a week or so ago

I can't move on without leaving a note about Father's Day 2013. It was such a great weekend! We had breakfast with Ben's parents at "The Readery," which is our favorite place to eat so far this year. We had so much fun putting together a gift bag for Ben's dad.  The pink toenail polish for Sam-dog was the highlight. It was hilarious to reveal that the "dog's dog" had hot-pink nails. He didn't even notice, of course, and sat patiently while we petted him and painted them.

In the evening we went to the city beach and had an "international meals" picnic with friends, watched a train shooting fire while driving across the bridge (scraping the track), and enjoyed the lake Pend Oreille sunset.  If you're visiting Sandpoint - no matter what you came here for... go to City Beach, 3rd avenue pier, the bridge or anywhere overlooking the lake and watch everything change colors, and say "Hi!" to the mini Sandpoint Statue of Liberty!  Sandpoint is the best in summer!

we celebrated our first year as a family

I can't believe it's already been a year! The craziest, happiest and sweetest year ever... Thank you for being a part of it, Benjamin love! <3

birthday week: candles, cat tales, spices and other things

It's time to write these new memories down so that next year I look back and remember what a great time it was. And because I was too excited to experience all these moments I often forgot to pull my camera out and take photos.. Some things were not pictured, some will make their appearance here thanks to the iPhone camera.

On my birthday after work, we hopped in a car with Ben's parents and all together went for a family sushi dinner. While we were crossing the bridge we saw the sun going down into the lake and covering the mountains in pink gold. Then I blew 25 candles and made a wish feeling extremely grateful for everything at the moment but of course looking forward to more good moments in the future. When we returned home I bursted into tears, I was overwhelmed with feelings and couldn't even express how touching it was to have people in your life who care about you. Not for anything, just because.

And then there was a road trip: we loaded up with cameras and snacks and headed out to Washington on our way to the zoo. We were lucky to visit Cat Tales park when it was sunny and nice between the rain showers. Watching the tigers and lions yawn and a black bear sunbathe was pretty interesting after living in Idaho for almost a year. 

We continued our adventures in Spokane, touring our favorite product spots: the Kiev and Asian markets - for the next few weeks we're cooking and eating only Russian and Korean meals. And of course we couldn't leave without having dinner at Kim's Korean restaurant. 

After the long drive home we headed to the pool and it was just the only possible and perfect ending of the road trip: a few strolls there and back in a nicely cool water followed by soaking and chatting in a hot tub... Typing this makes me want to go there again this week. I'll finish right here saying that right now I'm eating English sweet peas in my bed while blogging and being the happiest person tonight.

my first American Easter

In Russia, Easter is a religious holiday, not much of a family gathering. We color eggs and bake Kulich (Russian Easter cake covered in white icing and colorful drizzles), Orthodox people go to churches and celebrate there... And actually, Russian Easter is still to come in a few weeks, the Orthodox church uses the Julian calendar to calculate all important dates. 

Anyway, this year I is the first time I've been in the US during Easter. I'm far from being a kid, but I was probably the most excited person in our town: wearing bunny ears, coloring eggs and then looking for chocolate eggs all over the yard. I think the egg hunt was my favorite part because it reminded me of mushroom hunting, which I'm pretty good at after lots of years of experience. Also, the weather was amazing! I mean we're in North Idaho and it was above 60 F, sunny and dry.. It feels like winter suddenly ended and it's summer now! Russian spring is not as pleasant this year, it's still snowing over there.. I want to send some warmth and sunshine their way. 

How was your Easter?  Anybody have any other traditions?

when we come to Ben's parents and make pizza

Actually, Ben's dad makes pizza and we all eat it. He also makes pies, grilled salmon, steaks, etc., etc, - we love everything he makes, and he is the usual cook since he likes doing it. Sometimes someone else cooks and it's always very-very good, too. We come at least once a week for a family dinner: we all watch funny videos and photos on Ben's phone, cook, tease Sam dog, discuss what happened at work, eat, then finally watch an after dinner movie or show (something like Firefly/Jeeves&Wooster/whatever else is on the shelf) or play games ( Pictionary was a big hit this season!). 

Right now Ben's parents are on vacation in Hawaii (!!) and we are housesitting/babysitting their dog and cat (and their freezer full of meat in the garage). I can't wait for them to be back, so we can have dinner and listen to their vacation stories!

the 3rd of august!

My wonderful parent's anniversary! I love you!

Wishing you more and more happy years together!

on the road

I'm staying up late again crossing out done tasks from my to-do-before-we-leave list. It seems like it will never finish. One day is left before we go, we're mostly packed but everything feels so surreal. Last night I was walking around Moscow with my friend, taking polaroid pictures and planning our next meeting. But who knows when we actually see each other again.

Tonight I scanned our old family photos: all in black and white, developed and printed by my parents. I've never seen these two photos of my mom on a trip back in the 80s. Right now I feel really close to these shots: on a new road, a bit lost but curious. Let's see what it brings us. Any adventure is better than no adventure, right?

Happy Anniversary, Karen and Ed!

 It's Ben's parent's 33rd wedding Anniversary! Congratulations, Karen and Ed! We love you!!

one month plus other news

Today is one month of us being married!!! Bunbun came to my office to have lunch with me and then we travelled back home hugging all the way :-) With him every simple thing and moment becomes so special. Did you see the card he made yesterday? Adorable!

Also (as a surprise for our little holiday!) we found out today that we won a giveaway at This Enchanted Pixie!! We will get a CD by Chantilly! Thank you, ladies, that is super exciting!

On a less happy note - I never received a hat by Gleeful Things that I won in a giveaway back in December... Not sure where it got lost because usually sooner or later everything arrives to my mailbox, but the hat didn't. It made me pretty upset 'cause I planned to wear it in spring. And now it's summer :-) But I'm still checking and hoping..

Ok, back to the good stuff :-) Yesterday husband and I attended our first bikram yoga class!  This system of yoga is practiced in a room heated to 105°F (≈ 40.6°C) with a humidity of 40%. The classes run exactly 90 minutes and consist of a set series of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises.

The first bikram yoga class was so hard! The teacher warned us that we might feel sick, dizzy and experience other difficulties but we must not leave the room. Well, the first 10 or 15 minutes were just fine but then suddenly my head started to spin and I began my fight against falling into a faint. I tried concentrating on my breath, then I had to sit down, when I felt a bit better I stood up but the sickness came back and this torture continued for the next 15 minutes. And then finally I won and could continue without further problems till the end of the class. I saw some other people around me suffering from dizziness, too, that helped me believe that it really is OK and I am just not in a great shape yet. I should just keep doing it with a thought of becoming healthier every time.

Ben, on the another hand, didn't feel any sickness at all, he concentrated on the muscle work more and told me that he didn't like exercises on the floor 'cause it was hotter to lay than to stand :-) Just the opposite from me!

This class is a real challenge but I wish we had more free time during the week to practice bikram yoga. I really want to go again. And the teacher told us that the more often we practice the sooner I get rid of that dizziness. I'm ready! :-)

 source: Bikram Yoga Moscow

This is all for tonight. I'm wishing you all a great week! Thanks for coming!

Katie

i love us

 

Such an amazing day, I still can't complitely embrace it all with my mind! It was so special, I don't know how words can describe it. We celebrated with my family, walked in a park, ate in a diner, spent a night and the next day in a luxury hotel and got family love hugs once we retuned home :-) I love us!

Valentine's Day recap

This was a very special day for B and me: it was the first every Valentine's Day we celebrated together (last year boo was in Korea and we celebrated through packages and skype), and... we finally got our wedding date set! Now it's official! We are getting married in April! It wasn't easy: we had to run around Moscow for weeks collecting different papers from various officials. We didn't plan to get everything done on Valentine's Day - but this date was set when we applied online for turning in our papers. I guess it's a good sign! And very romantic.. :-) I was somewhat worried that we missed some detail or document and something would go wrong.. but it was perfect! Now I'm starting to worry about the wedding! :-)

After this very important event we had a huge lunch and celebrated! It's the biggest plate of sushi we've even had! haha Later I had another appointment and we returned home late in the evening: very tired but glad :-) And we announced the winners of our TOYHOP Valentine's Day contest: you can find them on Facebook and we'll post them later on Michael's blog.

What was your Valentine's Day like?