Ai, ai, ai! I have so much to catch! Life keeps rolling by and somehow I keep shoving aside doing things I really enjoy--like blogging. Trying to do a thousand other things, seemingly important at the same time and running this home takes priority. I don't know what I would do if I were crafty and spent more time on that:)
I will use some of these random pictures as my guide to remind what we did in the last few months. For Labor Day, we took a day trip with our friends, the Whites, to the beach. We visited our favorite beach--Topsail. It's always so quiet and beautiful there. Although it was a holiday weekend, it was not crowded at all and the weather was fabulous--the water sooooo warm! Mark played lots of pickleball for the first time and now it's his new favorite beach game.
Enjoying hot September weekend.... It doesn't really cool down till at least the end of September, and even October has some days in the 80s.
Alex prides himself in being very tall and strong. He is growing so fast and I just have to keep buying new jeans/pants every few months (maybe he shrinks them too, who knows?)
Oh and in August, Alex was asked to sing a song at a public event in Durham. It was organized by a charitable organization for everyone to enjoy. Alex was one of the five performers who was asked to sing as he is known by the organizers from all the open mics he did with Relative Pitch. He did an amazing job performing a song from "Dear Evan Hansen" called "Waving Through A Window". We just love his passion when he performs, he really is a showman.
Katya's new thing she added to her busy life is Taekwando! I signed her up in September for the whole year. I was so surprised she actually really-really likes it! She feels strong and like she knows what she is doing already. And now she went from nothing to white belt to yellow belt. We'll see how long she will keep going in.
I must record here the story of the octopus. In August, Mark and I went to the fish shop in town and the only thing we bought was a frozen octopus. It was $19 for the whole thing that looked like a cube, sort of, and pretty small. Why, you might ask?? Because Mark is a weird seafood lover. He has an obsession with octopi and sea creatures like shrimp and squid. So we bought this as a special treat because the seafood guy told me it was easy to cook it.
So! Three days before Hurricane Florence was supposed to hit us hard in September, we had to cook this octopus so it doesn't get defrosted in our freezer if the power goes out. Robert and I watched a few youtube videos on how to prepare and cook it and then he and Mark went to work. Oh! It was something else....
What he dislikes is: Imagine Dragons and Harry Potter--probably just because the other two kids love those two things;)
Alex is also a percussionist for our middle school band. His school just opened so the 8th grade band got to perform at the "Ribbon Cutting" ceremony in September. Alex always has so much fun with his percussion friends:)
Mark and tennis still go hand in hand, or racket in racket. He is growing out slowly out of his current racket and is hoping for a full size 27 inch one this summer. Which means another $200x2 (because you do need to have two rackets (at least) in your bag at all times).
And that was the update of our autumn months:) All is well and everyone is healthy--that's all that matters.
Lyana.
I will use some of these random pictures as my guide to remind what we did in the last few months. For Labor Day, we took a day trip with our friends, the Whites, to the beach. We visited our favorite beach--Topsail. It's always so quiet and beautiful there. Although it was a holiday weekend, it was not crowded at all and the weather was fabulous--the water sooooo warm! Mark played lots of pickleball for the first time and now it's his new favorite beach game.
Enjoying hot September weekend.... It doesn't really cool down till at least the end of September, and even October has some days in the 80s.
Rowing...
Leave it to the middle schoolers to tip the boat at the High Point Regatta!:) Good thing it was nice and warm still.
Well, rowing season started the week after Labor Day in full force. This is Alex's second year on the rowing team as a middle schooler and Katya's third as a coxswain. We'll see if she continues with it this spring season.
Rowing IS a beautiful sport. Cold sometimes but beautiful.
Alex prides himself in being very tall and strong. He is growing so fast and I just have to keep buying new jeans/pants every few months (maybe he shrinks them too, who knows?)
Oh and in August, Alex was asked to sing a song at a public event in Durham. It was organized by a charitable organization for everyone to enjoy. Alex was one of the five performers who was asked to sing as he is known by the organizers from all the open mics he did with Relative Pitch. He did an amazing job performing a song from "Dear Evan Hansen" called "Waving Through A Window". We just love his passion when he performs, he really is a showman.
Robert... this wonderful man is working hard most days, loving his job and that he can help people. He's got big plans for the future and lots of things underway that are still waiting to happen. For now, he has a lot of Mondays off, so in September I signed him up to volunteer at a pro tennis tournament at Cary Tennis Park where Mark trains. Robert had a great day there, looking like he knows a ton about tennis and basically as if he were one ranking point away from going pro himself😂. Mark was so proud of Robert to help with the tournament. Oh, and Mark got to be a ball boy during the matches on one of the days! It was quite an experience for all. We also get to watch some tennis matches in the evening (and if we are lucky, our fancy tennis friends give us their VIP tickets so we can have lots of food and watch tennis at the same time:))
Katya's new thing she added to her busy life is Taekwando! I signed her up in September for the whole year. I was so surprised she actually really-really likes it! She feels strong and like she knows what she is doing already. And now she went from nothing to white belt to yellow belt. We'll see how long she will keep going in.
I must record here the story of the octopus. In August, Mark and I went to the fish shop in town and the only thing we bought was a frozen octopus. It was $19 for the whole thing that looked like a cube, sort of, and pretty small. Why, you might ask?? Because Mark is a weird seafood lover. He has an obsession with octopi and sea creatures like shrimp and squid. So we bought this as a special treat because the seafood guy told me it was easy to cook it.
So! Three days before Hurricane Florence was supposed to hit us hard in September, we had to cook this octopus so it doesn't get defrosted in our freezer if the power goes out. Robert and I watched a few youtube videos on how to prepare and cook it and then he and Mark went to work. Oh! It was something else....
And disgusting...
This is what it looked like while it was being cooked:
And amazingly it curled up and stiffened and started to look more like calamari...with no breading.
I sautéed and seasoned it for a bit longer after that and Mark pretty much gobbled the whole thing himself. Yep. That's how the story about the octopus ends.
And I wanted to post this first day of school questionnaire by Mark:
What he dislikes is: Imagine Dragons and Harry Potter--probably just because the other two kids love those two things;)
Alex is also a percussionist for our middle school band. His school just opened so the 8th grade band got to perform at the "Ribbon Cutting" ceremony in September. Alex always has so much fun with his percussion friends:)
Mark and tennis still go hand in hand, or racket in racket. He is growing out slowly out of his current racket and is hoping for a full size 27 inch one this summer. Which means another $200x2 (because you do need to have two rackets (at least) in your bag at all times).
He played in a bunch of tournaments this fall season--both singles and doubles--and did really well. He tried playing doubles with four different boys and now has his favorites. It's a different kind of game when you play doubles as you have to be fast at the net and work together with your partner. He was competing at the most advanced levels of tournaments in our state for 10 and Under (as he is turning 10 in Dec), but this next year he will start incorporating some Under 12 intermediate tournaments. At the moment he is ranked 13th in the state of NC and something like 78 in the Southern region which includes eight states).
In late October, he and I drove to Wilmington for a tournament. Wilmington is a beautiful town on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It suffered greatly during Florence as the storm made landfall just a few miles away. The clean up effort was still underway but the area was beginning to feel normal again.
The beach did! It was a glorious October day.
And a great day for Mark as he won first place. Because not many of his usual (hard) competitors participated, he almost didn't feel a full taste of victory as it was a little "too easy" and he didn't play well. He knows the difference between playing well but losing and winning easily even after double faulting at least five times...feels different.
What about me? I feel blessed to be able to be here when the kids come home from school. I don't mean to stay busy but I always seem to have something going on that needs attention--whether it's making appointments, replying to people's questions or planning meals and cleaning (and there is a lot of cleaning because the house is too big for my European taste and we all know it). My job at church is quite easy for me--playing the piano for our choir and primary, so at least that doesn't require much time during the week. I try to help out when I can at the school and play tennis matches with the local ladies (I am quite competitive in a good way:)). I also recently was able to help represent the Ukrainian booth at the International Festival in Raleigh. It was fun to tell our visitors (mostly school children) about Ukraine and share what I know about our embroidery. And I got to meet a few more Ukrainians too:)
And that was the update of our autumn months:) All is well and everyone is healthy--that's all that matters.
Lyana.
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