Markovka Turns 6!

Six years old!!! Just a few “minutes” ago you were a cute baby!!

And now…missing a tooth (that was pulled out right on Christmas), but we still want to squish your cheeks!

Mark’s birthday was on Sunday this year, so he got to dress up early in the morning and even open his gifts before church. Frisbee, some sticker books, Wii game, Dinosaur Playmobil, Darth Vader-you know, the regular boy stuff.

Mark had a celebration of his birthday that took three days, actually. On Saturday before his birthday, we repeated our last year’s daytrip to Stoke-on-Trent for some awesome waterpark fun at Water World. We brought a couple of older teenage friends with us that made the day even more fun for the kids.

On Sunday after church, we had friends over for some cake. The more the merrier, right? This was the “family” birthday cake.

On Tuesday after Mark’s birthday, we decided to have Mark’s birthday party. It’s always so tricky to figure out when people can come to the party as we are in the middle of the holiday season with people having time off, travelling and visiting family. Tuesday was a good choice for most, but still a few boys couldn’t come. After all, Mark had three friends from school and two from our street.

The theme of the birthday party was STAR WARS.

First, Robert helped the boys make their own light sabers out of foam pipe insulators and duct tape. They loved them! Easy to make and easy to smack each other without hurting too much. 

Then Alex did Jedi training in our backyard. He loved being in charge, of course. I am sure he taught them some Star Wars dance moves as well.

Robert took them then to play some sort of tag in the Memorial fields next to us.

When they came back, it was time for lunch-pizza, cucumbers and grapes.

Mark and I had prepared a difficult memory game with lots of Star Wars characters. They loved this game.

And they loved this Scavenger Hunt Game. They were excellent at getting clues and running around like a herd of little hippos finding all the Star Wars figurines.

Finally, it was time for “cake”, that was actually cupcakes this year.

Made to order by Robert-double edged light saber. Easiest birthday creation so far!

It was a bit tricky to blow out the candles though.

After singing “Happy Birthday”, we went a bit American and a bit British on the tradition. Normally at British kids’ birthday parties, you just give a piece of cake in a napkin to kids to take home, but we just had them eat their cupcakes at the party, if they wanted. We did wait till children had gone home to open gifts. Mark loved all the attention, of course.

Phew…the end of celebrations. They are always fun, but sometimes a lot of work, despite our constant attempt to keep things easy (and they are pretty laid back most of the time).

Our sweet-sweet Mark! We love you more than ever! You are so fun, kind, goofy, smart and always trying to make the right choice. A few things that Mark learned this year is READ really well. He loves learning, reading and math. He is also learning to play the piano (taught by me) and is into dot-to-dot challenging books.

A few of his favorites are:

• Favorite color-orange.
• Favorite movie-Mr. Peabody and Sherman.
• Favorite subject at school-math.
• Favorite Song-Beat It by Michael Jackson.
• Favorite ice cream flavor-bubblegum.
• Favorite dinner food-spaghetti.
• Best friend-undecided.
• Favorite book-Harry Potter.
• Favorite place he’s travelled to-Sardinia.
• Favorite animal-scorpion (what?).
• What he wants to be when he grows up-Paleontologist.
• Favorite chore- folding and putting away his laundry while listening to my ipod.

And here is a THEN picture (6 years ago in Florida).

And NOW (December 28th in England).

Christmas 2014

This year we celebrated Christmas for the third time in England. And it looks like we'll be here next December as well, as Robert got his assignment extension for another year.

We decorated our tree at the beginning of December, sort of in a hurry, as Katya and I were busy with her little filming adventure. The kids put up all the Christmas decorations...and we didn't mind one bit. It's so fun now to watch our children be excited about every aspect of this holiday and live through their experiences together.

Robert was gone all week before Christmas. He had a chance to go to TX for an infection control training (not really by choice), and it turned out to be a great opportunity for him to visit his brother's and his sister's families. So it was great! And warm! He was eager to get home to chilly England to celebrate Christmas in our cozy house though. We managed to squeeze in his work party a few hours after he arrived from Heathrow. All was well until our babysitter called us to tell us that Alex was sick and was throwing up. Needless to say, we rushed home (it was at the end of the party anyway) and the babysitter got a bonus reward for a great job of cleaning everything up..sigh...

On Christmas Eve everyone was in great spirits although Robert had to work till 4 pm. Our friends organized a wonderful family/friends party at Abbots Ripton Village Hall. A few families came and brought yummy food. The kids had a ton of friends to play with and do their own version of the Nativity. After dinner, four of the families went out to three houses of people we knew from church and sang carols. It was brilliant! And super cold. At the end, on the way to our last house, we passed by our base's gate and decided that we should go carol to the guards on duty too. The kids loved it! And the guards did too. They were very grateful for us to cheer them up on a very cold Christmas Eve. 

We came home, kids got into their pajamas (they ARE new pjs, and this is not really a tradition, and they are not matching, but it was still fun) and took a few pictures.

Our favorite kind of pictures-pictures on a timer!:) 

Only when I posted this pictures on Facebook, I noticed that Mark still had his grape soda lips, not wiped or washed. Kind of looks like a clown.

As everyone went to sleep peacefully, no one suspected that at midnight Katya would wake up sick as well. I ended up sleeping in her room as she needed help almost every half hour, so needless to say, she and I were miserable in the morning. BUT, we still opened gifts and the kids ate their Fruit Loops.

Poor Katya...

I'd say the theme for Katya's gifts this year was "Owls and Duct Tape".

Alex got lots of books (as usual). The irony was that the two he requested were about Churchill and Hitler.

His big present this year came early-a new bike. So he had just a few gifts, but really good ones-like this new iPod (well, new for Alex, bought on eBay). He loves listening to music, dancing and doing his laundry at the same time.

Mark's big present was a new bike as well, which he received in October. I told him he'd need to remember that in December, but of course, it was hard.

He got a remote control car and a few Star Wars toys. He was happy.

We had a very relaxing Christmas afternoon. Katya was watching Pride and Prejudice (mostly because of Mr. Darcy) and we were cooking an easy British dinner of sausages and mash, so that our friends, the G family, could come over.  Thank goodness, Katya was feeling better all day.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving In Paris-Arc de Triumph.

Our final sight of the day was the Arc de Triumph! We walked from Tuileries Gardens to Place de la Concorde, caught the metro to the Arc de Triumph and met Olia and her kids. She was very busy that day as she had her birthday party later that evening, but she was kind enough to come meet us to hang out at the Arc.

The triumph of the Watsons.

Built by Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate France's military power, the 50 meter/164 foot tall arch crowns the west end of the Champs-Elysees, the city's most famous avenue. We didn’t want to simply look at the Arc. We wanted to go up the stairs to the very top to see the spectacular view of the Champs-Elysees and crazy traffic down below. We had to climb 284 steps to the top. Great work out, I am telling you.

And the view was great!

Katya was using the close up lens.

It might seem that all we did was climb up tall buildings and looked at Paris from the top. Okay, maybe this particular trip we did climbing more than usually.

The view of the famous Ferris wheel by the Concorde monument, the crazy traffic and Champs-Elysees lined with white tents/stalls that constitute one of Paris’ Christmas markets.

We spent maybe fifteen-twenty minutes on top, taking a ton of pictures. Then the kids took a look at the exhibit dedicated to the Unknown Soldier. And then we were done. The outside was beautiful!

Here is the eternal fire.

The Arc de Triumph is huge!

From the Arc, we walked along the very famous and crowded Champs-Elysees towards the Christmas market. It was a longer walk than we expected because it was so crowded. By the way, walking in a crowd and having someone just smoke in your face in front of you is not a very pleasant experience. In fact, I don’t remember seeing this many people smoking on the street as I did in Paris. Smokers were everywhere! And lots of women smoking too.

Finally, we reached the first stalls of the market. Since Olia said her kids were very hungry, we bought some waffles as a snack (although 5 euros a piece, it was more like a dinner…somehow Belgian waffles were 1 euro in Brussels, but whatever).  Unfortunately, Olia had to run back home to get ready for her party, so we had to say goodbye then. The rest of us continued on our adventures through the Christmas market, fighting off the crowds, but persevering to the end-haha. We didn’t get any souvenirs, just looked at some fun things, but we did get some really great food that became our dinner. It was a great finish to our two full days of sightseeing in Paris.

That night, our apartment was hopping…and not because we were dancing or rough housing. We had two crazy parties going on ALL NIGHT LONG!! (well, till 3 am to be precise). It was crazy! One party was across the balcony from us and another one was underneath us. Needless to say, the grown ups hardly had any sleep, luckily the kids had fallen asleep before the parties started.

By noon next day we had dropped off my mom at Olia’s, picked up our car and were navigating our way out of Paris. Fantastic trip! Great to see family and feel the spirit of Thanksgiving.

We’ll be staying in England for a while now….well, till January. So it’s time to get ready for Christmas now.

Cheers,

Lyana.

Thanksgiving In Paris—Tuileries Gardens

It was lunchtime when we got done with the Louvre, so we followed Rick Steve’s suggestion on where to eat and found Café Le Nemour. Our lunch was mostly Croque Monsieur (a fancy French ham and cheese sandwich) except Alex got Croque Madame (ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top that is).

From the restaurant, we walked towards Tuileries Gardens for a breath of fresh air. They are the gardens that are really close to the Louvre.

That’s what it looks like when you are visiting the gardens on November 29th.

But the kids were not looking for green leaves and beautiful flowers—they were hoping to find a playground. That did not happen, actually (as we were meeting Olia and her kids by the Arc de Triumph shortly after). Instead, as the boys walked up to the fountain, they saw that you could rent a wooden boat and a stick and push it around the “pond”. They begged us to let them do it and were in shock when we said “yes” (I had been planning on it all along though since I knew that the boats would be there on a Saturday).

They loved the boats!

Two euros for twenty minutes..these guys could be making some serious money during summer months.

Let me tell you, this is what posh life looks like-haha. Sitting (or lying down like Katya is) in Luxemburg gardens in Paris as your kids play near the fountain.

I imagine this place is just gorgeous when trees and flowers are in full bloom. Hmmm, maybe we’ll have to go back to Paris when it’s warmer.

To be continued …. (one last time).

Lyana.

Thanksgiving In Paris-The Louvre.

Oh, I am on a roll here…writing my Paris blog posts left and right. I am keeping it simple, you see? I wish I could give you more details and more history about all the beautiful streets and sights we see, but then it becomes more like a tour. Paris is full of history, of course, but Paris is more about the French atmosphere. Although sometimes it’s hard to find a true Parisian feel among all the tourists and languages, just grab a croissant, sit down by the river and breath in the French air-haha.

On Saturday morning, Robert and Alex had to go down to St. Germaine square to help my mom sent a couple of suitcases to Ukraine by bus. Then they met the rest of us at the Louvre which was the main event of the day.

Oh, the Louvre…so grand, so vast, so fancy, and quite intimidating!

Our main agenda was to not have a horrible experience with kids. I know they would be bored after an hour, especially Mark. And I knew that we wanted to see the main highlights of the museum. Therefore, I followed what Rick Steve’s book said to figure out what route to take to maximize our time there. We mostly succeeded.

Ancient Greece was interesting.

And Roman detour was fun for the kids.

Katya had the camera, so she kept asking the boys to pick their favorite statues.

Um…Alex liked heads with flat noses.

And then he wanted to make his face look weird with his eye being all freaky. This is his attempt to make his own bust.

Mark looks so sad here (he is not!). That’s what he wanted his head statue to look like.

Robert said it’s only fait if he takes a picture with a very hairy dude.

This was my mom’s third visit to the Louvre, but the first time in this area of the museum.

Oh, no, more pictures of Alex with Roman guys.

Whatever it takes to entertain these two.

The boys found the Fighting Warrior, of course.

My mom is deep in thought.

And Mark is happy that he is half way done with his visit.

We all were excited to see Venus de Milo. Although I am not very knowledgeable in art, I do find Venus de Milo to be one of the most beautiful and mysterious sculptures of the museum. As the guide book explained to me, her posture is balanced and firm, and at the same time shaped as an “S” if you look at her from the back.  And that is hard to create. It’s mysterious because we still are only guessing what she might have been doing with her arms. Was she holding onto something? someone? Did she have her arm extended or raised? We might never find out.

Katya and Venus.

In the meantime, the boys were entertaining themselves with “Rock Paper Scissors”.

One of the greatest statues of the museum is Winged Victory of Samothrace, or Nike of Samothrace, a marble statue from 2nd century BC of the Greek goddess Nike. It is believed to have been created to commemorate a naval victory of Macedonia over Egypt.

You don’t have to be an art lover to appreciate the work that went into decorating all the golden plated ceilings.

We did not go around looking at many pictures as I knew the kids would get bored quickly not being able to read French. By the way, yeah, that was a bit of a disappointment that all explanations under statues or pictures was only in French. You could pick up a large laminated card to read explanations in English in each hall, but it was still not very convenient.

Of course, we cannot forget about Mona Lisa. She is beautiful and mysterious just as we imagined.

Mark’s facial expressions says it all.

I am not sure if it’s the real thing hanging behind me.

Finally, Robert and Alex wanted to go see the Colossal Ramses. They took babushka along and went to see these …feet.

And cool Egyptian things…

Alex and his sphinx.

After that we were finished. I just have to admit to myself that I am not all into art museums unless I have specific things to see. And that is all right. I do go to famous ones because it’s an important cultural experience for me, but if I had a choice between going to a museum and going inside a palace, I’d pick a palace.

Another mission accomplished-visiting the Louvre with kids.

To be continued…

Lyana.