Not much is new and exciting. We are just waiting for the final contract signing and for our keys to our new apartment- hopefully by Monday we'll have them. We want to get started making that place more homey! We've been wandering over to the new apartment (of course we can't get in yet) just to get used to the new area. On our way to the new park yesterday Emma turned to me and said.. "you know I think I was wrong about this new place- I like it.." So thing are improving with Emma!! Yay!! She talks about having her own room a lot and is more confident that we'll be able to walk over to see her friends here and they too will come visit us. The picture with Emma and Huddy and the one of Josiah climbing is at the new place.

We had our last language session today for a little bit as Snegilya is going home for a month (she is in Kyzyl for college during the year but actually lives furthur south in Erzin) and then she will be at a camp thing in August. Too bad- she was hoping to spend July here too with us studying but her family really wanted her to come home for a bit... SO this week we recorded a lot of Snegilya so that we can listen to her while she is away. Maybe we will find someone else while she is away...but we will be busy too. Our plan is to get all moved in our new place and help our coworkers move into their place in July and then in August hopefully we will be living in a yurt somewhere doing some real intense Tuvan language study. We were learning lots of yurt vocabulary this week and commands like "Let the sheep out to pasture" etc.

We had a guitar given to us way back in Moscow days but it needed new strings..we finally got around to getting some new ones so Emma and David have been singing away the last few days. So cute to watch them- they are pretty good!

The search has ended...we took the place!!!

The bottom balcony and windows are ours. Nice to have a balcony! Most first floor places don't have one but because we are on the end we do.

It's a done deal now. Our apartment is up for sale starting today- though even yesterday we had people coming through to look at it. And we ourselves made an offer on the only apartment that we looked at (pictured above and below). Nothing else even close to being suitable for us came up and we were urged to take the place before they let others take it...it is a good place- both in size/price/emptiness. It is rare to find a place that doesn't come with all the landlords furniture/stuff. We have enough junk of our own:)

We are sad to have to leave this place and our friends here but we can tell that it must be meant to be so we are excited about the move as well. Even Emma shows glimpses of being ok about it at times- helps that she has her own room to look forward to and the promise of pink or purple walls:)

We have already paid the agency fee and our offer (though not completely for sure as the real owner of the apartment has to come to town to sign the contract) seems acceptable- we decided to suggest that we don't pay for the first month as there are a lot of things that need to be fixed/replaced so we would put the money into the apartment instead of paying rent at first. The renting family seems to think that would be an ok arrangement. We will still be living (and paying rent) here in July but we will also have the new place in July so that we can paint etc. without having all our stuff over there yet. It will cost much more than the one month's rent and probably more than one month's work to get it in liveable condition as we need to buy a tub and a whole lot of cleaning supplies and paint but we are trusting that it will all work out. We are hoping Emma's friends will come help us rip down wallpaper one day- then they'll know how to find us too if they are allowed to walk that far by themselves.

So we will be moving during the month of July- I do love packing and cleaning and setting up a new place- good thing cause we sure have a life that requires it often:) I wish so much of our time and resources didn't have to go into moving though...but there aren't any clean/ready to move into apartments- they just don't exist. or maybe there are but they are the ones that sell for 5 million rubles. crazy. It will be a month of setting things up for sure as we have another family joining our work here so they will be finding/setting up an apartment too in July. So excited about having you here J&B&S&M!!!!!We also got some long awaited documents from Canada- ones that (to make a long story short) if we didn't receive could annul our residency...so we are feeling much more relaxed now that we have them:) There is always something involving paperwork to think about...wonder what the next hurdle will be...:)

Well back to packing. I imagine we will have quite a few people coming through our home today- now that we have a new place I won't try my previously thought out strategy of pointing out all the horrible things about our apartment to the potential buyers. Now I just want it to sell fast so we don't have people coming through the house all month:) Thanks so much for thinking about us during this time- Emma is still having a hard time with it but she isn't being difficult- she's not fighting the move but she's just a little heartbroken/sad... poor thing. Even she knows she'll make new friends right away and she'll love her own room but it will still be hard to leave Oorlanaa and the other girls here. We are glad we still have one month left here- and July is a good month to spend with friends. Maybe she'll be ready for a break from playing with the girls after the month of July?!?! ok. I doubt it too:)

Happy Father's Day!!!

There isn't Father's Day here but we celebrated anyway:) How can we not when we live with such a good daddy... Emma, Josiah and Hudson are fortunate little kids...All the kids in the playground would say the same thing- they all LOVE David. They call him Uncle David... most kids around here don't have a dad that is involved in their lives at all. I love seeing David out there teaching the neighbourhood boys how to play football or giggling and cooking with the girls. David has a great Russian Barbie voice too:) Makes us sad thinking about all the kids here- how so few of them get to have a daddy like David... Sometimes I think the one major reason we are here is to give these kids a good male role model. They like me too- but most of them have a mom and other women in their lives that take care of them and spend as much time as they can with them- though their moms all work etc. so they are gone all day... But not many of them have a guy around and these little boys and girls need it SO much. Still makes me smile when the little girls come knocking on our door asking if David can come out to play..:)

Anyway...we are all pretty sweet on him and are so very thankful for him today:)

Couldn't leave the last sad image of Emma in your minds so here is another picture of Emma from today- happy with her friends. which also is sad thinking that they won't be over all the time anymore...but anyway:) They are such sweet girls- I love hearing Emma playing with them and talking super fast and loud in Russian. It's amazing how well Emma speaks considering she's never been taught it and doesn't go to school here. Now she has to work on Tuvan- without working on it:)

New Apartment Search has started...

This is our first apartment in the search...but the agent thinks it is the best option.. first floor like we are now- so the bars are a must. not a bad location- only a 7 min? walk from here. away from the beach and downtown though :(

They say that a kitchen (yes this is the kitchen:) sells a place...well. I don't think kitchens sell places here:) Ew. the floor is rotting and the sink it falling. but it really isn't that bad. we've seen much worse even in Moscow. just so much work ahead of us...

The bathroom...not so great...but neither is our bathroom here...

The apartment is the one on the left bottom- it will be nice having a balcony- not quite the view one would hope for but still- it's a balcony:)

Most of you have probably heard that we probably have to move- and probably soon :)

We LOVE where we live now- it's not that it is such a great apartment- it's getting pretty bad actually- all the plumbing is going, the floors are barely there and other things...but we love the location, and most of all the KIDS here. I just finished giving out 20 or so cups of water to a big mob of them at our door. It took almost 2 years to get to know these kids and others that live in our building and now we have to leave them?!?...so hard.

I guess I shouldn't think about it too much yet as we don't know we have to leave for sure...but since we've started to look for a new apartment it really is on my mind. The reason we have to move is because our landlady is no longer going to be renting the place out- she is putting it up for sale... and since we can't buy it we will have to leave :( We are hoping she'll put off selling it for another year or two but last time we talked she said she was putting it up for sale in June...in other words...now:)

So today we went to the best of the best of the apartments for rent in town. I'm hoping the agent was wrong in saying that this was the best cause it doesn't look that great to us:) Though...we've been here long enough to not be so shocked...and our current apartment basically looked the same when we first moved in... The good things about the apartment we looked at today are that it has a balcony and it has 3 bedrooms which is really rare. The bad thing is that it is furthur from the center where we like to be, far from the beach- oh NO!! :) and it just isn't in that great shape. And it is more $$$ than we'd like to spend. It isn't a horrible option though and I almost am excited about living there except for taking Emma away from her friends.

Emma is having a real hard time with the thought of moving- the picture of Emma is from when we were checking out the new apartment..she could see the nicer playgrounds and even little girls playing barbies on the street but she just is so sad to think of leaving her friends from our building. Even the thought of having her own room doesn't help. This is the first time she has felt really settled and at home I guess. We have lived in this apartment longer than we've ever lived anywhere I think. She has made wonderful friends- bestfriends like Oorlanaa. She knows that she won't be able to see them everyday- or every few days even if we move just a few blocks away. I know she will make new friends but she just has such wonderful ones here... yuck. not fun.

But we all agree that if we have to move it is the best thing for us so we are trying to think about it in that light. We'll keep you in the know in the next few weeks- we'll be talking to our landlady soon. Hopefully we'll get to look at a few more apartments as well.

A good book and a sunny spot...

We finally have a warmer sunny day but Emma was so into her new book from Laura that she started a couple of days ago that we have just been inside waiting for her to finish her book. She could read outside but that would mean an interruption:) She just brought it to me now though- she's finished! All 238 pages in 2 days. Now we can go outside!!!

She does have a nice sunny spot in their room so she is still getting some sun in:) Thanks so much for sending the book to her Laura- she loved it!!! (The book was Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder) Emma says she wants to live in the woods now:)

The pic of all the people is from a couple of days ago when our friends (co-workers) got together for dinner. David and Christy and their kids work with us here and Kevin and Laura (on the left) work in another area in Russia. We had some great times together..we were sad to see Kevin and Laura leave.

The ones of Huddy are a few days old too. They are from Emma's birthday party. Hudson loves little Russian cars. Especially ones that are green or blue. He was so intrigued by the man washing his car- he sat right there next to him for a good 20 minutes. Except for when Huddy came and asked me if I had something soft he could use to help the guy wash his car. I didn't have anything:( So cute to see him there though- Huddy is normally so shy and anti-social that it is great to see him being brave.

We've had lots of rain which is very unusual but it is so much better than the 46C we had last year. And it is kinda green around town which is very nice.

Picnic with Co-workers

Today we went on a picnic with our co-workers that live here (David and Christy and kids) and co-workers (Kevin and Laura) that live in another area in Russia. It was a strangely cold and rainy day but we still had a great time together and great Shashlik (like shish kabobs). Kevin and Laura have been here for a few days- we are having a great time with them- showing them around the town and visiting. We are so thankful that we work with such great people that the kids can enjoy spending time with. I love the picture of the kids watching David S. fishing.

Hosehead Wrestling

We got Emma's birthday started with some good old hosehead wresting. It used to be our classic game- we were known for it back in the day:) Good fun. All you need is two tennis balls and a pair of pantyhose. The object is to (without using any hands) pull the hose off the other person's head. The balls make the hose wrap around each other and then you just pull back to see who won. Of course the funniest part is just seeing the faces with the hose on them. So much giggling- should have taken a video:) The girls didn't pull the hose up after putting it on though- that makes the best faces (where your eyebrows string upwards and your nostrils show:)

Our little 8 year old!!!

Emma is 8!!!! We had a super day celebrating her birthday- we knew there would be a lot of kids so we just had it in the yard. Even the boys were asking to come this year... It was so HOT 32ish but we were right in the sun so phew. but still so fun. I'll put lots more pics on tomorrow or something but right now I need to go to sleep- I'm exhausted. Those kids have lots of energy:) There were around 25 boys and girls- quite a few couldn't make it today cause they were at camp etc. but still...she is well loved.

We are so so proud of Emma. She is amazing. She was so happy today- I love that she is so at home here- she misses her Canadian family and friends like crazy but she still just can enjoy herself 100% here.

She is lovely.

Our Yard

Our playground, yard, not sure what to call it:) is pretty rough. The benches etc. are all falling apart, the slide will give you the biggest slivers ever if you actually slide down it etc. The other day there was some scrap wood by the garbage so David fixed my bench for me- so sweet:) It had been missing the back for a while. Huddy tried to make the slide safer- hammering the nails in more. We didn't want to fix it up too much because normally this time of year a fix up crew comes by and fixing the broken things and paints everything, we didn't want it to look like the park doesn't need it:) I think the neighbours thought we were strange out there cleaning and fixing things- it isn't the normal thing to do- but we think it should be- it is our yard after all. I wish we could plant things but we know they would just be wrecked. I'm just glad my bench has a back again...now how can we make the seat more comfy...:)