THE DAYTON FAMILY

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 th...

I hate walking. I really do. When I was a kid, my friends and I would pretend that we were X-men. We would take turns picking which character we wanted to be. Some of the most popular picks were Wolverine, Cyclops, and Gambit because of their strength and unique skills. It didn’t matter if I was given the first or last pick no one ever chose my character. I was Professor X, and I did not choose him (although I might have, with my keen 11-year old brain) because he was a mutant scientific genius with one of the most powerful mutant minds, or because he was a high-level telepath. Nope. I chose him because he had the floating chair. While all of my friends would walk around, fighting and attacking each other, I would sit in my chair and imagine that I was floating with them, and using my telekinesis on them. A few years ago, while Heather and I were living in the condo, I had classes that started in the mid-morning at BYU. I would drive a little early to school, stop between the RB and t...

My posts aren't funny like David's...so sorry to all of you readers who were excited for more funny postings. David has another one coming soon that you won't want to miss though, so check back! *** The first week has gone much better than I thought. We are adjusting to the very different living conditions and have had an awesome time getting to know the people here. I am so grateful for the church - it gives you instant friends wherever you go. The Ukrainian members here are especially wonderful. I have already become really good friends with several of them. On Wednesday night, we went to the ballroom dance instructions at the church with Olya, her husband Alex is the one who arranged for our housing here and picked us up from the airport. We traded off holding Tay and dancing with David. It was really fun. On Thursday I did laundry for the first time here - and I thought that I hated doing laundry at home where I have a big washer and a dryer... In the evening, we went...

With readership reaching its highest point in years, I (David) figured now would be a perfect time to make my first post on our blog. Question: Why do people follow blindly what their parents, or society has set as the standard? (No offense, Mom) Yesterday, I decided to go to work without a jacket. To get to work I have to walk about 15 minutes to the Metro, ride the Metro for about 20 minutes, and then walk another 20 minutes to the office. On this walk I see a significant number of people (the Metro I take is headed into the city center, and my first walk takes me past a large market, and my second walk is in the heart of the city). Of the millions of people in the city, and the thousands (this could be a slight exaggeration) of people that I saw, I was the only one without a jacket (and by jacket I am not talking about a light windbreaker, but most people were wearing something more akin to a coat). You might think that I was going to work in a snowstorm, or that rain was coming dow...

So Tay definitely has NOT adjusted to the time here yet. He was up crying for most of the night and didn't sleep a wink from 1:30-4:30. It was awful!!! Especially because the walls here are paper thin and we live with 8 other people and there is nowhere else to go. Pretty sure they all got woken up from him crying. David felt really badly for them. I just felt exhausted and frustrated and really badly for Taylor. *** Yesterday evening was fun. There are 2 other little boys that live here and Taylor bonded with one of them, Tima, yesterday. I got a cute picture where they both totally smiled for the camera and then an adorable little video of Taylor tickling Tima. Today I went out with the bishop's wife, Natasha, she speaks perfect English and she showed me the market and several stores and went through and explained all of the brands and what to buy/not to buy etc... It is especially helpful with buying baby food/products. The Ukrainian church members are all such wonderful peo...

Tay says goodbye to Uncle Daniel - they sure will miss playing with each other this summer! *** Well, David told people to check our blog for updates on how we are doing in Ukraine, so I figured that I better get started. I have much more time to blog here - no house to clean, no kitchen to make food in, no dictations to type, not many English speakers, etc... so maybe I'll actually get up a few good posts for once! We lucked out on our flight to NY and nobody sat in the seat next to us...so Tay got to use it for a bit :) *** Well, our trip here was a long one, but it went really well considering we have a 10 month old baby. We flew to NY on Friday evening and then left on a direct flight for Ukraine on Saturday. Tay did awesome on the first flight (4.5 hours), and then on the Ukraine flight (almost 10 hours) he actually slept 2 different 2 hour chunks and then only actually cried for about 15 minutes one time. Needless to say, we were still exhausted when we arrived here because ...

Taylor and I flew out to San Angelo for a week long visit in mid-February. It was so fun to see Ian and Bonnie as cute newlyweds and to see their first home together. Here are some highlights and pictures from the trip: Our 3 hour Layover: We had a lovely picnic on the beach and Ian took some cool pictures of the birds flying into the gnarled trees while the sun was setting: We were there on Ian's Birthday! We made him a lovely pizza dinner with a pineapple fruit salad and carrot cake. Taylor enjoyed watching Uncle Ian open his presents: We visited 'Fort Concho' and it was really cool. Our favorite part was the real Wells Fargo Wagon! And yes...we sang the song for the rest of that day! :) We went to a real Texas Rodeo. It was inside a building called the "Colliseum" and the cowboys were definitely pretty serious! We went to a cool & random art place called the Chicken Farm - but there was not chicken on it. I didn't get it. The art was fun to look at th...