4 Year Anniversary

This past week was our 4 year anniversary. Every year, something has gone wrong and it has been really lame. This year was no different - David started feeling ill on Monday evening. By Tuesday, he had chills and a fever and was throwing up. He spent Wednesday (our anniversary) through Friday in bed and didn't really feel better again until Sunday. This is ironic because our 1st anniversary was after we'd been on tour in Ukraine for 3 weeks, we were flying to Russia soon, and David spent the night (after 2 shows that day) with a fever and throwing up. We have decided that even if we end up living inUkraine, we won't spend another anniversary here. :) He did get me some of my favorite lilies though - what a sweetheart!!! Here is David walking home with Sasha (18 year old boy who lives with us, he and David have become good friends) from his last activity before he got sick...basketball (of course!)Not much new has happened this week because of the illness. I did go to the park one day with Olya and her 2 kids plus 1 other she was watching. We went to Alexey Tyltin's birthday dinner on Friday evening. We also went to the lake and had шашлыки (shashliki) - kind of like Shishkabobs - with the Goryachev family and the Solonko family. It was raining off and on, but it was still fun and delicious! Yesterday, Tay had a fun time going through one of his favorite "toys" here, my sock/underwear bag - I know it is kind of awkward, but I thought he looked hilarious with my stocking hanging out of his mouth-haha!

He also had a bath and Igor (20 month old we live with) really wanted to get in and play with him. There was a toy frog (bottom left) that I thought Tay would like to play with that he got really scared of. It's the first time I've seen him scared of a toy! Well, we have 2 weeks left until we come back to the states. I must say, it feels like the time really has flown by, but it also feels like we have had way too many adventures and made such close friendships to have only been here for just over a month. That being said, we are looking forward to getting back to the U.S. There are definitely some things that we have missed: family, lawns to play on, mom & pop hamburger joints, hot water, brown sugar (you use it more than you think), etc... But, there are also some things we will miss: our new friends, delicious juices in every flavor imaginable, beautiful & old churches, buildings, and museums, buying ties at the rynok, the icecream (it's different here), etc... We leave for Moscow this Saturday, we are so excited to be back in Russia and to visit the people that David served with!!!