February 9, 2014

It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted.  Nothing too exciting has happened, but I realize that I really need to write.  With the start of the Olympics, I was telling Justin about some of his "gymnastic routines" that he did when we watched the Olympics on TV in Idaho with my parents.  Now Rob laughed that I didn't even know if gymnastics was a summer or a winter event. I don't think it is so hysterical because it isn't like they are outside.  Why can't they do gymnastics in the winter?  I get skiing is winter, track and field is summer, but gymnastics?  Anyway, Justin was asking questions about it including how old he was and I had no idea.  I was able to refer back to my blog and not only answer all of his questions, but show him a video clip.

Now as I was reading it, I cringed at how poorly I write on my blog.  I generally write as I am sitting watching TV before going to bed.  I don't proofread or put much effort into it.  I have realized that that doesn't matter too much, as long as I get things down.  If I really want, I can SOMEDAY edit things and do it right.  To be honest, I don't care enough to do a "good" blog.  This is for my mom primarily and, as I have learned, my failing memory.  So, here are the recent events of my life, dull as they may be.

My birthday is probably the big event of the post.  The boys were SO excited for my birthday to come.  They called many secret meetings to plan and ask questions.  The code word was "Bakugan" and they would tell Rob that they wanted to have some Bakugan time up in Justin's room and make sure that I knew I was uninvited.  Rob tried to explain that generally adults aren't as excited about birthdays as children are.  The way Justin sees it, I should be MORE excited about my birthdays than he is about his.  After all, he is a child and still has many birthdays to look forward to while I am old and don't have too many more left.  Better enjoy them while I can I guess.

The boys, especially Ryan, were a bit distraught that I was making my own cake.  I reassured them that it was fine.  I told them that I wanted a very special pineapple upside down cake and I was the only one who knew how to make it.  I had no birthday presents from them, so I found things in the closet that Rob could help them wrap for me.  It isn't like I didn't have things on the way, just not here in time.  There really isn't a place for the boys to go shopping for things I might like, so they got to give me something at least.  Rob had the day before my birthday off from work, so he made pizza with enough to have leftovers.  Pizza and pineapple upside down cake.  What else could I want?

I was also able to talk with both my brother and my sister. :)  I generally talk to my mom each week (and sometimes Dad pokes his head in to say something), but not so much with my brother and sister.

Forgot to take any birthday shots with the cake or anything,
but here is one shot of me with Ryan on my birthday.

 Justin has been working on shapes in school and the boys have become more interested in playing with the pattern blocks.  It's fun to have pattern blocks and some 3D shapes for Justin to use to teach Ryan.  They play school, though when it is time for Ryan to be the teacher things don't go well for long.  I suppose I should be glad that Justin is a good student in real school at least.

 

My birthday packages did finally arrive.  We also got a box of clothes that Nathan's boys had outgrown.  My boys love getting hand me down clothes from their cousins.  Ryan wanted me to take a picture of him wearing this hoodie.  There is one Cars hockey style shirt that the boys both claim as theirs.  Funny since neither of them like the movie.  Guess the shirt is just that cool.  It fits them both, so I just need to remember to rotate which drawer it gets placed in so they get equal opportunity with it.

Ryan continues to enjoy school.  Here he is playing outside while I wait to take him home.  He wanted just five more minutes.  Some things never change.  I think he would be happy enough to go there all day everyday.  Three mornings a week is enough for me.  Next year he will be a kindergartener and I will be home alone all day.

On the last day of January, Justin got to go to a birthday party for his friend Ani.  They live nearby so he was able to walk to her house after school with the other children from his class.  Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him that he was allowed to eat at the party.  Now I tend to think that is a given, which is why I forgot to mention it to him.  Cake was served, and he said he didn't know if he was allowed to eat it or not.  Ani's mother decided to call me to see if he had allergies.  Wouldn't you know that she called at the exact moment I was taking out the trash!  I didn't hear the phone, nor did Ryan mention that I had missed a call.  I rarely receive phone calls, so I didn't think to check.  I noticed the missed call shortly before I went to pick him up.  Justin was able to bring a piece of cake home, but he was a bit upset that he missed out on treats at the party.  Sigh.  We went over the concept that if I give permission for him to go to a birthday party, he has permission to eat food there.  He has even been to Ani's house before and it isn't like her mother is a stranger by any means.  Sigh.

Saturday was a bit better for Justin.  Charlie came over for a play date.  The three boys played nicely. Of course they really wanted to play outside since it was sunny.  They didn't seem to care that there was a biting wind.  I went to get the basketballs for them, and the garage door from the house to the garage broke.  Great.  At least the Embassy takes care of all of those issues for us, but still a pain.  The basketballs needed more air.  They decided playing kickball with me would be awesome.  I froze to death as they enjoyed making me play against the three of them.  At least I got my exercise for the day.  Usually I would love to have Charlie stay forever, but since I was outside and very cold I was happy when it was time for us to take him home.

We got in the car and dropped him off before heading to the church to help clean it.  There were plenty of us, so it didn't take very long.  We decided to go to KFC for lunch since we were already in the city.  The boys love KFC and it is easy to park nearby, something that I wanted to be able to do because of the bitter wind.

I liked this "STUFF ONLY" door.  There were much funnier signs
in China so I am not sure why this one amused me so much.

 KFC was, well KFC.  When that is your fast food choice it is amazing how great it can be.  They played KFC commercials on TVs around the restaurant.  The commercials were from different countries and advertised products that aren't available here.  Odd to see items and currencies that aren't consistent with where you are.  I also realized that KFC is a Pepsi serving restaurant in the US.  All of the commercials showed combos with Pepsi and Pepsi products, yet here I was in Armenia with my Coke Light.  Huh.

After lunch we went to Yum Yum Doughnuts so Rob and the boys could get a doughnut.  I am a Krispy Kreme person and that isn't an option, so I saved the calories for junk we had at home that I would actually enjoy.

I love Ryan's bug eyes when he is trying to do puppy dog eyes.

 That evening when Justin was getting ready to bathe, he became suddenly hysterical about the possibility of a scorpion climbing into the bath water with him.  Yeah, I think scorpions often climb up the walls of bath tubs and plop into the water so they can make it over to a small boy and sting him.  He was getting all worked up about scorpions and it wasn't like we could say that there aren't scorpions here, because there are.  We haven't found any in our house, but some people have.  We reassured him that in the unlikely event of a bath tub scorpion attack, we would be able to treat it.  He wasn't convinced that the medicine and cold pack would be good enough.  We googled to show him pictures to see what the scorpions here look like.  Wouldn't you know that one of the first hits was how a five year old Armenian girl died from a scorpion sting!  We didn't show that to him.  I wisely didn't tell him all of the things he should worry about more than scorpions.

Reading over Rob's shoulder, Justin saw an ad about credit scores.  He, of course, wanted to know what a credit score was.  That led to all sorts of financial questions including whether or not we were rich.  How much money would we need to be rich?  What are our assets?  What are we saving?  Since this is the same boy who wanted to know if he got our money when we die, I am hesitant to make him think we have any!  So glad we can add financial worries to the boy who worries about everything under the sun.

The first full week in February was also fairly routine.  Rob recorded the Super Bowl so he wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night to watch it.  He took the Monday off and watched it.  While his Seattle Seahawks won, he said that the game wasn't very excited to watch.

Justin had a playdate with his friend, Nathan.  Nathan and his family have moved to our neighborhood so now we live closer.  He is busy though with many extracurricular activities so Justin doesn't get to play with him as often as he would probably like.  School interferes so much with his life, poor boy.

Ryan had an extra day at preschool because two students were celebrating their birthdays.  They went all out for a school celebration.  They had pizza, cake, and other treats.  There were balloons and a professional photographer.  I was even requested to pick him up later than usual that day.  I was able to make valentines cookies without any helpers.

Friday I made some valentines chocolates, but that was not quite as successful.  I learned that my spatula did not stand up to being in the microwave with melting chocolate.  It meant a whole batch of chocolate had to be thrown out. 

A storm and later a mistake meant that I got to talk to my sister twice.  I realized how much I miss her and how fun it is to get to talk to her.  One of her few faults is that she doesn't live closer.

I have included a few pictures of the things the boys have done lately.  I have not done anything with my other blog since May of last year.  I have found several pictures and will go about posting them to the blog, though they will not necessarily be in any order.  Ryan especially has done some cute things in preschool that I want to put up.  I don't know if they will be of use to others, but it will help me remember some of the cute ideas.

The boys have been into Playmobil again.  I don't even mind playing
that with them.

Ages 7 and up?  Rob begs to differ!

The boys love watching the glitter move around in
the tornado water bottle.

Paper airplane making has taken over the dining room.

December 1, 2013

I can't believe that it is already December!  November went by pretty quickly.  The weather is definitely colder, particularly at night, but we have yet to see snow.

More leaves ready to be picked up!  These are some I did, but the community crew came and raked some as well. 

Cyrus' family is leaving on Dec. 6th, so this week the movers were busy packing them up.  Ryan was thrilled to have Cyrus come over to play after preschool so that he wouldn't be underfoot.  Ryan is starting to get a little bit sad about Cyrus leaving.  Even though Cyrus is only 3 1/2, the boys get along pretty well and he lives right across the street! 

J and R playing with Cryus in the rocks.

When our mail arrived on Monday, I was happy (for once) that we hadn't gotten very much. Everything had gotten very very wet from sitting out on the tarmac for heaven knows how long and it was absolutely soaked!  Unfortunately, my book order was one of the things that arrived.  About half of the books were quite wet.  I dried them off as best as I could.  While many aren't pretty, they can still be read.  Justin could hardly wait for some of them to be dry enough to read.

I had a fan blowing on the books all night.  It seemed to help.

 

Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Rob and I went over the many Thanksgivings we have had since we have been married and realize that very few have been traditional.  Those that were usually were only because we were in the US with family.  A big Thanksgiving meal for the four of us (with only two of us really eating much of it) seemed a bit much.  We decided that we will do the whole turkey thing over New Year's when Rob has three days off.  Instead we did what we did for our first Thanksgiving--pizza and pies!  Of course it isn't like Papa John's delivers here, so Rob made homemade pizza. :)  We opened our pizza stone (Christmas present) early so we could have the best pizza possible.  I made cherry and pumpkin pies.  We also had chips and onion dip.  Justin came home from school and we had an early dinner together while we watched one of the Shrek movies on TV.  Definitely not the Thanksgiving most people picture, but it was relaxing and we enjoyed it.

Friday Rob and I went out to the mall to see a new grocery store.  We rarely go to the mall because there is nothing there that we would want to buy.  It is easy enough to get to though, so we went to see if the grocery store was any good.  It has nice wide aisles, but it isn't any better than the closer store in terms of stocking products we want.

The mall on Black Friday.

 

Either they haven't stocked yet for the day (but they have been open at least an hour!) or they are out of a lot of produce.  Neither thing would be unusual.

In the evening we had a 6:00 PM dentist appointment for Ryan.  He had been complaining about a tooth when he ate.  Sure enough, he had a cavity in a back tooth.  We spent an hour an a half at the dentist getting it taken care of.  I was SO proud of him!  He was nervous going in, but he was brave and very well behaved.  The pediatric dentist doesn't speak much English, but someone else came in to talk with us and explain what needed to be done.  While working on Ryan, the dentist often told him that he was a good boy and that he was being brave.  Sometimes she just spoke in a soothing voice in Armenian.  I was standing right there too and tried to distract him when he looked like he was getting upset or scared.  The bill came in at under $40 and it looked just as modern as the dentist we go to in the US.  Yay!  Not that I hope we have to go in to see her a lot, but we know a dentist for the boys now.   Justin was playing on my phone in the waiting room or I would have taken a picture.

We went to KFC for dinner because it was dinner time and KFC was just up the street.  We ordered Ryan ice cream and pineapple juice so he wouldn't chew on his numbed cheek.  Looks like he did that later on in his sleep anyway. :(

On Saturday I went with Ryan to a birthday party.  The girl's birthday is the same day as his so I was hoping it wouldn't upset him that he isn't having a party.  He enjoyed the party and doesn't seem to care that he isn't having a party.  I said that he can take cupcakes to school and that he and I will spend the day doing things that he likes to do.  Maybe a party next year...

I was also able to get an all important video clip of Justin giving me permission to give him hugs and kisses even when he gets older.  I already had one of Ryan.  These things will be important for me to have in the future.  I keep getting an upload error, so here is the link.

http://youtu.be/2m2hxCiEsug

 

October 27, 2013

This was Fall Break for Justin's school so he was home all week long.  Ryan still had school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings as usual.  Let me just say that it was a looooooooong week.  Justin seems to have forgotten that I don't always just sit around and watch TV all day.  He was a bit annoyed when I would do laundry, cook dinner, or do something else besides play with him or rush to meet his every need.  There were a few play dates, but it is amazing how many hours are in a day. I can hardly wait for Christmas break when I have them BOTH for over three weeks.  Hopefully new birthday and Christmas presents will help keep them entertained.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ryan complained that he was itching.  I ignored him because (1) he tends to itch a lot and (2) he seemed to itch the most when he was asked to do something.  Put away his shoes?  No, of course he can't because he itches.  Well eventually I looked and he seemed to be getting a rash under his arms, on his stomach, and in the groin area.  Soon I saw a bit on his face.  It spread and seemed to get worse.  I gave him benedryl and put him in a cool bath.  I asked Rob to find out what is available here to help with itching.  Evidently not much, but he brought some zinc oxide home.  More benedryl and a body coated with zinc oxide had him comfortable enough to sleep.  By the time I got ready for bed and checked on him, he was cleared up.  Go figure.

Isn't he pathetic looking?

It got a lot worse than this, but no naked shots for the blog.

 With so much extra time to play, Justin was bored because of course the kids don't own any toys.  So what did we spend hours doing?  Yep, drawing on cardboard boxes.  We made cities by drawing directly on the boxes and by adding additional touches created on other paper.  I knew I saved out some boxes from the move for a reason.

This is Justin's first of three boxes.  He made bridges to connect them.

Ryan didn't get quite as into it, but he had fun adding to J's so I gave him his own.

I bought some straws for a project we are going to do.  It was cheaper for me to get 500 straws than 100, so we have plenty of straws.  These were individually wrapped and I need them unwrapped.  We had fun shooting the straw paper off of our straws and seeing how far we could get them to fly.  Justin was the champion.  He could even shoot off multiple straws at a time.

We also made cookies.  Well, I made the cookies and the boys got to help frost some of them.

Ryan made some pretty scary ones, right?

Plenty of pumpkins so we could share and have our own. :)

 We made some Halloween bags for some missionaries who are here from the US.  Along with the cookies, we had a variety of candy and a few other snacks.  The boys had fun coloring bags and then filling them up.  They could hardly wait to deliver their bags and the missionaries enjoyed getting some American treats.

 On Saturday, we went over to the Hansen's for their garage sale.  Their kids are younger, so we knew we didn't need what they were selling, but a local farm was selling some pumpkins there as well.  We had to pick up a pumpkin for Halloween!  Ryan's preschool was also selling goodies to raise money for charity.  The boys were more than happy to support a good cause by eating cookies and hot chocolate.

After that, we went to church to help clean it and get it ready for Sunday.  The boys would have been in the way more than they helped so we parked them on chairs and let them play on the iphone and ipod while we worked.  When we were finished, we headed to KFC for lunch.  Who could ask for a better treat than that?  The boys were excited.  Funny how we don't go to KFC in the US, but when that is your fast food option, all of the sudden it is awesome.  Justin is eating more lately and Ryan less.  Funny to have their roles reversed, but Justin probably needs to eat a bit more if he is going to get taller.  Don't know that he could get much thinner.  We went to Yum Yum Doughnuts after KFC and got ice cream as a treat.

J loves to pose making funny faces.

Ryan has to try to be as funny as Justin.

 On the way back to the car we passed a bouncy thing by the Opera House.  We let the boys enjoy the nice October day by running and bouncing around for awhile before heading home.

I think this building is interesting and since we were stopped at a red light I took a pic.

 At home we were able to get to our pumpkins.  Since the boys can't carve yet, they had markers, stickers, wiggle eyes, and pipe cleaner to decorate their pumpkins with.  It kept them busy for longer than I thought.  Ryan also got to choose what kind of eyes he wanted me to carve on the larger pumpkin.  Justin chose the mouth.  I tried to copy their drawings and fortunately they were simple enough. :)  They couldn't agree on a nose, so our jack-o-lantern went without.

Left to right: Justin's, mine, and Ryan's

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

15 September 2013

This week we had decent internet.  Hurray!  It made my life a lot easier.  Ironically, I think I spent less time on the internet when it worked than when it did not.  When it was mostly not working, I spent a lot of time checking to see if it was working and trying to download things very s-l-o-w-l-y and multiple times.

Ryan and I continue to pick Justin up at school in the afternoon.  We leave a bit early so we can watch the frogs.  I am still having so much fun watching them, as is he.  We also go out with our cameras and a clipboard for ABC walks sometimes.  We are trying to get pictures of things that start with each letter of the alphabet.  I think we will be without a few letters, but we are having fun.  The weather has still been in the high 80s or low 90s during the day, but I know that soon it will change.

Ryan and I love to watch the frogs when we go on our walks.

 Grapes seem to be ripe now.  We pass by some houses in the neighborhood with grapes and they have more than they could possibly eat.  I wonder what they do with all of them or if some just spoil.  I was delighted to see that they are evidently ripe everywhere now and very tasty and cheap.  Better enjoy them while we can.  At least everyone in the family likes them.  With the plums, it was just me.

It is grape season!  Since these aren't ours, we bought some at the market.
They were only $1.25 a kilo!  They are small, but seedless and delicious.

 

Rob took Friday off of work because he has some comp time he needs to use before the end of the year.  It was nice to have him around and the boys gone.  We went to Yerevan City Supermarket downtown.  I would rave that it is the best supermarket I have been to here, but I realize that I have only been to Kaiser and to a small little market in the city.  I enjoy the convenience of being able to order online in English from SAS and having them deliver.  Yerevan City had a much wider selection and lower prices.  They also had some things that I haven't been able to find yet.  In the US we wouldn't consider it a particularly great store, but it is all relative.

 

That afternoon when I went to pick up Justin, Rob stayed home with Ryan.  Cyrus and his mom came over to see if Ryan could play.  Justin joined them when he and I got back.  Even more time without the boys.  It was so very quiet in our house.  It gave us some time to get ready for our dinner guests.

 

We had Elder and Sister Reese from church over for dinner.  It was nice to have them over and have time to talk a bit.  In church it can be hard to get to chat much sometimes.  Justin and Ryan were in heaven and treated them like adopted grandparents.  They loved the attention and we enjoyed being able to share an American meal with them.

 

On Saturday Rob had to work for just over an hour.  We chose to go with him and play out on the Embassy playground while he was working.  It is the only American style playground here so it is a special treat.  We drove into the city when he was done.  We decided to see the Cascades.  We parked by the Opera House in an underground lot.  The city has just started charging for street parking, but the tricky part is paying for it.  You can pay in advance at kiosks, if you know where they are.  You can also pay using your cell phone.  The problem is that our provider doesn't have that feature.  Some people have said that since we have red plates (diplomats) we would be okay.  I guess if we should ever need to park in pay parking and not find a way to pay, we can risk it.  The fine is about $12.50 US.  You can pay for parking by the hour, day, week, month, or year.  It is $5/month or $30 for a year so I guess if we think we will be parking on the street we can find a kiosk and splurge.  For now the underground opera lot is perfect for us.  It too is relatively inexpensive (under 50 cents an hour) and not in the sun since it is underground.  It also means you don't have to parallel park. :)



This is the Opera House in downtown Yerevan.  It has a great (and inexpensive!)
underground parking lot that I think will become our regular parking place.

 

It took us a few minutes to figure out where to go once we came out of the lot.  We wandered around the block until we saw it.  It wasn't like you could miss it once it was within sight.

Street signs?!  That is sadly not always common.
These have English too, a real plus.

The Cascades in Yerevan.  Would be prettier if they weren't
doing construction at the top.

Statue of someone who is probably important.

My boys. :)

 

The Cascades consists of many flights of stairs up the hill.  There are statues all along the way.  There is also an art gallery of some sort, but we opted to just check out the statues because the boys were not in the mood for walking around quietly and looking at "boring" things.  The really great thing about the Cascades is that there are escalators under the stairs.  We went in one of the little doorways and took escalators up.  Escalators are entertainment in and of themselves for our kids.  We did take the stairs down and look at the statutes on the various levels.

What could be better than a statue of a naked soldier of some sort?

City view from the Cascades

Mt Ararat would be great to see from here on a clear day.

No idea what they are still working on. 

I spotted a deux chevaux and it made me think of when I lived
in Brussels as a child.

 

 

After we were done walking around, we headed to KFC for a special lunch. Yes, KFC is a special treat here.  It isn't like there is a McDonald's, a Burger King, or Wendy's or anything.  There IS a Pizza Hut, but as was the case in China, Pizza Hut is a somewhat "fancy" restaurant compared to the US.  Maybe we will give it a try soon.  Something about American fast food can be comforting when we are overseas.  Plus it is something that the boys will eat without complaining.

 

We were able to make it home again without incident.  I tried using my phone to help with directions, but Google Maps was absolutely crazy!  When I got home I looked up the problem online and discovered that there was a mandatory update to the app.  I did the update and all is fine again.  It is a VERY helpful app in a place that has few street signs.  Sometimes seeing the street signs doesn't do much for me either because we drive past too far for me to try to match up the squiggles I see with what is on the map.

 

See what I mean?  Which KFC location would you choose and how would you know you were getting close?