Easter, ¿de veras?

Our first Sneak Baba (Snow Grandma), early February 

It seems like it has been the eternal winter around these parts.  Currently, it's snowing yet again.  Until today, the sun has been out and working at melting away the last blizzard's debris (over 24 inches of snow in 24 hours!)  We were ready to prepare for flooding, until it started again today, ughh.  With few signs of spring, it's been hard to even imagine that Easter is already tomorrow.  My friend Holly and I thought that we might wait to really celebrate in May with the Ukrainians (their Christmas and Easter are on the Eastern Orthodox calendar which is slightly different.)  The thought of Lent really never had time to cross my mind this year, so I figure if I start on "our" Easter, I'll just come a few days short of 40 days...there are also some more selfish reasons I have.  I bought myself a cute raspberry skirt a little while back, unfortunately I can't quite pull it off with my snow boots, and Zoya does have two Easter dresses after all :) Why not?
Below are pictures from February and March, outside it looks pretty much the same :(  CAN'T WAIT TO BE ON THE BEACH IN GREECE IN A WEEK!

Yes, this kid has too many clothes
(thank you grandmas and aunties!),
but look how neatly Oksana organizes them

Now look at Zoya's favorite game!

Our first snowman

View from the kid's room

Our Baba Zoya trying to play with the light up zippy fly, she laughed a lot as she figured it out!

First grocery shipment
delivered directly to our door!

 Although my tone is quite depressing, we've also really enjoyed ourselves these past couple of months.  As many of you know, we came back from break and then Ken left a week later to go to Phuket, Thailand.  He was gone a total of nine days.  Thankfully, I was the kids were on their best behavior, and though we missed Dad terribly, we managed.  Day seven was tough, but we worked through it and Dad came home to a door full of balloons.  And then we celebrated his homecoming with a "Pi Day" par-tay.  Rawly and I had so much fun planning the menu: Curry Pumpkin Empanadas (half-circles) with mint cilantro chutney, hand pie shaped as the Pi symbol filled with a date-goat cheese spread, nutella coconut Italian goodness (pictured below) and berry cobbler also pictured below.  Oksana and Rawly made a huge stack of crepes that we filled with caramelized pears and onions and blue cheese...so scrumptious.  I'm such a nerd.  I would spend all day in the kitchen planning themed menus if I could (and someone would do the dishes for me, ha!)

Bunk beds

Only Nya is able to get out, our kiddos have too round of a middle :)

Don't mess with this!

The chef at work filling mini pumpkin pies,
baking with mom remains one of his favorite things!

Heart melting, I had stepped out of the room and came back to
Rawly reading Zoya's prayer book, aka singing
"Buenas Noches" over and over again.

We finished just in time, literally 10 minutes before Dad was home!

So excited for his new soccer uniform from Thailand

All's right with the world when we're together

Pi's a crowd 

There's a reason why she's "Anty #1"

Well, that and she has a bright orange coat

First year tradition of ice cream on breakfast  for no school snow days!

Dulces sueños bella 

Travel Tales: Dead Sea/Masada

Enjoying that sun, sure glad we took the cable car up with the two wee ones.

 We knew that we wanted to get to the Dead Sea, so decided to drive there on our first full day staying in Jerusalem.  We kept wanting to stop at places, but the kids had zonked out on the way and it was nice to just drive a talk to each other.  We hadn't done much pre-trip research and were using Lonely Planet to guide us day by day. To our delight, we kind of just stumbled upon Masada our original destination had been the Nature Reserve at Ein Gedi.   That's about the time when Ken realized that he didn't have his wallet with him, we decided to press on to Masada instead, it's also about the time when Rawly was playing with the change in the center console and the 20 shekels turned up missing--hope it made someone's day!

Blue skies

Once we arrived at Masada, I went to purchase entrance tickets.  The journey up was supposed to take 45 minutes.  We had kind of abandoned Ein Gedi due to the easy, but somewhat long with children hike.  I completely misunderstood Ken and thought that he wanted to do the hike.   So I mentally prepared myself and bought the tickets.  It wasn't until we had exited the intro-video and were looking at the cable car that we realized the major mis-communication, luckily they were able to sell us the difference and we took the high (cable) road--what a relief!

Just like his pops

 

inside the church at Masada

dirt=sheer contentment

the descent

Turkey crossing or STOP sign?

 Elat will have to wait for our return 

More roadside attractions 

There's not much life around the Dead Sea--go figure, but we had been silly and hadn't thought of how to get milk for Zoya.   We endeavored to pull into one of the little villages or spa spots; there was a guard and gate and we tried to explain (at first in English, then with gestures) that we need to get some baby milk.  He said something that we understood as, "Just a minute," and returned to our car carrying a very cold bag of what we assumed to be milk. He told us to take the whole thing and wouldn't take money.  What a sweet man.

Zoya found joy in neither the mud nor the salty water

A real beauty

Soothing Zoya...apparently, this was one of the nicest beaches, Ken's feet thought otherwise, Rawly like Zoya was less than entrawled with actually entering the Sea, though he found it hilarious watching others do so.

Her hair is a bit shorter than Rawly's was at this age, but it's starting to curl, though snow caps in Kyiv cancel out all curl factor.

The belly flop float

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Absolutely stunning! Dead Sea at sunset

Good thing we turned around!

The Good Samaritan Inn was closed.

All tuckered out after a full day of sun, salt, and sand.

Mom wasn't hungry, but opted for three scoops--too many choices!

These weary travelers were thankful for such good dinner.  Yippee, yippee yea-yea!  WE LOVED dinner at La Boca and icecream at Aldo (gracias Lonely Planet!)  La Boca is a Latin Restaurant with the best represented menu I've seen.  Plus we discovered our favorite combo--hummus and salsa!

Travel Tales: Tel Aviv

Lots of places for  kiddos to play

Fun on the wavy boardwalk

The morning of our departure was running smoothly, we had a few things to finalize before heading out the door until we got a call a half an hour before our planned departure.  I hate how fifteen and fifty sound like the same number in Russian (well English too, but I've had a few years to figure those out!)

Oh mesmerizing sand, like snow, with out the cold sting

Great adventures on the beach

More motivation to purge (In Camel Market area, wish we'd had time to explore--looked like a cool part of town,  even if this photo doesn't reflect it!)

Like biting into a cloud--the best ever falafel sandwich