Hello everyone! So, I thought I'd update my blog, even though I haven't much new info or any new pictures to share (since I am without a camera at the moment)! But, I felt like I needed to say Hello to everyone out there and let you know we are alive and well.
Canaan and I have almost survived our time without Daddy. I can tell that it is really starting to take a toll on Canaan. He is extra grumpy, which is not normal for him. So, to help keep him on track until Daddy gets home, I took the day off my language study. I have been trying to put him down for a nap around 11am, when I have my language study. But today, he was throwing fits and crying over every little thing, that I had to put him down at 9:30am!! Poor guy. So, that meant that he would be awake during my language study. So, I called and canceled. Our teacher is very kind and is fairly flexible with all our cancellations and re-arranging of schedules!
So, the newest news is that Canaan is enjoying more interaction with his cuddly bear friends. He has started trying to feed them his food! In addition, for the past several days, he has wanted me to put his Elmo slippers on one of them! Also, he has taken a keen interest in watching the bath water drain. He is not a happy camper when he can't watch until the last drop disappears down the drain. And, he is still very into saying 'bye-bye.' Now, when we are about leave the house, he starts saying and waving 'bye-bye' to all his toys. "Bye-bye uck. Bye-bye car. Bye-bye bear...."
That is all for now. Dougle arrives home on Saturday evening. We are very excited to hear more about his trip and see pictures. We will be posting more about that on our other blog once he gets home!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Finally! Shorts Weather!
It is finally warm enough for shorts outside!! It is so exciting! I put Canaan in shorts yesterday and today and he didn't stand out. I didn't have to worry about babushkas (grandmothers) getting onto me for not having him dressed warm enough or not putting tights under his pants! There were other little kids in shorts too! It has been getting into the upper 70's the past two days, which feels wonderful! At some points, it is just downright, hot! I am loving it!
I wish I had a picture to show you of how cute Canaan is in shorts, with his hat (to make sure his bald head and face don't burn!). But, Dougle has our camera. So, you will just have to picture him in little tan short-overalls, with a red, white and tan striped shirt, and a khaki hat.
So far, we are surviving without Daddy. But, we miss him terribly! However, we are happy that is is doing well and having fun in Ukraine, trying to find us a new place to live, put down roots, and share the Good News!
Today when we arrived home from the store, Canaan brought me Daddy Kisses to read to him. Sometimes he will go in the hall, get Dougle's slipper, put them on, and come tell me "Daddy! Daddy!" as he points to his feet! I just say, "That is right! You are wearing Daddy's topachki!"
We also get to talk with him on the phone. Whenever the phone rings, Canaan immediately says, "Daddy!" He thinks Daddy is the only person who calls, which isn't too far from the truth! Then he will say hi to him, listen to Daddy talk, say "Bye, Bye." and give him a kiss on the phone. It is cute!
Yesterday I met my good friend Navar at the park. She brought Canaan a toy truck and a beach ball! He was delighted! Canaan loved the attention (from someone other than Mommy for a change)! He even started to say her name; it took us a while to figure out what he was saying at first, but then we realized he was calling her. He would point to her and say "Bar"! She told me he was a bit young to know about bars already! We laughed and I recounted to her about how he calls Beth, "Bath." Navar and I also had a great talk about our religions. I really don't know much about Islam. We are both sharing similarities and differences in our religions. I bought her a Bible while in the States, so she could read it. She says she doesn't want to discredit anything without reading it and giving it a chance. I told her the same thing, and she said she would try to find me a Koran in English. Navar is planning to move back to Syria in July, which makes me sad. However, we are looking forward to more time in the parks and good talks before she leaves!
That is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well! Keep our team in your prayers as they travel all over Ukraine. Also keep Denyce and I in your prayers and we are home alone with kids these days!
I wish I had a picture to show you of how cute Canaan is in shorts, with his hat (to make sure his bald head and face don't burn!). But, Dougle has our camera. So, you will just have to picture him in little tan short-overalls, with a red, white and tan striped shirt, and a khaki hat.
So far, we are surviving without Daddy. But, we miss him terribly! However, we are happy that is is doing well and having fun in Ukraine, trying to find us a new place to live, put down roots, and share the Good News!
Today when we arrived home from the store, Canaan brought me Daddy Kisses to read to him. Sometimes he will go in the hall, get Dougle's slipper, put them on, and come tell me "Daddy! Daddy!" as he points to his feet! I just say, "That is right! You are wearing Daddy's topachki!"
We also get to talk with him on the phone. Whenever the phone rings, Canaan immediately says, "Daddy!" He thinks Daddy is the only person who calls, which isn't too far from the truth! Then he will say hi to him, listen to Daddy talk, say "Bye, Bye." and give him a kiss on the phone. It is cute!
Yesterday I met my good friend Navar at the park. She brought Canaan a toy truck and a beach ball! He was delighted! Canaan loved the attention (from someone other than Mommy for a change)! He even started to say her name; it took us a while to figure out what he was saying at first, but then we realized he was calling her. He would point to her and say "Bar"! She told me he was a bit young to know about bars already! We laughed and I recounted to her about how he calls Beth, "Bath." Navar and I also had a great talk about our religions. I really don't know much about Islam. We are both sharing similarities and differences in our religions. I bought her a Bible while in the States, so she could read it. She says she doesn't want to discredit anything without reading it and giving it a chance. I told her the same thing, and she said she would try to find me a Koran in English. Navar is planning to move back to Syria in July, which makes me sad. However, we are looking forward to more time in the parks and good talks before she leaves!
That is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well! Keep our team in your prayers as they travel all over Ukraine. Also keep Denyce and I in your prayers and we are home alone with kids these days!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Playing
It seems like forever since I blogged last! But, I just wanted to say hello to the world. I have just a few pictures that I took last week to share with you
. This is another playground that is about 5 minutes walk from our apartment.
Canaan loves playgrounds. Every time we leave, he says, "stairs!" (That is what he calls playgrounds.)My hubby has been gone two full days now. It has been a bit lonely, but Canaan and I are having some good Mommy-Son time! We sing, play together, go to the playground, etc. He cooks with me (he gets his own pot, a wooden spoon, and his alphabet letters), he goes grocery shopping with me (I use his stroller to help carry it all home in), and he hangs out wherever I happen to be cleaning, etc.
Today he put on Daddy's slippers. He walked around proudly and then would point to them and say "Da-Da." I think it was his way of missing him. Also, he fell off the couch.
When I went to pick him up, he cried and said, "Daddy, Daddy." This is the first time Dougle has been away for a long stretch of time in a year...so the first time since Canaan's really been able to remember it!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Night-Night
I think I have probably written about this already, but I have some pictures now to go with it!When Canaan is playing with his toy cars, trucks, etc., sometimes he will put them night-night. At first, I thought he was telling me he wanted to go night-night. On the contrary, he was enjoying being able to put something night-night! I have no idea where he learned this concept! He just started doing it one day!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
All About Canaan's MOMMY!
Ok, Dougle probably thinks this belongs on HIS blog, since it is more culture related, but I am going to post something else on there soon about car garages here. So, this is going on MY blog. It is kind of about Canaan, because it is about HIS MOMMY!
She is going crazy! I am in culture shock. My long, extended, beautiful honeymoon period (about which I wrote about here) has passed. I am now into big time culture shock. I told that to my language teacher, Volodya (as an excuse to why I haven't been studying much), and he told me that it was too late for culture shock. Well, I have news for everyone: it can come this late!!
I have been in culture shock about two weeks now. I hope it will soon pass. The weather here doesn't help. It has been cold, cloudy and rainy. When it is 100 degrees (oh it sounds so nice and warm) in Lubbock, it is 55 degrees here! However, we did wake up earlier than normal this morning because the sunlight was pouring through our window at 5:30 this morning. This is because there were no clouds to keep it darker in the room. So, it has been a nice, sunshiny day today, though it has been cool and windy.
I haven't wanted to talk Russian or practice. It seems impossible. While I know in my head that is not true, my heart is ready to give up at times! I just dread having to speak in Russian, because I know I won't be able to express myself like I want to. I know that I will only be able to understand half of what is said to me, and that my responses will be grammatically incorrect, two-year old words that are strung together in a sentence like fashion! Some days I just dread going out to the playground with Canaan where I will probably talk with another mom (in Russian). However, once we do go out, it ends up working out just fine. I am able to play with Canaan, talk with other moms (maybe not as easily as I'd like to-but we communicate), and it is not so bad at all! I am just having to work on keeping my motivation up!!
Thankfully, God is faithful in keeping us going through the rough times! Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in church, listening to the preacher. Ok, I wasn't really listening; I had given up after 10 minutes because I was only catching one out of every 10 words, which doesn't make for good understanding! :) So, I was looking around at my Russian brothers and sisters. Part of me was so happy that I've had the time to get to know them, talk with them (even if it is just in short sentences), and worship with them. The other part of me was just feeling sick that I didn't know them as well as I'd like to (mainly because of our current language barrier) and that I couldn't do more with them. But the thought of learning more Russian to accomplish these dreams was just sickening! Ugg. I couldn't even think about Russian anymore; I just wanted to drown out my bad feelings in a pile of some delicious, McDonald's french fries. Unfortunately (or so I thought), we were invited to a couple's house to eat lunch. We went with them to a War Memorial Park, walking and talking with them. The husband only knows Russian, but the wife knows some English (thankfully)! They have two kids, one who is 8 yrs old and one who is two months older than Canaan. After going with them to the park, we went to their home and ate a good Russian meal, pelmini. Although I really didn't want to go with them at first, we ended up having a super-fantastic time! After leaving their home around 8pm that evening, we were so encouraged! My day that had started out down and in the culture shock dumps, turned right-side-up. It was great. God is so good in how He knows what we need, even when we don't! Since them, we've had them to our home too; they are such a neat couple, with whom we are enjoying a great, growing friendship. Though we will only be here a few more months, they have been so generous and welcoming to us and we are learning much from them!
Well, that is enough about culture shock. Just thought I'd let you know that it had hit. Any extra prayers you could offer up on my, and my husband's, behalf (poor guy, he has to take care of me and let me cry on his shoulder over little things), are greatly appreciated. We love you all! Hope you are having a wonderful week!
She is going crazy! I am in culture shock. My long, extended, beautiful honeymoon period (about which I wrote about here) has passed. I am now into big time culture shock. I told that to my language teacher, Volodya (as an excuse to why I haven't been studying much), and he told me that it was too late for culture shock. Well, I have news for everyone: it can come this late!!
I have been in culture shock about two weeks now. I hope it will soon pass. The weather here doesn't help. It has been cold, cloudy and rainy. When it is 100 degrees (oh it sounds so nice and warm) in Lubbock, it is 55 degrees here! However, we did wake up earlier than normal this morning because the sunlight was pouring through our window at 5:30 this morning. This is because there were no clouds to keep it darker in the room. So, it has been a nice, sunshiny day today, though it has been cool and windy.
I haven't wanted to talk Russian or practice. It seems impossible. While I know in my head that is not true, my heart is ready to give up at times! I just dread having to speak in Russian, because I know I won't be able to express myself like I want to. I know that I will only be able to understand half of what is said to me, and that my responses will be grammatically incorrect, two-year old words that are strung together in a sentence like fashion! Some days I just dread going out to the playground with Canaan where I will probably talk with another mom (in Russian). However, once we do go out, it ends up working out just fine. I am able to play with Canaan, talk with other moms (maybe not as easily as I'd like to-but we communicate), and it is not so bad at all! I am just having to work on keeping my motivation up!!
Thankfully, God is faithful in keeping us going through the rough times! Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in church, listening to the preacher. Ok, I wasn't really listening; I had given up after 10 minutes because I was only catching one out of every 10 words, which doesn't make for good understanding! :) So, I was looking around at my Russian brothers and sisters. Part of me was so happy that I've had the time to get to know them, talk with them (even if it is just in short sentences), and worship with them. The other part of me was just feeling sick that I didn't know them as well as I'd like to (mainly because of our current language barrier) and that I couldn't do more with them. But the thought of learning more Russian to accomplish these dreams was just sickening! Ugg. I couldn't even think about Russian anymore; I just wanted to drown out my bad feelings in a pile of some delicious, McDonald's french fries. Unfortunately (or so I thought), we were invited to a couple's house to eat lunch. We went with them to a War Memorial Park, walking and talking with them. The husband only knows Russian, but the wife knows some English (thankfully)! They have two kids, one who is 8 yrs old and one who is two months older than Canaan. After going with them to the park, we went to their home and ate a good Russian meal, pelmini. Although I really didn't want to go with them at first, we ended up having a super-fantastic time! After leaving their home around 8pm that evening, we were so encouraged! My day that had started out down and in the culture shock dumps, turned right-side-up. It was great. God is so good in how He knows what we need, even when we don't! Since them, we've had them to our home too; they are such a neat couple, with whom we are enjoying a great, growing friendship. Though we will only be here a few more months, they have been so generous and welcoming to us and we are learning much from them!
Well, that is enough about culture shock. Just thought I'd let you know that it had hit. Any extra prayers you could offer up on my, and my husband's, behalf (poor guy, he has to take care of me and let me cry on his shoulder over little things), are greatly appreciated. We love you all! Hope you are having a wonderful week!
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