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!