Fall…

The view from our kitchen window.

Home Improvements Continue…

A friend stopped by for coffee and ended up giving me lots of great advice.  We had a really ugly light fixture that I wanted to replace and she suggested painting it!!!  Paint it?!?!  The mess…the work…yuck!!!  I was sooo wrong!!!  Bought black matte spray paint for way less than even the cheapest new light fixture, Keith held the light, I sprayed, we immediately rehung it (yes wet!!!) since he was not willing to hold it for the 2-4 hour drying time!!!  In a matter of minutes we had transformed the light and love it!!!

More paint and fun material transformed equally as ugly stools in to fun additional seating!!!

In our 800 square foot 4 rooms of precious space, we have a living room, 2 bedrooms and a family fun play room.  It was in desperate need of fun art.  Going to Hobby Lobby or any fun place for art is really not a easy or affordable option here.  Sooo, I found some photos online and had them framed and printed…about 10 for $40!!!  Here are a few I chose…

I was bummed to discover that in our many moves, I had lost much of our travel memorabilia.  So, I also did the same for our wall of travel adventures.

Hawaii…

Athens…

Barcelona…

Constantinople…

El Gouna, Egypt…

Pisa…

Istanbul…

Sidi Bou Said, Tunisa…

Moscow…

Just another bright spot in our house!!!

I was really dreading this move, but have so quickly fallen completely in love with every inch..or centimeter :-)…of space!!!

More Games…

Memory…

I also download all of my photos and erase my memory card.  I was shocked to find the picture from the summer of 2010 on my card.  I am so thankful that it did not get erased…I love these two faces!!!

Facebook Status…

Has had a seriously amazing Monday morning!!! Great things at the grocery store, fabulous cup of coffee with coconut flavoring while I waited for the store to open. I had a long list of things to print and was totally dreading it due to several bad experiences and it was AMAZING!!! In 10 minutes the sweet girl had organized all my files, gave me a bit of advice and thanked me for coming in!!! In America, these things would not make for a particularly fabulous day, but here great grocery fines, coconut flavored coffee and smiles just do not happen very often!!! I am home at 10:30 with everything marked off my list!!! Reward...movie and more coffee!!! :-)

Our First Church…

Tonight was our first night of Bible Study in our new home.  We spent some time getting to know one another better and played some games.

We also celebrated Keith’s Birthday!!!

I am so thankful Masha made a cake too!!!  I rarely make a successful Birthday cake!!!  I have had sunken Star Wars action figures, cake crumbs in the icing and this year I repeated the undercooked cake disaster of 2010!!!  My first attempt at making a cake in our new apartment last year resulted in a nasty mess of cake goo and a rescue cake mix delivery at 1am from our teammates!!!  Once again…new apartment, new oven and cake goo disaster!!!  Lesson learned…never move!!! :-)

Thanks Masha for making a fabulous cake!!!

Game Night…

We tried out some of our new games tonight and had a blast.  Thanks Grandma Barb for the great gift!!!

Thanksgiving Day…

Today was Harvest Sunday, similar to Thanksgiving in the States, at Lesa’s Church.

After 2 hours of singing, preaching, poems, I found it hard to continue to be thankful, still and quiet with two kids, so we escaped.  We could not leave, however, because Lesa’s car was completely surrounded.  Sooo, we went exploring.

And more exploring…

And continued to explore and wait for another hour until the service finally ended after 3 hours!!!

A Gorgeous Day!!!

Estonia…

The Boarder…

Russia…

The Beach…