Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Click below to read our Christmas 2010 letter!

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4P6hVB7AigFN2JiMmQ3ODctOGQ5OC00NDhkLTgwZGYtZGJjZmM0NGQzNTgz&hl=en

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours,

Marina, Dmitri and the girls

Snow Fun

Emily had a Winter Carnival at school on Friday, Dec.3rd. For the third year in a row, I made my ladybug cakes for the cake walk.

Natalie enjoyed sitting on Santa's lap

I was amazed how big Emily looked sitting on Santa's lap...

Instead of having their faces painted, the girls preferred pretty jewel stickers.

After the carnival, the girls went to a sleep-over at Emily's classmate's house. Maggie's mom, Amy, is one amazing woman... having a bunch of little girls going crazy at her house until 1:30am. In the meantime, honey and I hung out by ourselves at home, watching a movie, eating cake, relaxing. He left the next morning on a trip, while snow was accumulating.

The girls were thrilled to be outside - and they dragged me out too!

Ok, so everyone who knows me well, knows that I don't like winter, cold or snow. But, that day I guess the girls' enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself enjoying the white stuff and how beautiful everything looked. Now, is this a breakthrough? or will this get old and will I start despising it again?

Emily loved running down the yard, slipping and falling 'in style.'

Things got even more fun when the girls went and got their buddy, Emma.

Then it was time to come inside to warm up with some hot chocolate. This is a view from our dining room window - Christmas lights reflecting on the snow-covered branches outside.

Some leftover doughnuts, hot chocolate with marshmallows... and three hyper and silly friends

Emma and Emily goofed around sucking up marshmallows with their straws. Oh, Emily's wearing the star on her forehead - it's the jewel sticker from the carnival the night before.

After Emma left, we all went down for a very long nap. Then we made pizzas from scratch and played a Christmas stocking Memory game that I printed off the web that afternoon. I felt incredibly thankful for this sweet time with my girls and for the beautiful creation outside.

Going Nuts!

Last Sunday Dmitri was craving his favorite cookies - Russian nut cookies that actually don't contain any nuts and are safe for our nut-free Small Group. :) We all had had a really long nap, went out to Fazoli's as a treat, got home past 9pm and my honey got the dough going! The girls were thrilled and at first I was a little apprehensive - it was way past their bedtime and Emily had school the next morning! However, I quickly changed my mind - afterall, who cares about a late bedtime if they can make memories together with daddy who is gone so much AND make cookies that this pregnant woman loves??

"Play-Dough"

The girls had fun shaping the dough into little balls.

Here's the chef himself, checking out their work and making corrections.

And here's the amazing griddle. It's quite heavy and my mother lugged it all the way from Russia a couple of years ago. Apparently, those griddles were mass-produced many years ago and never again since. My mom and my sister had been actively searching for one for several years, and whaddaya know - on the same weekend they both got responses to an ad they had placed in the paper - living in two different cities! So, my mom traveled across the ocean with it and TSA was quite baffled by this... um... bizarre weapon.

Here are the baked nut halves.

The next step is filling them. Dmitri had boiled cans of condensed milk until it turned to gooey caramel.

Here is the final product!

And here's the final product on its way to my mouth! Yum!!!

So, lasting memories were made and the nuts... well, they are in our memory too now that they are all gone!

Pumpkin Carving (a.k.a. "Brain Surgery")

On Saturday, October 30th, the girls and I had our second annual 'mommy-daughters' pumpkin carving fun. Yes, we always wish that daddy was here to share in all the fun, but we still enjoyed our leisurely afternoon together.

Emily made progress this year and actually did not get grossed out scooping out the pumpkin brains. Up until this activity, she seemed to be having a tough day, but playing in the slimy pumpkin insides somehow soothed her and she started to smile.

Natalie was definitely more hesitant (you can see that she is not putting her hand very deep).

Here's Emily again, just relishing the mess!

Natalie was very particular about the pumpkin's future face. Here she is actually correcting what I had drawn earlier!

Um... have I already mentioned that Emily was loving the mess?

Here are our creations in the beautiful fall light. Natalie's has a face, I carved a cross inside a heart, and Emily carved a cross and a crown.

We waited until it got dark to light the candles and take a few more photos.

I did take a few photos without the flash and my pumpkin looked nice:

As we worked on our pumpkins, I again told them how God takes us, cleans us off, then scoops the yucky sin out of us and places His light inside of us for the world to see (see Matthew 5:14-16).

I feel very thankful to have spent this weekend seeing and doing beautiful things with my girls.

What a gift they are!

HalloZooWeen!

Sunday, October 24th, we started off at church, then lunch at Culver's (nothing healthy but all SOO good!), and then drove with Sarah Schmidt and her 5-year old Josh to the Cincinnati Zoo for their annual HalloZooWeen. The weather was unbelievable - it was actually hot!

The girls were 'Russian Princesses' and Josh was Buzz Lightyear. Most children were in costumes, and some were a little disturbing... But, we enjoyed seeing the animals. Above, the kids are in front of the giraffe pen.

Below, this bear was... um... exercising? It was pulling on its hind legs. I'd be in major pain if I tried doing that now.

This polar bear was resting and melancholically checking out the crowd.

Here's Sarah, our fearless leader. If it wasn't for her, my kids wouldn't get out of the Burlington/Florence, KY, area! She has shown us so many beautiful and fun places over the past 5 years.

Here's Natalie on our first train ride at the Zoo.

For a while, the kids played at the playground and Sarah and I rested. On our way out of the zoo, the kids stopped to look at the pond and the ducks.

And, I could't help but snap this photo, just couldn't get enough of the fall colors we saw that day.

After the Zoo, we went back to Culvers to use the ice cream coupons that we got at lunch. Yes, we actually had ice cream for dinner. We all need days like that sometimes!

The Long-Awaited Vacation!!

After a crazy-busy week and a very short night (I slept less than 4 hours), the girls and I left the house at 6am on Saturday (Oct.9, 2010), flew to Minneapolis and then to Ft. Myers, FL. My brother-in-law picked us up around 4pm. Emily passed out almost immediately, while Natalie and I were more or less ok after napping on the plane. Now, if you ever fly to Florida, make sure that you drive directly to the beach - no need to stop anywhere to drop your things off, etc. Right to the beach we went and finally, we truly felt like we were on vacation. Here is Emily (right) and her cousin Katya (left) with Katya's friends, digging a deep hole under Emily's direction.

Here's my sister-in-law Irina with Katerina.

The sunset was glorious but incredibly short. Literally, the sun would plunge into the ocean within about 2 minutes. I videotaped it because I had a hard time believing just how fast it was happening.

On Tuesday, the 12th, my honey along with his mom arrived at my sister-in-law's house. Kids enjoyed some special time with her as she took time to read to them and play with them.

Emily helped Serezha do his Kumon homework. We joked that during our time in Florida Emily practically became a certified Kumon instructor. She really enjoyed helping him - she is definitely a good teacher.

Here are the four cousins: Sergei (almost 5), Emily (7), Natalie (4) and Katerina (7). This really was a special time for them because usually only one of my girls goes to Florida at a time. This was the first time in a while that all four of them were together. And, it was my and Dmitri's first time at my sister-in-law's house since they moved to FL 6 years ago! Hopefully we will go back to visit them again soon.

On Thursday (Oct.14), Alex (Ira's husband) drove us to Tampa where we boarded our ship - Carnival Inspiration. Actually, this photo was taken when we docked in Cozumel, Mexico.

We never tired of the fun towel creations we found in our rooms every night, along with the chocolate (that our kids would steal).

Aah, the cruise food..... Mmmm! It was all incredible. You think there's not much food on this plate? You think we were starving and losing weight?? Oh no! This is just one of the several appetizers we all would get at each dinner, PLUS the main course, PLUS dessert! Honestly, we were never hungry for the next meal. At breakfast we were still stuffed from dinner the night before, at lunch we were still full from breakfast, and coming to dinner we were almost feeling guilty, knowing that we are far from hungry but also knowing that we would definitely eat the upcoming meal.

Speaking of the 'upcoming meal'... At the very first dinner on Thursday night, after the delicious appetizers were served, the waiter (we had two of them) asked if we wanter regular water or Pellegrino (sparkling water). We asked for the latter. Natalie took a sip from her glass, sat it down, said, "I don't like this water." And then she proceeded to... throw up all over the table, including the delicate smoked duck appetizer. We were mortified. The waiters immediately rushed to her, covering everything with napkins. Dmitri wisely suggested that we really needed to have the table cloth changed. The waiters kindly obliged and quickly removed all the plates (that included untarnished appetizers) from the table, the soiled table cloth, wiped the table and then quickly replaced everything. What a good first impression our family made...

So, we're at sea!! And I felt like I was flying! :) Children were having a blast at "Camp Carnival" which allowed my mother-in-law to rest on the 'Serenity Deck' (no one under the age of 21 allowed), and Dmitri and I explored the ship together.

On Saturday we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico!

We rented a car (it cost as much as two cab rides!), and drove to the other side of the island, enjoying the sights during the drive. We first stopped by a pretty beach but due to the rough terrain we chose not to spend too much time there. My mother-in-law though was so anxious to jump into the warm water that she ran for it, despite the sharp petrified corrals.

In the meantime, we stopped by a little vending stand on that beach. Since Natalie had been complaining of the sun being in her eyes everytime we tried to take pictures, Dmitri asked the guy at the stand to make a hat for Natalie. He did so with his incredible fast fingers. Here we are with that guy. He even made little grasshoppers out of the same palm leaves for the girls.

Here's Dmitri modeling Emily's hat and showing off his tattoo (ok, it was a temporary one. The funny thing is that he ended up with a tan-too at the end of the trip - when this one washed off, it left a faint design on his arm that will probably stay there for the next few months!).

We finally found a gorgeous beach, complete with a restaurant. Dmitri loved taking the girls' pictures by this bright green wall of the restaurant.

We spent quite a long time swimming, looking for beautiful shells (found plenty!), and the girls were excited to see the boy from our ship, who happened to get to the same beach with his parents. That boy (Baran) would become almost a part of our family for the remainder of the cruise! He and the girls had a great time together.

After the beach we followed signs and the map that the guy at Alamo rental place scribbled on, and we got to Cedral community that boasted a Mayan temple of love and fertility. Of course, we took lots of pictures there, including of Dmitri, me and my pregnant belly. :)

Oh, the young guy that gave us a little tour also brought out his iguana for this picture. Natalie was very wary of it and didn't want to come near. Emily didn't mind it at all, as though she'd been around iguanas her whole life!

Dmitri couldn't help but stop on the way to take some more pictures of the rocks and the ocean. We were so blessed with perfect weather, considering that the previous two cruises before ours encountered very rough weather due to the hurricane. I see there's one heading that way today!

Our final dinner on the ship. Don't worry, I'm just having an alcohol-free strawberry smoothie! What an amazing vacation we had! I'm so blessed with a wonderful and caring husband who organized the whole thing, and even got us a room with a big window.

That final night I didn't want to leave that window despite Dmitri's requests to go to sleep as we needed to gain strength for the long day ahead of us. However, I just kept staring out of our window in to the darkness outside, just seeing the waves from our ship. It was so beautiful and peaceful. I felt like I wanted to absorb it all. Ok, it IS a big ocean, but still, I didn't want this trip to end so fast. I had never been out in the vast ocean before, and frankly, I was a little nervous of it. But, during this trip I fell in love with the beautiful blue creation all around me - the bright blue of the sky and the indigo blue of the ocean. I will definitely miss the 'Serenity Deck' where Dmitri, his mom and I sat for almost 2 hours on the final night, enjoying the warm breeze on our faces, even though it was almost 10pm.

Thus, our vacation came to an end. The next morning we got off the ship, went to the airport, flew to New York, LaGuardia, then to Cincinnati, getting home at 9pm. That night I still felt like I was in motion whether it was from the ship or the long flights. Probably both.

Thanks for letting me share with you and I pray that you may have an enjoyable and relaxing vacation soon!