Holy Crap it's Cold

We have had a harsher winter this winter than last winter by FAR, and as this is only the second winter we have been in our home, we experienced for the first time what a winter storm can bring us in our older neighborhood.  We had a beautiful storm with beautiful white, heavy and wet snow that stuck to all of the trees. And while the trees were gorgeous, the loss of electricity for 12 hours was not fun at all!! It is my understanding that in Russia, when they lose their electricity, they don't lose their heat, so this was an unusual experience, even for Ksenia!

Our tree in the front yard, the night the storm started

Our back yard the next morning

Sadness in our front tree the morning after the storm :-(

Ksenia got an early Christmas present from us so she could stay warm!

We were all Russians that day!

Where do you go when you can't cook at home!? B-Bops Burgers-though reading the menu was difficult!

Cooking?! What?

So, I am most definitely NOT known for making magic in the kitchen (I have set a frozen pizza on fire in the oven!), but Alessandra from "Cooking with Alessandra" makes everything so EASY! Thanks to her cooking class we went to with some friends, we now can make some fantastic foccacia and pasta! Ksenia went along with us to this Friday night cooking class and was Alessandra's helper on the foccacia process. 

Shop Local

Shopping. Shopping. More Shopping. Like it or not, that is a part of the holidays! Tyler and I do try to shop local as much as possible. This year we did pretty well with that and did a bunch of our Christmas shopping in the East Village.  We did get out to a couple of fun nights of shopping this year-"Holiday Promenade" in the East Village and "Jingle in the Junction" in Valley Junction. 

Photogs

Since Ksenia and I purchased our identical T3I Canon's this fall, I have had a couple of friends ask me to take their family/engagement photos for them. This has been SO MUCH FUN and such a great opportunity for me (and free photos for them!).  Ksenia has come along with me and has not only helped capture some shots of the family of 5, but also helped with moral support and with helping bring the levity that is needed to get great natural shots of people.

Hiatus

It appears that not only do our crazy holidays cause us to overspend and over-indulge in calories and libations, but they also cause extreme procrastination in blog maintenance.  It will be my goal to get caught up-to-date from Thanksgiving to today, this coming weekend. I don't even truly know if anyone out there is following this blog....but if YOU ARE, oh boy, you're in for a deluge of posts this weekend (hopefully!). Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving

Just a few pictures from our Thanksgiving festivities this year. 

Ksenia's "Russian pancake" breakfast. These are banana and honey- we also had feta and tomato. YUM.

Kiko enjoying the Macy's parade

Ksenia's "map of Russia". 4 Smart Phones, 2-3 iPads in the house, and this is what we use for a "map".

WHAT is Tyler doing to that turkey?!

Tyler's helper

Kitchen rivalry

That is a gorgeous bird!!

Hi! This is Ksenia :) Sorry for not writing posts for so long. Now I am on my way to improve this situation! In my first post I will describe my feelings and oppinion about this amazing year in general in order to provide the whole picture of my thoughts so far.

I've been in America already for 3.5 months and I feel that now, after completing full adaptation, I have enough experience to wright about this country from the foreign student perspective.

During special "Pre-Departue Orientation" ( simply "PDO" ) we were told about typical stages of mood of an exchange student during the whole year. According to their diagram, right now I should feel a little bit exhausted after all the new things I've seen and been through. Excitement was planned for the fist two months, now I must feel tired. November is the time of  homesickness and lack of energy, as people say. Well… good news, I feel nothing like that. My staying in Des Moines is amazing, so far :) Here I have a chance to try so many incredible things and activities so I literally have no time for worrying, sadness and depressions! Tyler and Rebecca said once, that here is always something going on and you are just lazy if you can't find stuff to do. Couple of weeks were enough for me to make sure that they're right. With their help I get to go through a ton of great things: I tried a lot of new food, had a fabulous trip to New York, seen a Live History Farms with it's fantastic vintage spirit, been on a Renaissance Festival and in Haunted House, explored the world of art in local Art Center (in which I fell in love from the first sight, by the way), watched some great TV shows and played fascinating games! And that is not even the end of the list! I also joined the crew of Community Playhouse as a volunteer. That keeps me busy every tuesday, thursday and friday. We are working on a costumes for "Wizard of Oz" in steam-punk style (steam-punk is something like victorian sci-fi). That gives us a perfect opportunity to involve our fantasy and imagination which provides a big fun :]   

Moreover, right now I definitely can tell that one of the best experiences for me were two adorable creatures that live with us - Caz and Kiko. I've never spend so much time with any pets before and it is just unbelievable how fast this special affection can appear. Once I skipped a walk with them and realized that I miss it and that is crazy, I haven't seen them only for couple of hours! I can say without a doubt that this guys is a significant part of a family and always will be.