Thanksgiving

Well, I think we managed to pull off Thanksgiving here, and it was actually fun! We've only "hosted" Thanksgiving one other time, and it was more like mom came and did all the work, we just provided the turkey and the house. So it was more than a little bit daunting to try to pull all the critical pieces together in a foreign country with a poorly equipped kitchen, but I think we can call it a success. I'm not sure Russians are overly impressed with our gluttonous tradition, but we are enjoying the leftovers anyway. Russians mostly enjoy fermented and savory foods, so the cranberry fluff salad and sweet potato casserole loaded with butter and sugar were well outside anything they have experienced before. Only the mashed potatoes and pickles were familiar to them and they wanted Matt to tell them the contents

of each dish; "butter, sugar, cream, more butter..." Yum!

I'm really glad we were able to celebrate, but of course, it still wasn't the same -- I couldn't understand most of the conversation and nobody stayed into the evening to play games and eat popcorn (although we did get the kids out to play for a little bit even though it was a pretty serious blizzard out there). I think a little bit of homesickness is creeping in for all of us. Finn has been talking a lot about our "orange house" (it is cedar colored) and when we can go back there. And he talks about getting our chickens back (he knows I was really sad to watch them go), and about daddy's black car and mommy's green car. And once he said Grady and Rayna were going to come and give him hugs.

Hearing Finn talk about our old place makes us all a little bit sad. Sometimes I'll lay awake at night thinking about Lake Superior and Hawk Ridge and the perfect job I left behind that I might never get back. There are so many really little things that I had no idea were such a luxury, like spices that come in nice little containers with sprinkly lids instead of bags, and plastic wrap and tinfoil that comes in a box with a sharp edge to tear them on instead of simple rolls that require a scissors to cut. But if there is one thing I miss the most right now it is our nice big deck; already last winter (when Finn was only two!) we could bundle him up and ship him outside all by himself whenever he whined that he wanted to go outside. The kid LOVES the snow and playing outside, but Lev can only make it about an hour and a half

out there before we have to come in. Even though we do that two or three times a day, Finn spends the remaining hours asking repeatedly to go outside! It is hard not to think about how easy we had it, in that regard. But we knew this wouldn't be easy and expected these feelings to crop up. We really are enjoying our time here, but of course we miss everything we left behind.

We continue to meet people and make friends; some have been very kind to look out for us and help us find our way around here. I have two mom friends now that speak English really well; we have exchanged contact information and I am able to text them with questions about things like where to find swimming lessons for the boys or how to go about finding a cabin in the woods to visit when we need to get out of the city. Some other mothers have offered to give us clothes and things for the boys if we need anything; it is pretty amazing how warm many people have been toward us!