Vacation

So, this weekend, we get 9 days of school off. So, we are going to go tour Austria and Hungary. I am way excited! We leave Saturday Evening and take a train all night to Budapest, arrive in the morning, and then let the fun begin! I will tell you all about it at any chance I get. And hopefully have strong enough internet to show you some pictures. (The reason there are all these pictures on all of a sudden was because we went to an American members home that had extremely good wi-fi internet access and it was strong enough to load a ton of pictures. We had an all-out FabUlOuS American dinner and it was so nice! What wonderful members there are here.) Anyway! I will tell you of the adventures. Till a later day!

The Russian Ballet!

We went to a spectacular performance of Romeo and Juliet. It was really neat to see the story in ballet form. I never knew how much can be portrayed without words. I have especially learned the importance of body language through my transformation into becoming a very good monkey/pantomime within the past month. Although, these performers were masters! I guess it just gives me something to aspire to: to be as fluent as those dancers one day in the use of no words to communicate, or the alternative: Learn Russian. But, then I would be fluent in any language. I dunno. But, the ballet was really fun! We took our host brother and Mom as well, I am really surprised that Stas had the attention span to sit through 3 hours of leaping, toe pointing romance. But, i guess there was also enough fighting scenes that he would enjoy it. And, the fact that nobody makes it out alive and it is not a happy ending. But, needless to say, it was really good! I know that Lena appreciated it very much! And she looked Beautiful! She dressed us up as well! Three things i would NEVER do . . . Wear my hair down! Wear a Necklace, and carry a purse around. It was kinda fun to be elegantly attending a Ballet. I felt like I was in Anastasia. Anyway, the Ballet house was so extravagent! The entire night was spectacular!

Change in the Weather

The weather all of a sudden changed it got way cold and rainy. While walking to church today, Breanne and I got a 'little' wet. I got my first drenching by a car while standing on a corner! It was pretty awesome! So, all during church i had goose pumps and i had to put paper towels in my shoes. got a couple good laughs, but, hey it worked. The city controls the heat as well, so, we get to freeze everywhere we go! It is pretty . . . um. . . really nice to get into your slippers, dry sweater, blankets, and sipping boiling tea when you get back to the apartment. Except, I get pretty sick. Sore throat, runny nose, coughy-cough, the best part is, every women in the world here has a different remedy and thing for you to do to get better. The tea has been the one that has worked the best so far. Different variations of gargling, sniffing, swallowing, sipping, and forms of other 'medical' practices.

Touring the City

Every once and a while, we find ourselves on these Escalators that are at least a football field long. And every time, we get a bit dizzy! We counted how many slats are on the ride and there are 84! And they are each 4 feet long! So, that gives you a ball park range. We went to a theater where they act out tons of fairy tales and things, so magical. I am wearing pinnochio's hat in this picture. We went to this arch as well. And the reason for the tired face was because we walked at least 5 or 6 miles that day, and we were still 4 miles from our house. We went to the Ukraine President Mansion, A place called Kisses Bridge, That arch way,

Our Family took us to this CrAzY so confusing auto show! It was way cool. but it was . . . i guess . . . normal for the U.S. because they were cars that you would see normally on the streets in america every day. so it just seemed a little blown out of proportion. But, it was way cool to go to the old car spot! We saw some crazy cool cars! And our little brother stas won a couple of hot wheels gadgets! And we got to 'test drive' (aka sit in the back of) a car while it went around on a homemade track of rocks and boards and mud pools. It was actually pretty fun! Breanne smoked her head on the window over one of the tree stump/ train track thing. It was pretty awesome!

Breanne Cut my Hair!

So, every night, we have a piece of fruit and at least two cups of tea. It is awesome!

Brother's Birthday!

Our little host brother Stas turned 12 yesterday! We woke up to balloons on the ceiling and a decorated table. We had magenta “cake” in the morning; the name of it was pronounced Shoobah, which translates into English as ‘warm clothes’ for its many layers. The reason why I put it was a ‘cake’ was because it looked very intriguing, but, when bitten into it was salty. The outer layer was pink and chunky, that turned out to be beets. The next layer below that was raw fish, then eggs, then tomatoes, then cheese and then potatoes. And to be even better, between each layer was an extra layer of Mayonnaise! Breanne gagged pretty hard core on the last couple of bites, especially when she got a chunk of raw fish in there, the best part was, when we got done eating it, our mom turned to us and said, “Hmm! Zis mey favoreet!” then we looked over at Stas who hadn’t even touched his portion. It was pretty awesome! Then, Breanne and I had our cup of tea and left for school. Which went fairly well today! I had tons of fun with the kids! I found that if you pretty much have an outline, follow it somewhat, but then go with there distractions and basically entertain them while using English, it goes a lot better! It was way fun! While waiting for lunch to start, Breanne and I made Stas a Birthday card! It was awesome! (Hopefully the picture will work). But, there was an envelope inside of the card that contained three homemade redemption tickets for our dear Stas to use whenever he wants “Magic Cakes” (Breanne and I made ‘magical’ brownies one time, and now that is all he ever wants) So, we made him tickets to give us when he wants them, but he can only use one a week. (Or else I am pretty sure he would have used them all by now and his birthday was yesterday). We got home from school and the apartment was silent. No kids anywhere, we figured they must have gone bowling. But, the house was so elaborate and neat! There was food EVERYWHERE! Homemade pastry crust pizza, tomatoes on the table, peerok (a way yummy poppy seed apple pancake bread thing that our host mom makes) on top of the TV. Two huge bowls overflowing with grapes and plums and bananas! It was crazy! 12 kids came over for the party and many random people throughout the night. Lena invited each one of them in with kindness (as always) offered them some food and tea. While the kids ate in a room, the adults (including Breanne and I) got to sit at the kitchen table and eat caviar on bread and raw fish while drinking champagne. Lena knew that we probably wouldn’t like that, so, she had planned ahead and got Breanne and I some spectacular juice (it tasted like candy apples) and some pizza and had made a way good salad called ‘Olivia’ from the time of Napoleon Bonaparte in France. Needless to say, I do not like capers or caviar, raw filets of saltwater fish, or an inch thick of butter on my bread. But, the birthday was very fun! And the food that was good, was REALLY GOOD! And very interesting indeed. After everyone had left, and we had cleaned everything up, the doorbell rang. It turned out to be Stas’ grandmother (babushka) bearing an entire basket of fresh pears from her trees. She was so delightful, and spoke the same words in the same fashion as our host mom. She is such a sweet lady, as is our host mom. We stayed up and had more tea and peerok with her while I read Stas’ homework to him. I read it to him so that he will eventually get frustrated with how slow I read Russian and he will want to read it to me therefore concluding: that he reads his homework. It works every time. Anyway, things are going great! Amber you won’t have to worry that I missed out on thanksgiving! I think I ate that and more yesterday! Whoo! Anyway! That is a long one! Have a great time! Poka!

Ballet!

We went to an actual Russian Ballet! It was amazing! We saw the Swan Lake. The costumes and dancers were amazing! The building was breath taking! It was so neat! The best part was, our host mom was trying to dress Breanne and me up with way elaborate jewelry that she had hand made, and when I had a shirt on under my dress, she asked me, “why you have this?” I told her it was more comfortable for me. Then she went on to discourage my wearing it. But, I finally prevailed and we were fancied up for the elaborate Ballet! Modesty and all. It was way neat! We are going to another one on Thursday (Romeo and Juliet), and this time, I will take my camera.

Another week in this awesome place! They tell you that the third week is the hardest, and well I am a believer, cause it was pretty dang rough. The kids were PsYcHoO! Like, we are talking crazy talk! It is so hard to teach them right now, we have pretty much been placed in these positions with a few rules and one direction, to have them know English by the time you leave. They want you to contrivance as much creativity as possible, but it is fairly difficult. I never realized how high maintenance children are. They are always requiring attention and something to entertain them. They have vast sponges for brains that are trapped in tiny little bodies that require infinite experimenting. But, they are the greatest kids ever! Just testing the waters a bit too much. And winning. They are so smart, just misunderstood, because they honestly have very little knowledge of what we are saying to them. But, I hope it goes better this week. I have lots of things planned and I have things to keep their little minds entertained and active if things start boring them. . . lots of backup plans.

Did you know that you can click on the picture and it will grow? I just found that out.

the teaching is as psycho as ever! the kids are wild! and i mean WiLd! But, they are so cute! hopefully soon we will figure them out. Everything has been so good. I can't believe I have only been here for two weeks, it feels like I have lived here my whole life, but just never really understood anyone or anything. But, then again as i was introducing the calendar and the day of the week to the kids this morning, I kept pointing to September 3 instead of the 10, time is just zooming by. We are always doing something! Walking, watching, mostly walking, Eating, Planning, Reading . . . Breanne and I have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by the time we leave, we started last week and are on page 70. We have a schedule worked out and everything! It has been going good so far. My testimony has grown so much since I have been here. My love for the gospel, my family, friends, and how I was raised has increased 20 fold! It is so neat to be here. I am learning so much and growing everyday. (Not to mislead you though Amber, I am shrinking. :) down by 17, only 7 more to go! But seriously! Life is grand! I love all of you so much! Thanks for all of your support! Love yah tonz! Have fun and good luck with all of your endeavors! :)

The attempt at teaching has commenced.

We have started teaching the kids! And I tell you what . . . They are C-r-A-z-Y! They are definitely testing the waters this first week. It didn’t help that we had no idea what we were doing – at all. But, now we have a general grasp of how things go and what we need to do. We need to put so much effort into teaching these kids. We have to be just as energetic as them in order to focus their attention so that they don’t go to wild. They always need to be captivated by what we are doing. So, planning a lesson is essential. And not just simply planning them, but going into explicit detail and having at least 8 different things to look at within a 20 minute lesson period. It makes me wonder how my teachers dealt with my classes, cause I know there were some crazy uncontrollable kids. Hopefully I will figure it out and it will get better. There is one boy that just goes extremely nuts!!! And he drags everyone in the class with him on all of his crazy episodes! It is way funny to watch it happen though. Cause there is one girl that is seriously the most entertaining thing I have ever seen. Maybe we will get a video of her going psycho (the epitome of a wilderness wild child). Cause seriously! I laugh so hard!!! But, then it gets bad because all of the kids spiral into this crazy cyclone of terror. It is way fun though! I love the kids so much already! It is going to be way hard to leave them. But, for now, we will just enjoy all of the time that we have together. Crazy fun!

Experiencing Kiev first Hand. . . or foot.

So, I thought that we walked a LONG way last time. But, that was before we took our walk yesterday!! HOLY CAZOLY! And if I thought it was hot last. . . Boy was I mistaken! It got up to at least 34 degrees celsius (which is 93.2 degrees fahrenheit) And to top it off, we got home, and naturally had a bowl of boiling bot borsch and a cup of boiling hot water to quench our thirst! But, at least I got to play in this fountain that cascaded over the stairs. Yay! But, we saw some pretty sweet stuff yesterday. Our host mom took us All over the place, Pretty much saw the entire city of Kiev on foot. It was actually really neat. We will have to have a get together when I get back to look at all of my pictures Because, the internet just doesn't have enough juice.

The Gang

We are always waiting for our group. We will stop and won't get started for 10 minutes some times. Whoo! And I tell you what. . . for those of us with ADD that is not a very easy task. But, it is worth it. I get to get some sweet pictures while we are stopped. This day, we walked down a street called Kreschateek. On weekends, they close off all of the traffic and just let people roam the street and shop like crazy! So, that's what we didn't do. We got a history lesson of Liberty Square and the fight against Orange or something like that. Dad, you will appreciate that Paul McCartney came here and gave a live concert on this street. Pretty sweet eh. The girls are way funny though. You never realize how spoiled we are, until you see how other people live. I

The Church on the Hill

We walked and walked. . . and . . . Walked! All the way up a gigantic hill to this beautiful destination! It is probably the prettiest church I have ever seen. And the plus side was. . . Breanne and I didn't even get lost! We found our way back home through 7 miles of craziness! It was pretty awesome! We conversed with some street venders and bought a couple of Soccer Jerseys they are pretty sweet. We will take a picture soon. No worries. It was really fun today. We Just did whatever we wanted without having to wait for 25 other girls and their silly habits. What a cool place!