Birthdays

We've been traveling around India, Nepal, and the UAE (more on that later).  Since we were traveling when Jane and Harry had their birthdays, we managed a little celebration as a family once we got home. No time to plan a big party.  Ah, well.

I'd been working on a princess dress for Jane, which I finished just in time for her birthday celebration.  As we were getting ready for the party, I remembered a little "pea" costume I'd received from a friend a few years ago.  And then it hit me... The Princess and the Pea!  Here are a few pictures of the kids on their "birthday".  For anyone wondering, they weren't born on the same day but three days apart.

Harry, getting a look as I make the frosting.  He's getting really good at climbing.  He'll be walking soon! And sorry, I can't find a picture of the cake. 

Jane in her dress!  I've had the dark pink material and some of the trimming for a long time.  Glad I finally made something out of it!

Jane and Harry playing with Harry's present.

Cute, isn't it?  Maren was able to capture this picture.  Pretty hard with such wiggly kids!

Caucasus Christmas

On a whim, we decided to make a quick holiday trip to the Caucasus region and visit Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. We also got to see a little bit of the Ukraine on our way home. Below are a few anecdotes of our adventure.

Arrival into Tbilisi

• We arrived minus one suitcase, which we had to retrieve from the airport three days later. Not to worry, I had packed extra clothes for the kids and underwear and pajamas for everyone into our carry-on luggage. Nils and I just wore the same thing for three days - thank you dark jeans and brown long-sleeved shirt. 
• The one checked bag that did arrive, the kids' car seats, we checked at the train station so we wouldn't have to carry it around. Finding where you can leave luggage was a bit scary as we had to wind around dark stairwells and underground passages before finding the hole in the wall (literally) storage service. We gave them our bag and $7. We got a small piece of paper with a number scribbled on it - a matching scribbled paper stapled to our bag. 
• Purchased tickets to Baku, Azerbaijan for the following evening. First class sleeper car, baby. 
• Beautiful city! Click here for Tbilisi pictures.

Night train to Baku

• This is the life! Private cabin, portable DVD player, and simple groceries. 
• Apparently, I look Azeri because at the border crossing into Azerbaijan, the guard looked at me and through non-verbal cues (and some verbals ones that I didn't understand), asked if I was. It's amazing what you can understand without understanding the words. Anyway, maybe I need to look a little deeper into my genealogy.

Arrival into Baku

• We hadn't been able to secure return tickets to Tbilisi ahead, so upon arrival we went straight to the ticket office to purchase return tickets. Apparently everyone had holiday plans in Tbilisi because at first they told us it was all sold out. Then, after two hours, nowhere to sit down!, a lot of negotiation and some misunderstanding, we were able to get third class sleeper seats on the very last car, in the very back, near the bathroom. Kudos go to Nils on that one. Whew!
• Intending to learn the metro system, we set off on our own toward the old city center. Our best efforts were foiled by a "helpful" teenager who took us to our stop without explaining how to get back. When I asked him how he could tell which way to go he laughed and said, "because I live here." Yes, thank you, but how can I know which way to go? Have you follow me around for two days?
• We forgot to take our hotel address/information with us (thinking we could just retrace our steps on the metro), so it took extra time, money, and the taxi driving stopping ever few meters to ask around before we made it back to our hotel. As he drove off we found out it wasn't actually our hotel. Ours was another block away and around the corner. Sigh....
• Another gorgeous city. Click here for more pictures. 

Night train back to Tbilisi

• As luck would have it, we ended up in the same train car with some famous Azeri people. I didn't catch all of their names, but one is a singer, Shole Sefereliyeva. You can see her music videos on youtube (warning, nice singing but excessive smeared mascara). She and the others work together on a radio / TV show (?) which you can see on chatbox.az. Given that I can't read the language I wasn't able to navigate very far. But they were all very nice sleeper-car-mates and were great with the kids!
• Jane was quite popular with everyone on the train car. We let her walk around a little and she came back with her pockets and both hands filled with candy. That girl can work it!
• See the bed above Nils' head? That's where he slept. He's sitting on my bed that I got to share with Jane and Harry. Let's just say Jane wasn't able to do her usual thrashing during the night.

Rental car drive down to Yerevan, Armenia

• We had a two-hour delay on the train, which somehow caused another two-hour delay in getting our rental car. We didn't start driving until roughly 4:00 pm. We made a quick stop at the airport to get our other bag and grab a bite at Burger King.  From there we started on the path to Yerevan.... or so the sign said... and then didn't say... and then said again... and then disappeared again... where are we???  Three hours later and we're still in Tbilisi asking around for directions. Getting directions was hilarious since most of the people would suggest going "that way" and to ask someone else once we got "there". We didn't find the right road until 9:00 pm (because of much fervent prayer and a mighty miracle) and we still had the whole way to go!
• Arrived in Yerevan at 3:00 am. Determined not to sleep in the car, Nills rang and rang the doorbell of our "hotel". A sleepy man answered and pointed us to our hotel which was through a gate and down a few stairs. Oops. Sorry sleepy Dr. Without Borders. 
• Nice hotel, excellent breakfast, and even better price. The shower was a little crowded though, having to share space with the hot water heater. No matter. At least the shower was warm... HOT... warm... COLD... warm again.
• Went to church in Yerevan. It took another miracle to find it, but we did. Armenian is a cool sounding language, even if we couldn't understand it.
• What a beautifully decorated city for the holidays! A lot of colorful lights! More pictures here.

Heading back to Georgia

• Beautiful uneventful drive, until we got 40 km from our hotel and we hit a road that was closed. Apparently the National Park is closed during the Winter. When we called our hotel, the man gave Nils an earful of how fortunate we were to be going to their hotel for New Year's Eve, and that we must have heard about their party, and it is going to be so amazing, so much food, and music, and dancing.... It was hard for Nils to convince the man we weren't coming because the road was closed. 
• Spent New Year's Eve in Akhaltsikhe (anyone wanna try to guess how to pronounce that?? Beats me). Lots of exploding firecrackers and fireworks. Only one restaurant open, which wasn't very kid-friendly, so we took our dinner to go and returned to the hotel for a quiet evening. We crashed around 9:00 pm or 10:00 pm and Nils woke up again at midnight to watch the fireworks display. It would have been almost romantic if I had been able to wake from my slumber, but I remained in dream-land even with all the loud exploding sounds. 
• Visited the outside of the Rabati Fortress (shown above). Pretty cool, huh?
• More pictures here.

Last stop - Kiev, Ukraine

• Our main objective was to visit the temple. Such a lovely place! Some people from Moscow were visiting that day too, including one of Nils' friends.
• Thanks to the hospitality of the patrons' lodge, Nils and I took turns babysitting the children so we could go inside.
• More pictures here.

All in all, a marvelous trip! We got to see a lot and meet some very nice people.

We flew an overnight flight back to Astana and when we got home Nils had to go straight to work. I didn't get to sleep either. By the time Nils got home I felt half-crazed and in the haze of my memory, I recall him suggesting a road trip from Astana to somewhere in Africa. Ha! For now, we're looking forward to our next trip happening next month to India and Nepal.

HaBee Halloween - The Whole Family

For our regular blog followers, you may recall what Jane dress up as for Halloween last year.   And if you don't remember, or didn't catch the post, here it is.

So this year I thought and thought what we should do for Halloween as a family.  A lot of time passed and since mail takes several weeks, I worried that I would run out of time to order something online (costume or materials).

Then it occurred to me and Nils that we could dress up around the theme of a costume Jane already had - her bee costume!  I found some materials to make various things for the rest of us.  I made a sleeper out of a black T-shirt for Harry and added stripes and wings.  Nils and I just found things in our closets and added accents (I made my belt).   The one thing I struggled with was how to do antennae for everyone.  In the end, as you can see, I simplified my life and just drew them on.  Harry has a mustache as a result of playing around the night before and realizing how much he resembles the baby on The Addams Family Values.

So here we are, at a friend's house, all dressed up as the Bee Family!  We were the only ones that dressed up except for a 2-year-old Batman, a 5-year-old witch, and a 5-year-old creatively thrown together "bat lady".

The Bee Family for Halloween 2012

Autumn Stroll

I'm getting so excited for Autumn!  The crisp cool air, the changing colors, and evening strolls at the park across the street.  

A picture of the mosque from the park.

Jane posing in front of the pyramid.



Emily and Jane in front of the presidential palace.



Nils and Harry on the canal walk.

 

From the Mountains to the ... Ocean

This summer we also got to visit our families, who are now conveniently located within 15 minutes of each other.  Here are some pictures of our time with them.

Emily's family - up in the beautiful mountains of Utah.

Emily's dad, Jane and Scout playing fetch.  Guess who actually ran to get the stick?  Okay, it was just the dog.

With Nils' family in South Carolina for a family reunion. What a fun bunch!

Jane and Emily playing in the sand.

Harry enjoying his first beach experience.  His Aunt Maren screen-printed the shirt!

Summer Road Trip

During our home leave this summer, Nils and I decided to take the kids on a road trip to various State and National parks.  So how was it with a toddler, an infant, and a minivan? Wait and see.

First stop, Crater Lake. We drove around the upper rim of the lake down to our campsite within the park.  We could kinda see the Lake from the road as we drove, whenever the haze and fog shifted.  Here is Nils sitting in the van, where we decided to sleep for the night since it was rather cold and raining. 

The rain turned to snow, but I was just happy to be out camping.  

We had planned to stay in Crater Lake for two nights, but because of all the snow, most of the roads into and around the lake were closed the day after we arrived.  That meant we didn't get to see the Lake.  Disappointed but undaunted, we decided to head further West to Bullards Beach State Park and spend the night there.  

For more pictures of Bullards Beach and Crater Lake, click here.

After a good night's sleep in a tent, we proceeded to our next destination, Redwoods National Park.  Here we are in front of the Big Tree.  Click here for more photos. 

On our way to the Sacramento area, we decided to stop and picnic at Lassen Volcanic National Park.  We were so impressed by what we saw, we're already making plans to return in a few years and spend more time there.  More photos here.

Next we visited some of my family in the Sacramento/Folsom area.  My aunt has a beautiful home where we spent some lovely time on the lake. 

For more fun family pictures, click here!

Here we are in King's Canyon

And Yosemite

And of course, having recently watched Star Trek V, we had to take a picture of El Capitan.

For more King's Canyon and Yosemite pictures, click here.

I love camping, so this trip was really fun.  I will say that staying in a hotel in the middle gave us a chance to shower and rest.  And when I say rest, I'm talking about the kind without kids' little feet in your face.  

My CraBts

It's been fun doing little crafts - Jane calls them "Crabs" - now that Jane is old enough to participate and enjoy them.  Since we still don't have the bulk of our household items we've had to get more creative, which is the point of crafts I guess.

 

Coloring... one of the easiest crafts I have her do.  Her favorite has been to take the markers and paint her fingernails.  Sometimes we have to suspend her marker privileges when she gets too color crazy.

Her cardboard house was a really fun project.  Thanks to the idea of my school teacher sister Ellen, we fit white craft paint and food coloring in the suitcase.  It's a really great and affordable way to paint with multiple colors, and it saved us a lot of weight on the airplane!

Here's her construction paper and glue project.  She loves cutting things with the scissors, so I try to direct her to her crafts whenever she gets the itch.  The problem is when she starts looking for other things to cut.  So far, nothing serious, but this privilege gets revoked sometimes too.  Sorry, my little toddler.

I just couldn't resist posting this picture.  Jane normally lets me do her hair, but it doesn't stay very long.  This style lasted most of the day.  I guess it helps that we were at church most of the time.

 

We ordered little craft totes to organize and contain craft projects whenever we do them.  Jane gets so excited she yells, "My Crabs! Do you want to do some crabs too??"