Sold and Bought!

The condo has been sold, well, in escrow, pending on us finding a place, and we did! We signed papers last Thursday evening. (Which interrupted the premeire of Grey's Anatomy!) We are moving in about 3 weeks, YIKES! Escrow closes Oct. 21st. We bought a 3 bedroom house with LOTS of space inside and out. We were hoping for a 4 bedroom but all that we looked at were teeny. Even two 5 bedroom homes we looked at were teeny and trashed! So we went for a house where we could add on and enjoy the space around us. It is a great entertaining house and many of you know how much we like to entertain so we'll have to have another wine tasting party to celebrate when we are all moved in!

We will certainly miss being able to walk to Trader Joe's, Cold Stone and Coffee Bean, all the important stores. As well as walking to see our friends; Eaton's and van der Heide's. But a whole new world awaits us on the other side of the freeway...Woody's BBQ, Ralph's, Goleta Coffe Company, and Bennett's the teaching store, my favorite! What we won't miss are the skunks, opposums and racoons. We had 5 racoons in our yard two nights ago, and the boys got to see the action. The "o-coons" are all they could talk about the next day. So exciting!

Today we visited the Slavic Church in town with the woman we met at radiology. It was a 2 1/2 hour service, which we were not prepared for, but it was an excellent service and a wonderful experience. The service is in Russian but there is a translator in the back and we had headsets. The songs were written in Russian and English on the screen, so we just sang in English. We have never been so welcomed at a church before, and we've been to quite a few. I bravely took the microphone and introduced ourselves to the congretation, stating that we had just adopted the boys from Krasnoyarsk, Russia and were here hoping to meet families to help the boys keep their Russian language. We were flooded by families after the service waiting to introduce themselves to us. A wonderful older lady, definately a "babushka" offered to help out with the boys anytime I wanted. YES! YES! YES! The pastor told us they will be starting Russian school in December where the boys would eventually learn to read and write in Russian. Our minds flipped back to the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when the main character had to attend Greek School growing up. Looks like that will be the fate for our boys; they start Russian School in December! So excited about this! We will definately be going back to the Slavic Church this coming Sunday.

Here are some of the latest and greatest pics!
Sasha Wrestling a Tiger. It's a toss up who wins!


Stasi talking to Uncle Chris (my brother)



And the daily activity of water play!







Anyone wanting to help us move, be here on Oct. 21st!

Poop and other things

Poop has been the topic of discussion in this household lately. The boys are facinated with poop. When we go to the zoo all they want to see is the animal's poop and are quite disappointed when they can't find it. Stasi, who hates messes, will help Andy or I wipe up Sasha as we clean his poop. Sasha, strangley enough, doesn't seem to mind. Sasha, who frequently accompanies me into the bathroom, helped the toilet do it's job the other night by sticking his hand in the toilet and make the same swirling motion. Andy about gagged when I told him the story. Tonight during bathtime, Sasha decided to poop in the tub, making both Andy and Stasi squeal! This is not Sasha's first time. Oh the wonders of boys!

Onto other things....Stasi's pre-school hired a new assistant who speaks Russian. How great is that! We are so excited about this. When we took Stasi to get some chest x-rays (he's fine by the way!) we met a technician who is Russian and invited us to the Slavic church in town so we will be accompanying her this coming Sunday. They have headsets so we can hear the service in English, while the boys will be in their Sunday School classes getting Russian. We are very excited about this opportunity.

The boys are learning more and more English each week, and a lot of it is through music. I took a lot of my Kindergarten CD's and pulled out the songs that I thought would be best for them and made some new CD's for the house and car. Baa, Baa Black Sheep is a favorite and each time we go to the zoo and see the sheep exhibit I have to sing the song. EIEIO is another favorite and my mom, or "Boo-Boo" will sing it to Sasha on the phone, it's quite cute! Here are some pics. of music time at the house. Notice Sasha's Jimmy Hendrix shirt, Andy loves this shirt!



We sold our condo and are in Escrow. Now we need a house. We put in an offer on a house, but aren't too sure the owner will take our offer, so it might be back to looking this coming weekend. Not too easy with the boys, but, by now they are getting used to it. Wish us happy hunting!

Family Photos

Our dear friend, Brad Elliot, who is a professional photographer, blessed us with family photos down at the beach. It was a great day for picture taking and the boys loved being in the sand. Brad got a great shot of Sasha eating the sand, which is what he usually does.



One of the favorites is the brotherly kiss. So cute!



Stasi's favorite person in the world...Papa!

The latest news

Hi All. I haven't updated in awhile, assuming we weren't getting much traffic now that we are back in the U.S., but my father-in-law has requested that I still keep posting. So, even if it is just for you Richard, here's the latest news.

Andy has been back at work for 4 days and has frequently been told, "Boy, I am so glad you are finally back!" While that is a great compliment, that also means alot of WORK! He's been up till midnight each night catching up on projects. He could certainly use some sleep but with new toddlers, that doesn't really happen for either of us.



Stasi started pre-school on Monday and loves it. (picture of Stasi and his teacher above) He told us to leave on Monday and when Sasha was happily playing at the water table, Stasi told me, "Mama! Sasha Bye-bye!" Basically, get my little brother out of my school! Since Sasha was so excited about the water table, I came home and made one for Sasha here. Tuesday and Thursday he didn't want Andy to leave, but when we checked back in with his teacher she said within 5 minutes he was forgotten and was engaged into an activity. Today his teacher, Lisa, introduced the snake. This was a major reason I chose this pre-school...it has a snake. For those of you who know me well, I HATE snakes! It's not even that I hate them, I am deathly afraid of them. I sent my girlfriend into the snake exhibit at the zoo, alone with my two boys and her son as that was the only way Sasha and Stasi were going to see the snakes...Thanks Jillian! Anyway, when Stasi came home today, he told me all about the snake that Lisa has. He loves the snake! Stasi's English is getting better and better each day. He daily will say, "Mama,please more beach." He loves the beach.


Sasha and I now take a toddler gym class on Tuesdays and it is very fun for us! I love it as much as he does. Sasha is also King of silly noises and faces. He cracks us up daily with the new sounds he comes up with and the words he says. Thank you is "Kipka" and babushka is "boo-boo" but my all time favorite is what he calls my dad; dedushka is "doo-doo"! Sorry dad, it's just to funny not to share! He is also king of kisses and we just can't get enough!


We've had 3 offers on our condo and have accepted one. We have 60 days to find a house. We have the inspection report of one house we really like, but if that falls through we are back to looking. We will still look at Open Houses this weekend to see what is out there. There are lots of options which is great for us.

Enjoy the recent pics. and I'll try to be better about posting!