family is leaving for Helsinki a week earlier than they had planned. We pray that their visa renewal goes smoothly and that everything gets done in time for Bill to make it to Moscow on the date he is scheduled to be there.

Kathy and Mike have left and will soon be living in Kazakstan.

Yesterday, Andrew arrived and saved the day! He brought over two kilos of strawberries. Tom, Spencer and Andrew made an assembly line and got the berries cleaned and ready. We have 12 jars of jam put away. They are wrapped in my winter coat and are still cooling down under the kitchen table. Lena says it is best if they are allowed to cool down over a three day period. I touched one of the jars this morning and it was still warm!

Today we enjoyed bacon courtesy of Tim of Joy. Tom and Tim had lunch together today and Tim brought the bacon over as a gift! Nathan sent Tim home with a gift for TJ. He has been enjoying playing gameboy games and Nathan had the game Nintendogs that he was no longer playing and thought it would be perfect for TJ.

Today's sighting:
The big kids (teens) on the playground were playing soccer. The little kids were playing volleyball. The little ones could barely get the ball over the net. But, they seemed to be having fun trying!!!

end of the strawberry line

We have been searching for strawberries today.

We looked all over in our region for strawberries and everyone was sold out! We kept being told maybe later this evening after more have been picked. Spencer's friend Andrew found some for us over in his area. So he will bring them over.

It is jam making time here. Lena was going to help us today with our first batch. I have 4 kilograms of sugar. I have the pectin. But no berries yet. We have been saving jars all year. So we are all set... just waiting for Andrew to arrive. He will be Mr. Hero when he gets here.

rug cleaning

The other day as I was looking out our kitchen window I got to see a man cleaning a rug. This is not an unusual occurence... this job is done by men or women. What made this so interesting is the strap he is using to beat the rug with. Most of the people we watch use a broom handle or some type of stick. This guy was "beating the tar" out of this rug. The rug stayed outside for a few days before he came back to get it. A few dogs enjoyed the shade it provided for their naps! 

Russian Diplomat Killed, 4 Abducted in Iraq

Russian Diplomat Killed, 4 Abducted in Iraq
Created: 03.06.2006 16:53 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:53 MSK
document.write(get_ago(1149339217)); , 18 hours 14 minutes ago
MosNews


One Russian diplomat was killed and four diplomatic employees were abducted in the Iraqi capital on Saturday, the Associated Press reported quoting a Russian Embassy official in Baghdad.“Yes, I can confirm this. One diplomat killed, four employees kidnapped. That’s all I can say. No commentary,” the official, contacted by telephone from Moscow, told The Associated Press. He refused to give his name or provide any further details.Police in Baghdad said witnesses at the scene told them that gunmen opened fire on a car that belonged to the Russians in west Baghdad’s upscale Mansour district.Interior Ministry Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohamedawi said one person was killed in the incident.

German food from Kansas

The other night when we had dinner with Joy she was talking about a time when she was in Marion, Kansas. Tim's family is from there and they were having a family reunion.

She remembered eating bierochs. It has been a long time since Tom and I had them! Tom was saying we don't need a recipe because we know exactly what is in them. Cabbage, cooked ground beef (onions, if you like) and they are wrapped in bread dough and baked. Simple!

I found a premade bread dough that is for crescent rolls and it worked great. Cut the dough into squares and fill with cabbage and meat mixture. Serve with sour cream.

We want the boys to get in touch with their Kansas roots. Remembering this recipe was a great step in that direction!

cocktails!

I am sure you are wondering why I am talking about cocktails....

In Russian the word means "shake" as in milkshake! We are enjoying having a blender and all the fresh fruit there is here to make a shake or a smoothie with. For those of you in California think: Jamba Juice! For those in the midwest think: Orange Julius!

YUM!

Tom made a strawberry smoothie for Lena yesterday. Fresh strawberries, vanilla ice cream and multi-fruit juice. She loved it. She was excited because she and Alexei just got a blender and she was not sure what to do with it! Now she knows exactly what she wants to do.

Strawberries have gotten very cheap now. So Lena and I are planning to make jam on Monday. We will also prepare some for freezing. Hopefully, I will be here for raspberry season too. I would love to get some raspberry jam made this year!

Hannah and Nathan are twins!

We had dinner with Joy, TJ and Hannah. We hadn't spent time with them in over a year. TJ wanted to make sure that Nathan and Spencer REALLY lived here. So he asked his mom again just before we arrived at their home.

After dinner the four of them were running through the house playing with toy guns.

TJ is 7. Hannah is 5. Spencer is 16 and Nathan will be 19 in a few months.

At one point Joy noticed that TJ was wearing a Buzz LightYear arm band and she mentioned it to us. Tom noticed that Spencer had one on too. When the kids were questioned about it we found out that it signified Spencer and TJ being on the same team. Nathan said that he and Hannah were on the "not glasses" team. Hannah said very excitedly "Nathan and I are twins!". We also found out from Hannah that their team's secret hiding place was.... in the closet. Don't tell Spencer and TJ!

End of school

Judi and I started a new lesson today and we get a new teacher on Monday. We have about two weeks left for our class because Judi's family will be leaving around the 17th of June. I have a Women's Retreat to go to and then I will be off to Rome.

Tom's class will finish out this week and then they will be done. Three of the students leave next week.

Spencer is going until the teachers stop teaching and Nathan... one never knows what his choice will be. I think he will go as long as he has to!

We are praying about Spencer's school attendance next year. He has highschool to finish so he may choose to go to language school part time and focus on his last two years of highschool. He gets live language everyday and he and Nathan both speak very well.

Today's sighting:
there was a group of children playing down on the playground in front of our apartment. One boy had the ball and about 6 or 7 kids were doing back bends in a line forming a tunnel and he was rolling the ball underneath them.

changing weather

We have had rain and sunshine. Warm days and cold. It has been warm enough to warrant turning on the air conditioner already. More people are out on the street talking late at night. Especially now that school is out and the children don't have to get up early.

We are listening to more people do repair work on their apartments. Hammering and banging goes on until bedtime and sometimes later.

The things we love about summer are the ice cream & the fresh fruit like watermelon and strawberries.

Here are two babushka's chatting while one enjoys her ice cream.

green borscht or schi

This is tonights dinner.

In our effort to lose weight we are getting off the bus a stop sooner than normal. This puts us right in front of the reenok. About a four block walk from home.

They saw me coming.

I was told I needed to buy the sorrel because it was fresh. "you like green borscht don't you?" Well of course we do we have had it at Lena's. I thought about it and decided it would be good to make borscht today. It has been rainy and this is a good soup day! This recipe was modified by me to suit our tastes and Tom's diet. I left out the heavy cream and the eggs.

Enjoy!

- Zelyonye Schi (Green Schi ) recipe -

Cuisine: Ukrainian, Yield: 6 Servings

· Ingredients 2 lb Sorrel
-or-
1 lb Endive w/ juice of 3 lemons
-and-1 lb Spinach washed and dried
2 1/4 qt Beef stock
2 ea Onions
1 ea Carrot
1 1/2 ts Salt
2 ea Potatos peeled
1 tb Dill fresh & chopped
1 tb Scallions chopped
1/2 c Heavy cream
4 ea Eggs hardboiled & sliced
1/4 c Sour cream
· MethodBring the beef stock to a boil in a large pot. Add the onion, salt, & sorrel (or spinach & endive & lemon juice). Cube the potatos into 3/4" cubes and add to pot. Cook for 10 minues. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from heat and place into a large tureen and stir in the cream, add the dill. serve and garnish with a dollop of sour cream & slices of egg.

*NOTE: This better made with sorrel than endive but I have seen kale with spinach used as well instead of sorrel.

Recipe source: Dr. Donald Houston's collection ORIGIN: Taisa Kamnotskaya, Kyiv-Ukraine, circa 1997
Posted by Yuri Timohin http://www.ruscuisine.com

Moscow Bible College

We had guests today from Moscow. They were students from a Bible College. They represented various cities from around the country. One of the young men gave his testimony. It was incredible to hear that he was raised in a muslim home but still found his way to Christ. It helps us to realise how arrogant it is to think that people here will not find Christ without help from Americans.

We are not here to spread the gospel. We are here to reflect the light and love of Christ and to teach whatever specialised subjects people want to learn. God has been doing the work of drawing people to him for many years... it is an honor that every now and then He uses us to help.

Da Vinci Code Poster Burnt in Moscow

Da Vinci Code Poster Burnt in Moscow by Orthodox Activists
Created: 23.05.2006 17:34 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:51 MSK
document.write(get_ago(1148395902));

Around 100 protesters representing a Russian Orthodox movement burned a poster advertising the The Da Vinci Code at Pushkin Square in central Moscow, on the day of the controversial film’s premier, RIA Novosti news agency reports. Protesters at the meeting, organized by the Union of Orthodox Citizens, held icons, crosses and banners, one of which read: “The Da Vinci Code: you buy a ticket — you sell Jesus.”Leonid Simonovich-Nikshych, the chairman of an Orthodox organization represented at the protest, said: “Every heresy against the Church will burn in this way.” He urged for “blasphemous acts against Christians” to be stopped.Moscow police did not stop the protest. Officers had been briefed by their supervisors not to intervene in these “religious things, unless there’s an open physical fight”, Discovery Institute website reports.On Tuesday the Moscow Patriarchy condemned the release in Russia of the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s controversial bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Many Russian Muslims are also outraged by the film, because Jesus is esteemed as a prophet in the Koran. They view The Da Vinci Code’s claim that Jesus slept with Mary Magdalene as an attack on their religion as well as Christianity.The book, which centers on a conspiracy by the Catholic Church to cover up the true story of Jesus Christ, has caused a storm of controversy around the world.

Vova's Birthday!

Tomorrow is Vova's birthday. I went shopping with Olya and Lena. Ira was not interested in looking at men's shirts. She took my hand and dragged me through the mall to find babies.

Every time we saw a baby in a stroller or someone her age walking she got excited. Olya says we need a special translator to know exactly what Ira is saying. Some of her words are clear but not all! She is 1 year and 8 months old. She walks great and went for about three hours before she needed to go potty. As we were walking to the marshutka Olya told us that Ira was not wearing pampers! I was especially concerned while Ira was sitting on my lap. She did great though. I didn't need to worry.

On our way home we got on the same marshutka we had arrived there in. It was the same driver and everything. We got about 15 miles from the city and the van broke down. He was trying to get us to a neighborhood but the van just couldn't go any farther. Olya and I walked for about five minutes since we were not far from her mother's house. She is pregnant, due in August, and she decided she couldn't make it any farther.

We hailed a car.

An older couple stopped and drove us about 2 miles. It was wonderful to ride and not have to walk it! We walked another half mile to Olya's mother's house and she drove us home. What a day for neither one of us to have our cell phones! Her mother fussed at us for not calling. I had forgotten mine and Vova had Olya's. We were on a highway and cars were coming by very fast. I didn't feel as if we were facing any danger. It was another adventure to add to my list.

Neurologist

Tom finally saw the neurologist today. And she said that things looked pretty good. She recommended that he see the gastroenterologist. He will go in for that next week as well as to see the urologist again.

Natasha came with us to translate but we are finding that we are understanding more each time we go. Many medical terms have a latin base so they sound familiar to our ears.

When Jim H. spoke at church on Sunday, Natasha translated for him. He gave an illustration about the details on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Natasha was confused for a bit because she was thinking of St. Peter's Basilica. Tom suggested that we show her a book I brought back from the Chapel last summer. She was amazed at the paintings and remembered that she had studied about Michangelo back in 6th grade. She said she was too young to appreciate it. I said that was how I felt when I was in Rome last summer. I had heard about the artists whose work I ws seeing. But, school textbooks pale in comparison to the real thing. Here is a link in case you aren't familiar with the paintings there: http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/CSN/CSN_Main.html

We could have seen all the other doctors today but Natasha needed to get back to work. They are translating another book for publication at the BLTC.

Tom is doing well, he is out of pain, his blood pressure is coming down and the doctor was pleased with his progress.

Final bell

Tomorrow is a major holiday for school children. It is the final bell of the school year. Just like they celebrated the first bell of the year the final bell is also important. Signaling not just the end of the year but the final day for the graduating students. The 11th graders (final grade here) will have their testing and then get their certificates. After that they are on holiday. Many of them will go out to eat and have tea or coffee with friends throughout the evening. There will also be a ball squeezed in this evening. And perhaps the disco afterward.

The next day after that if they are able they will make their way to Sochi and enjoy time at the Black Sea with their classmates.

Tom has his doctor's appointment tomorrow otherwise I would be there bright and early to take pictures. Lord willing, I can do it next year!

Russian Scrabble anyone?

We found a new game at MosMart. (Our country's version of a Walmart) The characters on the Scrabble tiles are Russian. We don't have a big Russian vocabulary so towards the end we had to take out the dictionary to use up all the tiles.

Lena helped us while she was here. She said it would be a hard a game for Russians to play. We told her it was a hard game in English too! Nathan was looking for our Englsih version so that he could take it to the English class that he teaches. If you are a stickler for rules you would not have enjoyed playing with us. After all, this was a game Tom and I decided was for learning. No points and no board needed. If you speak Russian or can read the characters you will see mistakes. The letters we had leftover were two soft signs, a hard sign and an 'e kratkaya'. The soft sign softens the letter it follows and the hard sign functions like a stop sign in between letters. The 'e kratkaya' makes a sound like the 'y' at the beginning of the word yogurt.

We didn't play to win. We actually helped each other with words. Nathan helped me and Spencer helped Tom. We picked up a few new words from the dictionary and the boys were able to help us with some case endings that they have learned.

Tom and I realised today that we have been studying Russian for a full year with no break. We started working with Lena a year ago this month. We even worked with her over the Christmas vacation. So we have literally studied for a solid year. We are all looking forward to July. We are grateful for how much we have learned this past year. Last year we could say hello, goodbye and please. This year we are playing Scrabble.

Maybe when you come and visit we will let you play with us! 

Sweet 16!

Russian tradition is that you give yourself a party. Spencer baked a cake yesterday and was upset that it turned out uneven. He made it in a bundt pan and was not happy with it. But , the rest of us didn't mind. The family ate it happily. He made another cake later in the evening before he went to bed. It came out much better. I made a frosting for him and he took it with him to school this morning.

His birthday present from us is his trip to Moscow in June. Several of the men at school have promised to kiss him... he is not real thrilled about that! Last year he got his digital camera. Yesterday we walked around our neighborhood and took some pictures together. It is hard to believe he is 16...