Presidential Service Award

We got a surprise in the mail, the President's Volunteer Service Award and a letter from the President. This was in recognition for our work done with American Councils and for hosting Dasha this past year. How cool!!!!

Bye Dasha....

This is a little bit late, but Dasha left last Thursday. It was 9 months to the day since she arrived. Her facilitator met us at the airport and we took pictures of us together. It's amazing how quickly the time went by & we really enjoyed the experience of having Dasha living with us. She made it back to Odessa in one piece, I bet it was a very long journey though....

9 months can go by so quickly

It is so hard to believe that it is 9 months since we met Dasha at the airport. She is going home tomorrow and we are going to miss her so much. The house will be emptier without her. Ben managed to use his charm one last time to get her to choose Cici's for her last dinner with us (is dinner too lofty a description of Cicis???!!!)
I told her I just had to take a picture with her last piece of American pizza, at least for now.....
I know her family is going to be so excited to see her again, but she will be leaving some very sad family and friends behind. Hopefully, we will see her again one day....

Bonding time.....

What did you do on Spring Break?
I got my sister to paint my nails.....

Ben the romantic

Yesterday Ben made the most of the beautiful weather and announced that he was going to make a romantic lunch for him & Maggie!!!! He got a bunch of food ready for them-cheese sticks, strawberries, blueberries, apples, bread, cake and orange juice. Then he got the table and chairs ready and brought down his karaoke machine so that they could have music. The only thing missing was the candles!!!! Look how he's got the cutlery laid out on the napkins!!!! Of course, he had to call me to come & look before they touched any of it and I just had to get the camera. It was so funny

Dee Dee said she had to get in on the action!!!!

Happy Birthday DeeDee

We went to Fitz's for DeeDee's 17th birthday. "The girls" sat together & are both big fans of Sprite now!!!! Dee Dee took a rare photo of Sam & me together....

Maggie & Dee Dee waiting for dinner

DeeDee did not have enough money to bribe me into not posting photos of her eating an enormous chicken sandwich!!!!

Ben's sandwich wasn't any smaller...

Aaahhhh.....the free birthday sundae

Unfortunately, this will be the only one of her birthdays we get to celebrate with her. I am so used to her being around and am already trying to face the fact that she will soon be going back to Ukraine. She has been with us for 5 months & will be leaving in 4,so we are more than half way through her stay with us. This year is going by so fast

Vareniki!!!!

Dasha had a go at making vareniki this weekend. We filled them with cherries and tvorog She said that the dough should have been rolled out a little thinner, but they were still great!!!

We made a huge amount of them, so we have frozen the majority of them for a later date. I really want to have a go at making them with potato/cabbage/cheese next time...

Yummy!!!!

The girls ice skating....

Dee Dee's presentation

It was International Education week last week and Dee Dee had to do two presentations about Ukraine as part of her exchange program requirements. I had asked Ben's teacher if it was OK for her to do one of them in Ben's classroom & we did it on Tuesday afternoon. She wore her National dress & looked perfect in it Dee Dee did a quick presentation on Ukraine, where it was, the National flag, pictures of the Cities, etc

The kids in Ben's class did really well with paying attention to her presentation, even the ones that usually don't listen to anything

We decided to get the kids to paint eggs. Dee Dee told them about Pysanky during her presentation. I boiled 30 eggs for them to use and we took paint & brushes so they could paint their eggs

They all did a great job painting their eggs. We had taken plenty of brushes, containers for the paint & paper to cover the desks.

Dee Dee went around the classroom & helped the kids paint their eggs

Ben was particularly proud that his sister was in the classroom getting all the attention

At the end, we put all the eggs together so that we could take pictures. I think they all did very well

After they were done painting eggs, we gave them honey cakes from Ukraine to eat as a snack, surprisingly they loved them!!! We had a little time left at the end and Dee Dee taught them some Ukrainian words. She wrote them on the smart board so that they could see the Cyrillic alphabet

Several of the boys wanted to learn how to say "shut up" in Ukrainian so that they could say it to their little sisters & not get into trouble from their parents!!!!

DeeDee's day at the City Museum

Jim Kerr took his exchange students to the City Museum after they had been at a cultural education program. It looks like they had a lot of fun together. DeeDee had been with us before & so she was able to be the tour guide and show everyone around. They even got to go on the Ferris wheel this time. This had to be a lot of fun going down the slide together

This is the group standing at the bottom of the caves

DeeDee is not the only one that is good at posing for the camera!!!!

You shall go to the ball.....

Dee Dee went to the Friendship dance last night. Getting prepared for it was like a wedding. New dress, new shoes, nails & hair had to be done....
She looked spectacular, the pictures don't do her justice, but were the best I could get....

DeeDee's party dress

DeeDee is going to the Friendship Dance on Saturday night. She went with her friends and bought her dress a couple of weeks ago & we went together to look at shoes. We agonized over many of them, but settled on these. They are so cool and look great on her. I told her she needs to wear them every day to break them in & get used to walking in them. She's going to look fabulous....

Ghouls in the garden

This may be a new event this year, because we hadn't heard about it before & we certainly hadn't done it. If it's new, I certainly hope that the Gardens make this a yearly event. It was easily the best Hallowe'en event that we have been to recently. It was extremely well done, the kids were entertained & the adults got to enjoy the Gardens. These were the "Mad Scientists" that were at the entrance. Since I'm a Mad Scientist myself, I was particularly interested in this....We found a bunch of pirates by the gazing pool

Arline got some help reading the map from "The Scream" and "The Hulk"....

Managed to get a picture of them together before they ran off....

DeeDee found herself a new boyfriend.....

....then got a better offer!!!!!

The Adams Family tableau was by far the best, quite a spread.....

Ben got a poisoned apple from one of the witches, but he decided to take the risk & eat it anyway!!!!

There was a lady doing face painting at the Children's Garden, she was really good. She did a great job of Ben's face. For some reason, I think it made him look way too pretty though-must have been those big blue eyes!!!!

I think Maggie looked like one of the monsters out of Where the Wild Things are, isn't she soooo cute???!!!!! It took for ever for me to get the green colour off her face, especially around her eyes

DeeDee got her face painted too. She said that she has never seen anyone doing face painting in Ukraine, so we have to take the opportunity whenever we can!!!

Here's the 3 of them together-a great photo...

DeeDee and Maggie are great friends & love to have their photo taken together

They spent ages feeding the carp in the pond at the Japanese Garden

I thought this looked really funny to see everyone lining up at the water fountain, I'm not sure why

A rare moment when Ben wanted me to take a picture of him & Maggie together