Independence Day

Looking back, we spent this fourth as all-American as possible: church on Sunday morning, family BBQ back at the ranch (aka my parents), baseball at the Em's new field (PK Park—not too shabby Phil Knight), and the most spectacular display of fireworks following the game. Rawly was pretty stoked. Although, the works + 10 hour jet lag=interrupted slumber and Mr. Sad Face. He and I ended up hanging out in the bathroom to muffle the noise. All in all, a great birthday!

May the road ahead of you be smooth...

...but paved with crunchy peanut butter (a line I heard recently, it seemed pretty fitting for this leg of our adventure.)

I'm not ashamed to admit that this blog is completely about food. You may have seen my previous blog about grocery shopping in Ukraine, so here's the flip side of that entry—the ease and luxury of comida buena (good food)! Ken and I have come to the realization that we in the US take food from all around the world and make it better. Really, I'm not trying to be boastful or arrogant; it's just better here. There's more quality of flavor—and of course more quantity! Seeing the excess of obesity has been one of the biggest “return to culture” shocks for me, I've forgotten about the “Super size” attitude of Americans. Food in Ukraine is heavy, fried in lots of oil, high calories—what you would expect to survive a cold winter. But, the difference is that Ukrainians WALK A LOT! It's not uncommon to walk 20 minutes to get to the local grocery store. This happens a couple times a week because there's not a car to load all the month's groceries, you pick up what you can carry and go back for more when you run low on supplies. People walk to whatever form of transportation they use (be it bus or subway), and in winter, this means trekking through deep sandlike snow (the roads and sidewalks don't get plowed.

With that said, I think I just might regain all the baby weight that I lost due to the abundance of simply amazing food. Now, I'm not talking junk food here—just good ol' goodness, here's my list of yummies (since we've been back) that many of you may take for granted:

Tacos, burritos, salsa, homemade guacamole—even Taco Bell,

Salmon, on the fillets on the BBQ, smoked, burgers,

Sandwiches and wraps (hearty, soft, wholegrain breads and tortillas) with meat and veggies or a tasty peanut butter and jelly classic,

MILK (that doesn't go bad after two days) and granola

The most amazing seafood dish I have ever eaten in my entire life was at the Waterfront Depot in little old downtown Florence, Oregon!Super tasty, all natural ice cream sandwiches,

Nancy's yogurt,

Berries (blues and raspberries, frozen in cereal, or in a cobbler—I love you and your antioxidants!)

Papa Murphy's—ahh convenience,

Awesome Thai food in Mount Vernon, Washington (the type of avocado-curry goodness where you want the taste to linger forever!)

Scurmdidilydumptious lemon and coconut bars (my favorite being in our current WiFi location, The Sweet Life Bakery in Chilliwack, BC!)--we've become quite the connoisseurs of such delicacies north of the border.

(and according to Ken--drinks of the barley flavor are much better in the PacNor than elsewhere in the world.)

MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS, THANK YOU, GRATZI, MERCI, DANKE, SPACIBA BOLSHOI to all of you who have helped satisfy our taste buds or will join us in our celebration of food in the next few weeks.

Here's what else we're looking forward to:

Tacos adobadas (thanks Ed Lee and Tacos Michoacan!)

White cheese sauce (McGrews and Jalepenos—good times and great memories)

Avalanche burgers (the Hallow will be one of our first stops in Boise)

and last but not least, Joyce, we're counting on you for some Pears Helena, s'il vous plai>t!

Burritos please!

Here's Rawly on his seventh ride (Kyiv to Amsterdam) and then surfing on the handrail with Dad. Flight number eight (green outfit), Amsterdam to Portland, OR--by far his longest yet--was a bit difficult, nobody likes 12 hours in the air, but Rawls did remarkably well and got quite a few compliments from on board passengers. As you can see, he had a blast playing with the on flight entertainment!

Yep, burritos were our request when we landed in our blessed homeland! Grandma Pat and Grandpa Marc met us with hugs and kisses at PDX and Rawly went straight for Grandpa Marc's arms. He seems to like it there. (Could this be in part because Grandpa won't change his diapers and lately Rawly's taken to throwing a fuss at changing time? Who knows.)
Yeah for family! All the Chasses surprised us when we stopped for burritos at Chipotle's Portland and picnicked at Waterfront Park. It's good to be back in the USA!

I like to move it, move it!

As of today, Rawly's up and scooting! The crawl hasn't quite been mastered, but he sure is determined. Here are some various shots of him lately...

Say ahhhh!

Bath time fun

All wrapped up

I can hold a bottle all by myself!

Big boy shower with Dad

If I move really slowly...Hey! It stays!

Grrr...Don't even think about taking this from me!

Rawly's world: little boy big worldSnoozing away

So, that's what happens when I fall asleep on my hand.

Damelo, pues!

Daddy can copy me!

This is how I roll!

Teddy thinks it's too warm for clothes too.

Gotta love half birthdays!!!

Having a summer birthday myself, I've grown quite accustomed to and fond of a biyearly celebration. So now, every day-after Grandma Pat's (Gigi's) birthday we'll have a second reason to celebrate:) Here's what Rawly was up to on his first (of many) half birthday!

Daddy and Mommy were able to come home for lunch
because it was a parent/teacher conference day.

Spending time with neighbor Sam and wearing a Red Sox cap for the first time.Ira decorating the cake Mommy made and Daddy frosted.


Doing what little tikes love to with pretty cakes. Should Mommy really be that surprised?


Just chillin' on a long board.


With our Wednesday night Bible study group, minus Kirsten:(

La comida de la vida

It was a couple weeks after we arrived here that we first had a taste of spice. The night is still so vivid in my memory simply for the fact that we had tacos. Tacos? you may say. But to me they weren't just any old tacos--they were home! Needless to say, since then we've luckily had countless tasty meals of the Mexican persuasion. Food here is typically pretty bland: potatoes, oil, sour cream, and lots-o-dill (Greek salad and pizza are on the not-so-blah menu). Our friend Kris was as equally excited as I that we started a weekly Mexican food night--one of our best ideas ever. The night has kind of morphed into a dinner and Bible study night, and luckily for us, we've had some DELICIOUS Ukrainian meals prepared by our friend Ira, providing evidence that not all Ukrainian food is a flop.

For two reasons, this year, Cinco de Mayo was probably my best ever! First off, I've started a huge food unit with my Elementary and Spanish 1 students. My nine and ten year olds gave me a group hug when I introduced the idea! Cinco de Mayo kicked off the tasting festivities with Tres Leches and Mexican Wedding cookies. Since then, they've now tried tacos, Spanish/Mexican rice, and refried beans (may I add, most for the first time--how crazy is that?!) When I served up tacos, one seven year old boy just looked at it and asked, "How am I supposed to eat that?" Tortilla soup got dished up this week, along with invitations to multiple 10 year old birthday parties, naturally provided that I make the soup for everyone:)
The second reason for mere awesomeness of Cinco de Mayo is that we hosted a fiesta in our tiny apartment for the staff at school. Our apartment never looked so good! I still have many of the decorations hanging In addition to our fellow over-seas colleagues looking for the good food and festivities, we were joined by many Ukrainian staff members. I put them straight to work making guacamole (of which they'd never tasted it, or salsa, before!!!) Our nanny also said that she never thought that she liked Mexican food until she tried the goodness we had here. I just love spreading good eats around the world! We also whipped up a big batch of horchata (yummy cinnamon, rice milk.) If you've never had it before, you should go to your local "ethnic food" section and pick up a package of horchata mix to have with your next Mexican meal--the process was a little time consuming and labor intensive for our taste.

Can you guess the food?

Here's a little taste of what it's like to search for things in the stores, some things are obvious, some take a little getting used to!
Hint: these are all in the refrigerated section...





























And now for the spices and other baking supplies...

This is curry. Can you sound out the Cyrillic?









Everything comes in packets! Here's the basil.






And now which one is cinnamon and which one is hot chili pepper???







Maybe this picture will help you tell the difference...one of the difficulties with Russian is that there are many "cases" so a word might change in ten different ways, makes it kind of tricky.
I'm frustrated trying to arrange all these photos and text--pretty sure the programs I used ten years ago in high school were designed to be more user friendly...ridiculous.

Oh, but here's the list of refrigerated items:
45% is mozzarella cheese which is our favorite so far
26% is whipping cream (as the picture shows)
72% is butter
2.5% are milk which is the lowest fat content you can find, most people buy tetrapack milk because the bottled kind goes bad in a couple days. Beware, the orange cap is buttermilk!
Keifer is the white and green bottle and Rawls is gnawing on a bottle of yogurt--both words are the same as English if you read them in Russian