Storm Nemo

Hi all.

A few weeks ago in the morning I was driving to school and thought it was beautiful out, but pretty bad for driving.

Friday I was driving home in this. Storm Nemo was underway. Here it wasn't so bad but there were areas I drove through that were so much worse. I take a 15 minute long road home from student teaching. Of course, some schools did not find it necessary to dismiss early so I got lucky enough to enjoy the beautiful scenery for a long 40 minutes on what is usually a 20 minute drive. It was funny because the songs that kept coming on, on the radio related to how I felt about driving that day. The song lyrics that came on when I began to drive were "It's just a long way home" and then "I know the journey seems so long You feel you're walking on your own..." It just made me chuckle because it was a long way home and sure was all alone. Thank God for his protection.  

Blessings,

Wedding, Babies, and Mexico

Hi all. 

For Roman's wedding we did soo much desserts. I would come home from work and we would bake all evening. Even if I didn't put it on the blog, I don't think I would forget how much time we put into baking. So a lot of my summer weeks were spent baking: 

Another little craft I did was create menus for the bridal party. It was a great idea, but went differently than we imagined. Thanks to cousins like Igor and brothers like Mark who were willing to run back and forth to the trailer with me in my heels, for some dishes. The poor bridal party had to wait, but at least the table looked more elegant.

You all know we have cousins coming over ever day during the summer...well one day as we were baking these two boys were over and we started talking about twins; well I took these two to see the chickens and back and boy they were a handful! But it didn't make me change my mind about still wanting twins ;)

Sunday afternoon I am leaving to Mexico on a Mission's trip. Keep us in your prayers please. The Lord has been blessing us so far, even with the little things. At work, they didn't know what to do with a bunch of Brockport t-shirts (75 of them), so I said I can bring them to Mexico. They were so glad to give them away, and these shirts will be a blessing to those who receive them in Mexico.

(Yesterday I began to feel indifferent about the trip, and even questioning where I am making the right choice with going. Of course, the same day God sent people to encourage me about it and I am looking forward serving God and the people of Mexico.) Speaking of Mexico, I need to go pack! 

Blessings,

Lesya 

New York City with Family

Hi everyone...

For Easter this year I went to NYC to visit my cousin Lenka and Greg. I went with Yulia, Natashka, and their parents. Victor came late Friday night as well.  It was such a nice break from "life" and being able to celebrate a beautiful Easter elsewhere.

We arrived Friday at lunch time

Lenka told us to make sure we were hungry when we arrived. She prepared a wonderful meal for us-I still tell her it is so cute watching her doing house "wifey" things.

We also met their dog Cloe. Y'all, I'm not a big fan of dogs, ok I'm not a fan at all but this little one was so sweet. At one time my cousins Yulia and Victor were talking loud and she got scared and kept standing next to me. I got up to see if she would follow-she did. I guess I am starting to have some compassionate feelings towards dogs. This dog didn't jump or bark-maybe that's why I liked her. Later that evening we saw an Easter play at Brooklyn Tabernacle. It was beautiful.

Saturday we had breakfast, then talked and such. We had bbq for lunch and it was so so good.

Saturday evening the guys went to the car show and us girls went shopping and stopped by Bryant park. 

I really like Yulia's "New York" outfit.

Cousins :) We had so much fun on the car ride there and back, oh and of course late night laughing-not letting anybody in the house sleep!

That evening Natashka and I had strawberries while watching the cooking show- Chopped. 

  Sunday we went to the New Jersey church and celebrated Easter with them. We ate lunch at the church and headed home. 

Random:I was looking at NYC trip pictures from last summer and I looked so different with long hair and straight bangs. Looking through all my pictures I feel like I always look so different.

Camp Post 2

The reason there are two posts is because blogger was not cooperating yesterday with me! I couldn't add any more pictures to that post so here goes some more:

Leah would sit on this couch and say, "take a picture of me." Everybody was telling her she looked like a princess and boy was she prideful!

Yulia and I. My favorite thing about the house was the big window where you can look out onto the water and simply enjoy the view. This picture was taken before the guys poured sea-weed water, and lemonade on me, Ira, Anna, and Natashka. They were angry about their shoes, so when us girls went tanning they came by 10 minutes later to cool us off :) What a treat it was.  Later, one of our very SMART girls came up with the idea to take the toilet paper away from their cabin. Fun times, let me tell you.

Camp fire :) It wasn't the same with Slavic though. There really was no singing around it this year.

 This year all my little cousins, (age 8) took canoes and went by themselves. Wow, they are growing up. We also got yelled at for not wearing out life jackets, at ALL TIMES. Also, we had no problems with Andrew and Leah. They slept fine, and were great. Leah would even say, "I am tired. I think I need to lay down." What a perfect child, I'd say.  I also ate. way. too. much. So, those are the camp highlights that I don't want to forget.

 Blessings,
Lesya

Family Camp Post #1

Thursday we arrived early in the afternoon. I promised my mom I would be with the kids that day since my dad was coming the next day. Also, Thursday night the guys turned to heat on in the girls' room. I couldn't sleep, especially on the top bunk. I kept thinking, why is it so hot?! It is so chilly outside at night. Basically at one point I yelled, I can't take it! Why is it so hot?! Then I heard laughter in the other room.

Friday we did a lot of this. Leah's first time on, she said to my mom, "I want to wash my feet" and it would be so scary because she would try putting her feet into the water. She also had a hard time sitting still! 

This game was quite amusing to watch.

Saturday morning, Natasha hid all the boys' shoes in the woods, to get back at their turning the heat up in our room. She was also in the top bunk so we were both suffering! It was funny because they walked out of their rooms, into the hallway, then down from this "porch" and only then realized, oh where are our shoes. They were all in the hallway before, so you'd think they'd notice right away. They didn't. Later they took our shoes. It was okay. I had plenty extras :)

Will she ever love me?! She will. I know. I know. In the background you can see the water slide we had set up for the kids. At times, I wished I was a kid. They had so much fun! Leah is screaming here, "Let me go. Let me go!" She had such an attitude all weekend, with everyone. Lenka kept asking her, will you be my friend. She would boldly say no, and Lenka was so good to her the entire camp! 

I'm Off

.....to family camp!
This has become an annual thing and I enjoy it very much. It certainly is a time for family to get closer, and just be together. 
I hope you won't miss me too much, but once I'm back I will have quite a few posts I will be writing. 

Now I'm off to spend some quality tine with this girl...

And others...can't seem to find a picture with Yuls as I am trying to write this very quickly.

Blessings,
Lesya

NYC-Does It Look Like We Had Fun?

First off, Tanya made Diana and I her personal slaves. You can clearly see her waving her hands around, calling out orders. She made me wear her bag. I walked head down.  This looked like a trip of no fun! Diana tried to keep herself together.

It started off with Tanya and Igor getting angry. At each other? At the weather? I don't know. Diana slowly started losing it.

It wasn't easy to handle a friend turning her back to you, without tears.

Or watching cousins storm off, saying she doesn't care about anything anymore.

SHE decided to follow.

I couldn't take it. And yes, it is sad when nobody wants to be in the picture with you.

Then Diana started acting out about her phone.

I had to calm her down, explain to her that she would be left without a phone if she threw it...

We ended everything in silence. Friends not speaking to each other. Always a great way to end a trip.

Blessings,
Lesya

Florida Vacation: Part Two!

We got up Monday morning and made our lovely way to breakfast. There was a lot of variety for the food, but not 60-90 as we'd been told. Well people exaggerate don't they ;)
We spent the week sipping our Pina Coladas

 or Strawberry Daiquiri's (for Alesya)

Both non-alcoholic of course. Who needs that when they taste soooo great without it!

We took long walks on the beaches...the three of us.

And simply relaxed. We went out to dinner almost every night. Almost every time, one of their cousins would join us. One night we stayed at Starbucks till midnight. Then stood in the parking lot until 2 am. We had more than an hour drive, and let me tell you it took the air conditioning and all our strength not to fall asleep. Alesya, though she slept in the back, got a runny nose from the air conditioner. Poor girl. But we were all cold.
Our home for that week was this:

Oh, looking at this picture, I wish I was there now :) But life goes on...
We went to their youtb service again Friday night, and then Applebee's, and then the beach.
Let me not forget that we went shopping. I bought a few things, but those few things were quite pricey. Oh well, money will come and go, but a Coach purse and wallet will stay forever for a while ;) The Orlando outlets were nice, let me say that!
Also, we randomly got this idea to stay longer, so it was on a Wednesday night that we planned to go shopping, but we didn't go because it took a while figuring out if we could extend the hotel nights, the car rental, and air plane tickets. LOL. We ended up wasting so much time that it was late to go shopping. We finally decided that well, 8 days would have to do.

On our last day, we went to sleep at 4 am, but I told Inna I would set alarm to 7:20, so we wouldn't sleep the day away, and we could sleep on the beach while tanning our last day. Well, I don't remember any of this, but I guess when the alarm rang I turned it off and went back to sleep. Alesya set her alarm to 9 so she got up, looked at the time and yelled,"Guys we have 2 hours to pack everything and eat!" Oh boy did we jump out of our beds, (Inna literally did) but we packed in a half hour and enjoyed our hour long breakfast, but let me tell you it was no peaceful kind of packing. Maybe that's a good thing. We had no time to dwell on the idea of leaving. 

On another note...today I took the kids (Andrew and Leah) to the playground. They were so cute. They each took water bottles from home, and would constantly say where is my water? then drink almost nothing and go back to playing. Leah LOVES repeating everything I say, especially when I told Andrew not to do something. She is such a character, let me tell you. I think I am going to have to write down her new daily sayings so I have them to tease her with in the future ;)
Blessings,
Lesya
P.S. Please check out my smiley mission (the previous post) and if you'd like to be a part of it, let me know, I'll refer you, because I can get a smiley for that too :P

Alittle About Vacation

It's Wednesday, and I am sitting here at MCC because I have my first day of classes here tonight. It starts in an hour so I thought I'd post. I came early to get my parking pass, find the classroom, etc.
So I will start posting about Florida. I had a great time overall.
Lets see, we arrived at the airport around 10 am and were on the road by 11, going where? Yes, going to the outlet mall. One thing I will remember is that we didn't have the gps totally on yet, and Inna was just driving. We hoped we were going the right way, and we were, thankfully. Also, Inna kept saying how she wasn't used to the car and for us to contain ourselves, so that she could consentrate. Well, something along those lines. The mall was alright, we didn't really feel like shopping, but the girls did get a few things. Later we went to their aunt's house, and youth. I thought it was pretty cute, because an older woman prepares food for the youth so that they don't go out to restaurants afterwards. We "ate" (I mean others ate) and hung around their. Later we went walking on a pier which was nice too. By the way, their youth service was great too!!
Saturday oh boy, it was "korobychka" time. Well we went to the beach with Inna and Alesya's cousins and then went go-carting. Inna and I won...yay. We also drove in the stormy weather to see our hotel and ran inside, then to the pool and hot tub. Got cookies, and left. Worst of all a Ukrainian who was staying there saidf we acting very "improper." But we did nothing wrong. Seriously. Sunday was church and the service was just as great, but you can guess we went to sleep late and were trying hard not to dose off in the middle of church service. Candy helped :). After church we went out to eat with youth and that is when UPS showed up. Fun times let me say. Then we went to our hotel checked in and were going to hang out with the cousins. Their cousins brought two friends, who kept making fun of the way we talked! I also wripped Inna's dress. Felt so bad. (The strap was very tight and it was thin, and probably not sewn on well, so boom it disconnected) Still sorry, Inna! We got home late, looking forward to the next day...
Stay tuned for more of my story, coming up later this week hopefully! If you've made it this far with reading it! I just want to remember my vacation!
Blessings,
Lesya