pre-Chistmas update

First things first, we have decided to stay on one more year after this one. I'm sure this has some of you shaking you heads.  But several factors have lead to our decision.  A huge one is the financial motivation of the third year bonus.  We have been able to pay off a huge chunk of our school loans--which was one of the major motivations for making the move in the first place.  Anyhow, we're really enjoying the new group of friends that came in this year.  Life is a bit easier now, not so much culture shock, no new baby, the language sounds more familiar even though I still don't understand it.  And quite honestly we're a little nervous about finding jobs back in the States again. Knowing that we would be here another year and a half, when an updated apartment behind the school became available, we made the decision to move.  The complication however was that we would be playing musical apartments.  We began moving a few bags at a time into a spare room and eventually borrowed the groundskeepers' cart.  It must have been quite the sight: stroller with rickety wheels, bicycle tire cart with missing back end, and us trudging through the sandlike snow.  I sure wish we had thought to take a picture! But here are some pictures that we do have...

Our new building is the middle one. We call it the "Green Day" building because you can clearly see it written on the top from the soccer field.

Here's a view from Rawly's room looking down at the snow-covered soccer field.  We now get to enjoy great "industrial-enhanced" sunrises and sunsets from our bird's eye view.  You can also just barely see Ken's classroom from Rawls' window.

Here's Rawly, with our friend Natasha from work, trying on a typical hat that many Ukrainians wear (though, on adults, it doesn't generally cover their ears--so are they really that warm?)

Sharece, a friend from college, stayed with us for a couple days on either side of her trip back to her PeaceCorps village.  It was fun to have another Duck around!