Right now we are not out at the ranch. We are in the middle of town while Gary is out in the desert working his butt off. Me and the kids have had a GREAT time! They fight they get sent to their room it all works out. We are doing homeschool while we are here. Because we do not want to do actual school for a month then have to immediately.

Homesick

I know that the opportunity here in Russia is amazing. However, that doesnt stop the homesickness we feel sometimes. My family and I have lead a fairly nomadic life thus far and we are all pretty adaptable. But we miss things from the States... first and foremost our family. Not all our kids were able to come to Russia and we miss them incredibly. We miss our parents and all our extended family. It wasnt as bad when we had Skype but the computer with Skype crashed and we havent been able to get the Skype updated on Gary's work computer. Nothing seems easy here. Something as simple as getting the administration to update your computer takes months. There isnt any computer repair places in the villages around us. One must travel for hours to get these kinds of things done. Theres no Walmart to run to for everyday needs. There is basically one market. If what you are looking for isnt there, you do without. As Americans, we very seldom do without and this has been a huge change.

Other things we miss? I miss warm baths. We only have showers here and both Gary and I HATE showering. I also miss eating out. We take something like that for granted in the States and here, we are THRILLED to find a restraunt to dine at! I miss lawns. Even in the winter time in Idaho, we still see grass a good portion of the time. People here dont seem to have yards or lawns. The parks are littered with trash and most of the time you will find a village horse or milk cow staked in the park, grazing. Emma misses TV!! We all miss our pets. 

That said, we enjoy the opportunity to be here as a family. Sometimes I want to kick myself for saying that as somedays I feel like if I have one more second of family time, I may go insane. It takes time to get used to the kids NEVER leaving to go to school or not having a vehicle to go wherever I want, whenever I want. But Gary and I both know that we are truly meant to be here together. Not many couples could survive an experience like this. Its trying and difficult sometimes. But its an opportunity most people never want and one we may never get again.

So, we take it one day at a time. Never in our wildest imaginations did we think we would be living and working in Russia. So, we will see what the future holds and see where the winds will take us!!

A Day In Our Life

Things here in Russia work a bit differently for our family since we are home schooling. I thought some of you might be interested see what we do all day!! Our daily schedule starts with school in the morning. We work on learning and doing our school work until noon. At noon, Gary comes in for lunch and we have an hour break from our schedule. I usually spend mornings doing laundry as well. There are only washers here, no dryers. The washing machines are very small. I can usually wash one pair of Gary's pants and two pairs of Okies in one load. We then have to hang everything up to dry on the drying rack or the fancy clothes-line I made in our hall closet. It is very important that we stay on top of the laundry as we can usually only get two small loads a day to dry completely.

                                                          Our small washing machine

                                                     The drying rack in the utility room

                                         This is the clothes-line I made in the hall closet

After lunch, we have outside play time. There have been many days when it is too cold to go outside but we have had a few warm days lately and the kids have played in the snow alot. They also have some new Russian toys they have been playing with.

                                      Okie playing with his new WWII Russian Army guys

From 2 to 3 pm, we alternate between computer time and play time. 3 pm is the dreaded because it is chore time. But its also snack time so 3 pm is met with mixed emotions :)

                                                 A somewhat clean room with beds made

We then have a little TV time until supper time. Our tv here is pretty limited to the DVDs that we brought from America. We have a satellite but it only has about 4 English channels. In Okies desperation, he sometimes watches cartoons is Spanish, Arabic and Russsian. After supper is reading time and the last bit of TV time for the day. Whew... time to go to bed!!!

Back in Russia

Well we have arrived back in Russia... this time with kids in tow. We flew from Salt Lake City to LAX. The flight from LAX was a LONG 12 hours. The kids did really well though. Both of them slept a good portion of the way. After that long flight we then had a 10 hour van ride from Moscow to our home in Vormino. Very long trip!!! We went to bed at 5 am Tuesday (planning to only take a short nap) and no one woke up until 5 PM! Oops!!! After a few days of jet lag, life is getting back to normal. We were relocated back to Gary's original ranch of Vormino (we were previously staying at Uzha). Gary likes it much better here. Its a better ranch and his operators (Russian "cowboys") are way more efficent here. Ann, our Russian adminstrator, has a little boy named Ivan and he came over to see the kids yesterday and bring them a box of candy. He doesnt speak any English and I think he was a little scared of the kids. I speak enough Russian that I could tell him our names and ask him his. He didnt stay to play but we are practicing our Russian so next time he comes, we can ask him if he wants to play. It is snowing here nearly every day. And it is COLD!!! Gary had icecicles two inches long hanging from his moustache yesterday!!! Hopefully we will be posting pics soon of life in Russia.

Our Russian Snowman

Russia.. Finally

Well I finally arrived in Russia. I have been here for about a week and a half. We will be going home again around Dec 8th but we are stopping for a brief long due honeymoon in Vegas for the NFR. After finally getting over the jet lag (it was bad- it takes about a week for your body to adjust to the almost 12 hour difference) I have been out with Gary several times riding through the cattle. It is amazing the vast amount of untouched land here. You would really have to be here to believe the beauty of the land. This area was completely flattened by a tank battle during WWII so everything that is now here has been rebuild. There are massive "forests" and in these forests the trees are all in straight rows as they had to be replanted after the war. Also, the villages and the village people seem to have never changed after they were re-established in the late 1940's. The old "Babuskas" (grandmas) still wear the same attire as they did in 1945. There are no cars in the small villages. Everyone walks, rides bikes or rides some sort of contraption that motates them from one place to the next. I would like to get some pics of these "vehicles"... some are rototillers with a seat and wagon hooked on. Some are old side car motorcycles but you usually see 3 to 4 people on these. The horse and cart is still a major mode of transportation in many villages. Below are some pics I took in the last few days riding through cattle.

This pic is of the frost and fog we had this morning. It still hasnt let up. It has actually gotten worse as the day wore on. I thought this line of trees in the middle of the pasture looked beautiful in the fog and frost.

This is gate opens up into a pasture where Gary has about 2000 head of bred heifers and a few bulls.

This "pond" is actually a crater left by a bomb explosion in WWII. Beautiful but you feel a sense of reverence as huge battles were fought on this land we are now ranching on and you know that lives were lost on the very ground you stand upon.

The village of Uzha. These people live very simply. A comminity well and they still have the collective or community gardens. You will see the Babuskas walking at night and in the morning with their pail on their way to get their water for the day.

And We Shall Call This Our Home..

 

This is our home is Russia. Gary said they just barely got the fence in and planted some trees in our yard.

My amazing husband saddling a Russian horse

 

 

Hay in the field. They do both round and square bales there as well. Our ranch is more industrialized than many places in Russia where they still gather up their hay with a horse, wagon and pitch fork.

 

 

 This is a roping dummy that the Russians made so that Gary can help them to learn to rope. This wasn't quite the design he had drawn up for them but it will work to start out.

A Helping Hand

Gary said the other night, he and two other Americans were headed home. The two others were ahead of him in the road a ways and as he came around a corner, he saw them carrying what appeared to be an unconscious older gentleman. Behind him was an older woman screaming wildly, carring a bicycle wheel. One could only assume that the man had been hit while on his bicycle. Gary said that there are zero traffic laws there and most people just drive, ride, walk wherever they feel like. Anyway, Gary stopped to help. Turns out that the man had NOT been hit on his bike. He was extremely drunk and had passed out in the middle of the road. The screaming woman behind him was his wife, angry at him for being drunk and not getting himself home. The bicycle wheel? Apparently some treasure she had found on the walk home.  They did eventually get the drunk man and his screaming wife home. Turns out, the Veterinarian had seen the man earlier and had moved him from the middle of the road and propped him up against a road sign as he wasn't quite sure what to do with him. Gary has stories like this every day.. There is most definatley not a lack of excitement in Mglin, Russia.