It's a Small, Small World

This week has been busy. I had a joint birthday party with two other people from work whose birthdays are in the same week. We went out to a nice Mongolian restaurant, and had a really good time. Joe ate horse meat and said it was pretty good.

It's nice to have more teachers that are around our age this year. We had our first teenage babysitter, and that was fine. I just feel sorry for her because she had to watch the Barney video twice. Joe made me homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups which were yummy. It's definitely the one candy I miss from home.

The reason I say it's a small world is because we got a new teacher this week. One guess as to where he is from . . . that's right, Iowa! Not only did he graduate from UNI, he graduated from Columbus. His last name is Cavanaugh. Apparently, Joe went to high school with his nephew. I'm telling you, Iowans are everywhere, at least in the teaching world. That makes a total of four Iowans at our school now. (Five if you count the one that married an Iowan and lives there during the summers :)

Not too much has been going on otherwise. We are in the countdown to winter break. 13 school days left. We will be on a plane to Iowa in no time.

Sophia is talking and talking. Let's see, new words - cookie, Drew (from his picture), Barney, Freddie (a little frog from her Little People video), please, help, and a few more. They just keep popping out! She's become so demanding about her videos. The nanny lets her watch one while she cooks dinner, and then Sophia just wants to watch more and more. We usually don't let her, and she goes and tries to get the one she wants out of the case. She's a girl who knows exactly what she wants.

It's getting harder and harder to get out of bed these days as the mornings feel like night. It's been a bit gloomy around here lately. It's winter without too much snow. It's all melted away. A mixed blessing really. At least it snowed on the day of my birthday. It helped to make the scenery a little more pleasant.

So, that's about it. We'll have to try to go out and find something interesting in Almaty to blog about. Maybe Joe can try a new horse product.

It's Been Awhile...

Even though, I don't have much to say, I feel like it's been too long since I blogged. I guess the biggest news is that we are coming to Iowa for Christmas. Sophia will love it. I don't know if her mom and dad are going to enjoy the plane ride, but it will be worth it.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at school this past weekend, and tomorrow we're going to a friend's house to celebrate again. Maybe this time we'll get some Turkey since we were late to the school Thanksgiving. Too bad we have to teach tomorrow.

That's pretty much what has been going on. Sophia has completely mastered calling us mama and dada now. Last week she was calling Joe "mama." Paybacks, I guess, for her first words being "dada." She even told the nanny today, "Nana, poo-poo." Sure enough, there was poo-poo. Smart. "Nana" by the way is the Russian name for nanny.

We put up the Christmas tree this week; yes, before Thanksgiving! Joe figured that we should put it up early since we will only enjoy it until the 17th. I knew better than to try to fight him. It's fun having it up, although it doesn't feel wintery here without any snow. I think we'll get a big snowfall soon. It wouldn't be Almaty without that.

The Snow Came and Went

We had snow here last Friday, and it was gone by Monday. I'm secretly glad. I just wasn't ready for all that snow and dirty slush. Sophia got a big kick out of it, though.

We have to work next week on Thanksgiving, so we'll be celebrating this weekend with the other teachers at school. Here are some random photos and a video of Sophia having a little fun outside.



The market where we buy our fruits and vegetables every weekend. There are all sorts of different vendors. We have our favorite veggie guy and our favorite pickle stand.

Jack O' Lantern

Off to get some goodies.
Sophia is great at the Kazakh squat. Men sit like this in the streets a lot. Not too comfortable in our opinion.
Elka, Layla, and Sophia. The three girls. Apparently, Sophia should have been a fairy princess. Maybe next year...
Our little pumpkin.

Trick or Treat

We finally had trick-or-treating today, and we were able to relive our youth through Sophia. I think Joe was most excited to take Sophia up to the doors and get treats. She wore her pumpkin outfit (thanks to the Hafners :). She loved it and said "apple" when she put it on. She thinks everything is either an apple or a ball these days.

Newest Sophia antics - coloring big loopy circles in her Winnie the Pooh coloring book and saying "apple" or "ball," pulling her little toddler chair up the piano and banging away, being fascinated with zippers and undressing herself, choosing her own clothes, and my personal favorite - pooping in the bathtub. Even though it's gross, I have to include this here. No one told me that I would experience such joy as a parent and such disgust!! Sophia has now left a little surprise in the bathtub for me 4 times! I could handle once or twice, but four?? Last night she did it. I heard her in there saying, "No, no." She was standing in the opposite corner from her little deposit. I drained the tub, cleaned it out, ran fresh water, and put her back in. Five minutes later... I hear, "No, no." There she is, looking concerned, inching away from her second deposit to the opposite corner of the tub. "I love you," I say, through clenched teeth. What did I do? I drained the tub, cleaned it out, ran fresh water, and put her back in. The joys of parenthood!

I don't know if she understood much of the trick-or-treating today, but she had fun chasing her friends around. Well, she tries to chase them anyway. She is the youngest of the bunch and can't really run yet, so it puts her at a bit of a disadvantage. Her buddy, Layla, is two and a half. (She coincidentally wears the same size as Sophia. No wait, Sophia wears a bigger diaper. It's that Buddha belly.) Whenever we see her, Layla immediately pinches Sophia's cheeks. Then, she grabs Sophia's hand and drags her around. I got a great picture of them holding hands tonight. Pretty cute the way they give each other kisses, too.

Our week of vacation is over. Was it a vacation? We spent two and a half days working and planning at the school. It took away from our break, but I am sure I will appreciate it later. There's so much still to be done! Joe went to a Halloween party at a friend's apartment across the street tonight. (I went last week.) I'll have to ask him what interesting costumes there were.

Tomorrow, we'll go the big, and supposedly fabulous, brunch at the Hyatt hotel. A mother at our school got some teachers half-price tickets, so we lucked out. I hope it's half as good as they say it is.

Almay is just as crowded as ever and just as polluted as ever. The air has been getting worse as it gets colder. Almost everyday the weather forecast online says "smoke." Seriously, that's not a weather condition. I've been trying to beat a slight cold, but it just won't go away. Hmm...wonder if that thick Almaty air has anything to do with it. Not to mention our apartment is so dry, I wake up in the morning feeling like beef jerky. There's not an ounce of moisture in the air.

They have finally opened up the new underpass/road near our house. I told Joe it would open this week, and he so dubiously said, "No way, four more months." It's bad, but it's not as slow as Egypt could be. It opened! Our time to school is greatly diminished. No more chicken fighting our way through an alley on the way to school. However, Almaty in its great wisdom has a serious problem with left turn signals. A serious problem meaning, there are none. Now they have a new road, but if you have to turn left, you're screwed. You have to wait until the light turns red and then try to speed through the intersection before you get hit by the oncoming traffic which of course goes before their light turns green. Great system. Just great. Regardless, we are still getting there faster. Yippee!

It seems there was some strange happening to report, but for the life of me, I can't think of it. I will write it down when I remember!