Some Garden Pictures

Fontessa took some phots of our garden to show off to the folks in Moscow:


I think these are "Love" roses or perhaps the hardy "Lincoln." My favorite!



Yep. The nearly indestructable "Peace" rose stuggles to survive. I am not much of a Rosefiend.



A variety of blue sage that Fontessa was much enamoured with.

Tyomasaurus Rex

Grandpa calls Tyoma "Tyomasaurus Rex" since he's sucha big guy! 98th percentile, dudes!

Family Outing

 Here we all are at Veteran's Park. Picture courtesy of Papa Yuri and son A.K.

From the center, left: Tyoma, Tennisfiend, Bestfiend, Papa Yuri, Mama Irina, Dadfiend, Momfiend and A.K.

Anyway, here's our little story. Since A.K's folks were in from Moscow at the same time as TF's mom, we were planning on having a giant multi-national jamboree at our house. Unfortunately, poor A.K. came down with his first flu in six years and was totally wiped out.

At the last minute, he suggested that we all meet at the park to protect baby from the flu and still say howdy. The party was set for 12:30, but I planned to meet my folks thirty minutes earlier to ease Tyoma into a new situation with minimal fussiness. New stuff=insane crying jag.

As fate would have it, A.K. and his folks were traveling near the park at about the same time I was. They saw my unmistakably familiar truck (it once belonged to A.K!) and pulled into the park. A.K. and I dashed out to meet each other, both wondering if we had mistaken the proper meeting time. Then my folks showed up! Despite the confusion, we sorted things out and the K family made a quick trip home to pic up camara gear and goodies.

Papa and Mama K gave Tyoma a traditional silver spoon for teething along with a teething toy. Papa Yuri explained how the spoon should be left in baby's water to "purify" it. This quaint custom actually has some medicinal basis since silver solutions are effective and gentle anti-microbials. Anyway, no one brought any vodka or caviar, but we all enjoyed bottled water, including Tyoma who sipped it from the plastic cap. Yay!

Move to the Sunroom

Heh. My all-consuming passion, the project of pimping out the bedroom is complete. Then what happens? I move back in with my dear husband for three nights only to have three major problems arise:

1. Sleeping with the baby monitor disrupts our sleep. Tennisfiend doesn't like to be woken up by random squalls from the baby and I can't sleep soundly while I subconsciously waiting for baby to wake to prevent TF from being disturbed. 
2. We are both so accustomed to having more sleeping space that we crowd each other. My sweet husband is an angel in his waking hours, but at night, he is the bed hog from hell. 
3. Before my pregnancy, hip problems were never recurrent. Now, my pelvis is more particular. The cramped and worn bed causes lingering aches and pains.

How do I solve this problem? I inflate our camping air mattress and place it in our sun room. With my superfluous supply of pillows, plus the lovely ones that Fontessa made me, it looks like this:




Very pretty and surprisingly comfy! I love sleeping between a big bookshelf and sunny windows. :D

Another angle since I am so proud of my camera.

Lil' Creeper

Tyoma is beginning to crawl! Actually, it's more of a "Night of the Living Dead" drag, but he's moving! It seems to take most of his effort, but he inches across the floor, straight to the nearest bookshelf! He's definitely our son! Yay!

Odd to note: his crawl isn't very coordinated. It seems that one leg doesn't quite get it. I'll be watching this, but since he is so normal otherwise, not too worried.

AC In

Ahhh! The AC motor arrived today, early in the morning. TF took off from work to install the motor. Mom watched Tyoma as the two of us communicated with some difficulty over walkie-talkies. The difficulty came from trying to find a frequency unpopulated by local construction workers. Every time I would hear masculine staccato speech, I would answer back in Russian, “Schto? Ne Slishna,*” confusing husband and laborer alike.  In two hours, we had fresh cool air, just in time for a cold front. Eh, well!

* “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

Tanya's Coming!

Whoa! A surprise for everyone! Tennisfiend brought me Fontessa's flight schedule today.

She'll be here the last week of April through the last week of May. I suggested that she come earlier or leave ealier since it is often in the upper 90s in late May.

I feel like this was visited upon me, rather than mutually and agreeably decided upon. Oh, well. With partial and even no paychecks, we've got bigger fish to fry. Jeeze, I gotta clean house.

2007-04-18 19:48:00

My birthday present for 2007, from my hubby and mommy and daddy:
 
  A slightly different view, because I know you care:

My Birthday

 I am waaay to old! Surprising me with an afternoon call, Ewbliette invited me to spend girl time together. Tennisfiend delighted me with a big bouquet of flowers. My inbox held more well-wishes, Fontessa and company sent the lovely image above (from her garden)and the other Moskvichi sent poems and well wishes. To top off an excellent day, Mom and Dad gifted me with enough funding to make my bedroom project a reality. Yay!

AC Out

Spring is upon us, and summer impends. A few unseasonable spikes of hot temperatures make afternoons prickly and nights uncomfortable. This is why we started up our swamp cooler a month ago. Nothing is more unpleasant than servicing the cooler in a sudden heat wave, especially if it’s windy.

We’ve enjoyed almost a month of fine cool air at the flick of a switch until yesterday. I turned on the AC. Whackada whackada whackada. Gnrrrrrr. Nngrrrrrr. WHUMP. Total silence. The engine died. Tennisfiend came home an hour early from work to inspect the problem.

I called repair shops only to discover that they won’t service a motor that is crimped closed. At nine p.m., TF pried the damn thing open and tried to repair it. No luck. Several phone calls today revealed that we would have to order a new motor. ONE place has a motor that will fit our ancient machine. It will be here next Thursday, one day before TF’s mom arrives. House cleaning will be very sweaty.