Finally, Winter!

Multiple dips in fog, almost 90% humidity and -24C produces spectacularly thick frost!

We are enjoying some sunny days with bitter cold temps.  I haven't tried walking or skiing on the river yet, but hope to soon!

My friend, Ani. She moved here with her husband and family from Bulgaria this year to serve on our National Operations team. We have many common values and our kids are classmates, baseball teammates, and good friends.

Our kids go sledding (or plastic snow-boarding) in the park every day. Even on the -24 day, we went for a short time!

Images of December

Moon over Finnish Gulf

I'm always amazed when driving home by the cruise ship parked along the street. Just a little reminder that we live by the sea, and in a tourist destination!

Every year I long for snow. This year we finally got some in late November. But it quickly turned to dirty slush. I took this picture to admit to my friends who dislike snow that they are right--sometimes it makes things uglier. 

Now, I understand why people come to St Pete as tourists. But when a caravan of RVs showed up in late November, in the slushy snow, I was surprised. They set up a cooking tent in our courtyard, complete with a generator. But it seemed most of their time they spent inside... understandably!

It was very disappointing that our snow only lasted a few weeks. But despite the mess and grayness, it also revealed beauty. Here is the  on the way home from the office. 'Reflections' has been a theme of my art this year, because I've been amazed at the beauty I can see in the dirty puddles.

Our team has been studying the letter to the Hebrews this year, and I've found a lot of parallels between these ugly puddles and suffering. If we focus on what they allow us to see, even the hardest things can show beauty.

Beauty in ice.

Ella and Tima enjoying breaking ice. The river stayed frozen for a week after the snow melted, and created some amazing ice structures!

Six inches of latticed ice crystals, impossible to display in photograph, but fun to crunch!

Attempt at capturing the beautiful crystal structure.

Driving home from picking me up at the airport on Christmas Eve... if you look closely, you can see the famous beauty of the Winter Palace as we cross the bridge.

Fall 2013, on Vasilevskiy Island

For the first two months of the school year, we gathered every Saturday morning with our Bulgarian, American, Taiwanese, Korean and Kyrgyz friends to play family style baseball. It was strangely sunny, even when it was cold. Ella was even convinced to play by the last few weeks.

On days without sports after school, we always walk a block to Shkiperskiy Park, where we meet our friends for some playground and social time.  Here, Ella and Tima with a fourth-grade friend.

Our courtyard this week.
Ella is perched on the lovely fenced-in basketball/soccer court, where we love to play.
We live in the red-faced building... if you could see to the sixth floor, the boys' window overlooks this wooded courtyard.

We walk over this bridge each day to get to the metro stop. It's delightful to live so close, so we don't have to take a bus to get there. Our apartment overlooks this river (in this photo, our building is tucked between the last two buildings on the left). We love watching the water in both the Finnish Gulf and this river.

Reflections have become one of my main themes. The reflection  in a puddle -- a glimpse of beauty in what is ugly or uncomfortable ... 

I thought I would miss our wooded park  a lot. But the largest green spot of our island is less than 10 minutes walk away--an old cemetery. I love both the abundant nature and the old gravestones. 

In the old cemetery, there are countless scenes like these. Here, the red (plastic) flowers aer in an old grave. And the tree roots have grown up around it, pushing it over...before the tree was cut.

tree rising out of grave.

more beautiful details of the old city

From the east side of our island, the iconic Peter and Paul Fortress is visible. I like to tramp the back alleys and watch the sun come up.

I, like my dad, am enamored with brick patterns on the old streets. We are only two metro stops from Nevskiy Prospect, and there are many bricked-alleys on our island as well.

Many of the old churches are renovated as tourist attractions or acting houses of worship. This one is tucked in an industrial zone near the kids' school. It is in severe disrepair, but beautiful in a unique way.

back-alley tramping.

Crossing the bridge onto our island--probably after a long drive home from baseball practice--we were awed by this sunset over the Neva.

Images of Colorado

Summer Stories

Ella enjoyed her first Rockies game. Mostly the cotton candy. We loved going with the Almontes and Messers and all our kids!

Tima's birthday! Our first ever 'rec-center' sponsored birthday, at the Erie climbing wall. He  invited the friends he'd made at sports camp, even his teenage coach who dropped by and brought great joy to all the boys!

Since Danya is going by D.J., Tima has wanted to be called T.J. all summer.  But his initials are T.B. (Yes, we did realize this when we named him, but decided to do it anyway.) I was delighted to find that all the construction cones in our current town are labeled with Tima's initials!

The neighborhood kids where we house-sat for a month play in the central park every evening. Good old-fashioned  Free Range Kids. It was hard to leave them, so we came back a week later to visit. So wonderful to become part of a community in a short time. And so hard to leave, again.

Cousins walking.

We had the blessing of three full days with the Huddleston boys  this week, while their parents are working at a conference in Denver.  They had a great time playing at home, but we did get out to have a little fun!

Danya attempted to steal home. And was tagged, and stepped on.

Danya's last at bat.

Danya, (oh, sorry, D.J., or was it just Dan?) completed his first American little league season. It was hard to play with a volunteer coach, on a team without much experience. And anti-climactic,  and sad,  to say good-bye and walk away.