Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children make a home. Irish Proverb

This is a snapshot, or mental video frame of our evening today.  Hope you enjoy.

I arrive home to this:

Rawly in his makeshift highchair/swing with his eating smock on and dinner ready on the stove!

As the evening continued I couldn't help but sit back and watch in sheer bliss; Ken had Rawly squealing for hours as they played hide and seek, peek-a-boo, kaboom, pretend sneeze attacks, and wrestled.  When I looked at my watch, I couldn't believe that it was already time for PJs and a bedtime story.  A little later we sat down to read Good Night Moon. Rawly reached out and touched the kittens when he saw them (in Greece, he fell in love with all the stray cats!), then later when the book was saying good night to the "gatitos" (as we call them), he leaned down and gave them a kiss.

Thus far, this has been the best night of my life!

Here we are

It's hard to believe that it's already November. Time has absolutely flown by since we've returned to Ukraine. Odd as it my be, coming back has felt comfortable so far! We were/are so grateful to all of you who opened your homes to us, but almost three months of traveling is a lot. Year two, thus far, has been immensely easier than the first--almost comically so. We know the routines, the ebb and flow of life happens, and everything else we chalk up to life "only in Ukraine." Since it's been so long since I've last updated the blog, I felt it best to show you via videos what we've been up to lately. (I will warn you though that I have the uncanny knack of turning off the video three seconds prior to Rawly being the absolute cutest boy in the entire Ukraine.)

Kaboom! September 2010



Rawly meets Aegean Sea October 2010

3:09 pm

I think that we're actually headed in the right direction! It's July 15, our anniversary; a little after 11 this morning we left our “Bee Lazee” campsite just outside of Prince George. Real Canadian Superstore was the final destination on our simple quest for a tarp and Mountain House dehydrated meals. Here are a few observations we made along the way:

Canadian Tire sells camping gear.

Brick sells mattresses.

So what does Home Depot sell? Maybe lingerie?

As we were having a delirious laughing meltdown in the frozen foods section, I wanted to assure each passerby, “Don't worry we have lived overseas—in Ukraine—I promise. Yes, everything is printed in Ukrainian or Russian and we manage to get by.” Here (Canada) we could at least figure out what the French meant from its Latin roots, or simply flip the can around and read the English label!

Where's the camera now? Evidently standing in a little red cooler on top of frozen meat is pretty much the limelight for a 8 month old. Ken and I were stressing out about what we were going to eat...Low sodium, good nutrition, where we would put the cooler if we bought one. Ken asked me, “Does anyone else have this much trouble packing food for a camping trip?” When we looked down at Rawly, he was chillin', quite literally, just bouncing up and down happy as a clam. I was laughing so hard I thought that I was going to pee my pants. And finally the icing on the cake was the song playing on the radio when we got back in the car, “SOS, somebody please help me!”

Canada, Oh Canada!

Unfortunately after we had booked our tickets home for the summer, we learned that we needed to be out of the country for 330 days to qualify for the overseas tax exemption clause (I'm not sure of the actual technical jargon.) Needless to say, that meant that the good ol' US of A didn't want to spend our monies here and our options were either Baja California or British Colombia. Interestingly enough, having a baby has somewhat changed our sense of adventure, so we opted out of our amazing tour of the California baseball stadiums and a stint in Mexico for a tour of beautiful British Columbia. The plan was to make the 15 hour trip from Vancouver (BC) to Terrace where some of our teaching coworkers live. First we took it slow, Eugene to Seattle with an overnight pit stop in Canby/Mollalla to visit old friends. Our next stop was a two night layover in Puyallup where our cousins live. Isaac and Saraya kept Rawly (and us) entertained and introduced him to the Point Defiance Zoo.

Hiking with the bro

Jesse and Nikki joined us on a beautiful hike up the McKenzie to Blue Pool. It almost looks too blue to be true. Rawly enjoyed peeking out the side of the pack and his extra high vantage point atop Uncle Jesse's shoulders. Ken also introduced him to some Oregonian wildlife up close and personal—forest tigers (as we call them).

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!