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.