Cal Crashes Dance Party - by McP

We gave Emil the day off today (Sunday), going everywhere we needed to go on foot and generally hanging around close to the apartment.

Liza and I had a nice long walk to the Ramstore and back. She is leaving for New York next week and we will miss her! She will stay with us through our expected court date on the 30th. She is a great travel companion and her New York experiences have prepared her for life in a small apartment. She is was wonderful travel companion.

Last week I bought the kids some small toys at the Green Market Bazaar. It is really interesting that many of the items there are knock-offs of popular products, and there isn't much effort put into trying to exactly match the original. For example, on an action figure I got for Mac, Superman's "S" on his uniform looks more like a lazy "C". I saw a Spongebob Squarepants action figure, of course supposed to be square-shaped, that had a mouth that was long and looked like that of an afghan hound. The action figures I got Mac have already lost an arm and a leg. We have put them up to keep them out of Cal's reach. When Mac finishes his school work next week I will give him a better quality toy that I found at the Ramstore.

Cal got some soft blocks, with Cyrillic letters instead of the Roman letters we are used to. I thought it might be interesting to save those for him for after he grows up.

Alina got the Russian version of "Barbie". She has been playing with it a lot. Today she asked me to play some music on Alison's IPod, and to make a video of her doll's dance moves. We were in the production of this video (complete with Alina conduding the dramatic choreography of the doll) when it was all upstaged by Cal, whose own dance moves impressed his big sister! Click on the video to see for yourself!



I would say that we have all settled in now, and have completely adjusted to the time change, food change and culture change. Alina and I walked to the grocery store. We talked about how much time we are getting to spend together, although we miss our extended families. Mac really misses his friends back home.

Mac is corresponding with friends from school, through the parents email of course. With one friend they have started and are maintaining a long Pokemon battle back and forth. There is much strategy in this, let me tell you. Mac thinks all day about his next move! - McP