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Latest News Archivemost recent news first...12-May-08 (Mon)  Hurrah! Ivan is a free man! He has finished his last final. Although he won't receive his grades for a few weeks, he feels that he did his best in preparing and he wasn't surprised by any off-the-wall questions, so hopefully his scores will reflect how he feels. To celebrate, we drove down to the Cracker Barrel in Dumfries, VA and treated Alexey to a real Southern meal (he even tried the fried okra!). Afterwards, we went to the Potomac Mills Mall and found some great deals and made several purchases. Six hours later (yeah - it's a BIG mall) we were finally ready to leave. Susan's ankle held up just fine (on Saturday after the hike she elevated and iced it like crazy) but found her knee to be another story. However, she held up and we came home by way of Olive Garden.11-May-08 (Sun) Happy Birthday, Ivan! Today is Ivan's birthday. This is the first time in 13 years (or 14, depending on who you ask) that Alexey has been with Ivan on his birthday, so he made a special speech and we presented Ivan with his gifts during breakfast. After breakfast we went to church and then Alexey went to explore the city some more while Ivan went to school to prepare for his final final tommorrow (no, that's not a typo - it will be his last exam!). 10-May-08 (Sat)  Last night Alexey and Susan were reunited with Ivan in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time to spend together as Ivan had a final this morning and Alexey and Susan had to wake up bright an early for a hike to Old Rag Mountain in the Shenandoah Valley. A friend from church organized the hike and 13 people showed up for the early departure from the church parking lot at 6:30am (well, really, James didn't make it by 6:30am, but, despite threats to leave him behind, we were nice and waited for him anyways).  It was raining the previous night and all during the drive to the trail head, but there was only a light sprinkle during the hike and the cool air was quite pleasant when we started to get heated up from all of the exertion. One thing we didn't count on, however, was the fog. Greg (the organizer) promised us great views from the top, but, alas, the fog didn't clear by the time we hit the summit, so we were left eating our lunch on the cold rocks with a great view of grey, soupy air. At any rate, the company on the hike up was enjoyable and we were able to interact with new, fun people. Thankfully, we had packed plenty of food, water, and warm clothes, so we were still quite comfortable. It was a bit disappointing doing all that work to get to the top and not have any spectacular photos to show for it, but we have lots of photos in our minds of the trip. One unfortunate occurence on the trip was when Susan took a bad step during the "Rock Scrambling" portion of the "hike" (apparently, "Rock Scrambling" is "Rock Climbing" without the ropes - in some areas ropes seem like they would have come in handy). But 13 went up the mountain and 13 came down in one piece (minus some flesh off of Preston's knee), so that's a good thing. By the end of the hike, Susan's ankle was throbbing, but with an extra-strength Tylenol provided by Marsha, she was able to make the drive home.09-May-08 (Fri) Yesterday, Alexey explored New York City on his own while Susan worked and Claire went to lecture. When Claire came home, the sisters went shopping (it was a brief trip - mainly to find the right sized shirt for Susan) followed by some relaxation at home. With the sudden influx of Russian, it had Susan and Claire in the mood for some practice, so they decided to write letters to Ivan's parents. First, Claire wrote a letter (Susan tried to help with vocab and grammar, but Claire did all of the writing herself). When Alexey came home he read through it to make sure they didn't make any glaring mistakes. We have learned the hard way that vocabulary from a dictionary isn't always what fits best in a given situation. Rumor has it, Ivan's parents still affectionately chuckle when they think of how much Claire loves to "stryapat" (an old fashioned word for "cook"). However, there weren't any mistakes that rendered the letter incomprehensible, so it has been surrendered to Alexey for hand-delivery to his parents.  This morning, Claire and Susan wanted to treat Alexey to a very American breakfast, so that resulted in a trip to IHOP, where Alexey enjoyed pancakes (with tastes of Maple, Butter Pecan, and Strawberry syrups), sausage, ham, hashbrowns, and eggs. He really liked the pancakes which were completely different from anything he had ever eaten before. The plan for the afternoon was to go to Philly and hang out in the park or something, but there was a steady rain all day, so they decided to stay home and relax, instead. That resulted in a few rounds of the card game "Durak" (which is Russian for "Fool") and time for Susan to write her own letter to Ivan's parents. She has forgotten quite a bit of grammar since her days at UCLA, but found that it was just easier to write it without double-checking everything in the dictionary. In the end, Alexey read it and still understood everything, so all that time she saved by not checking the dictionary for everything was a wise choice. Slowly, she's gaining more confidence to write to Ivan's parents more frequently in Russian.
07-May-08 (Wed) Today we decided to embark on a trip to Philadelphia, spend the night at Claire's, and let Alexey explore New York City tomorrow. Ivan had to stay at home to take a final and study for his next set of finals, so it was also a good chance to empty the house and let Ivan focus on his school work. So, Susan and Alexey left in the morning for the drive north. On the way, they stopped at an Outlet Mall off of I-95 for some shopping. Susan (who usually hates shopping) managed to spend 2 hours in the Dress Barn and found some cute outfits. Alexey (who doesn't seem to hate shopping at all) found several items worth purchasing (in other stores). After a quite lunch at Subway (Susan's favorite) they continued the drive to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, had just missed the last tickets for a tour of Independence Hall, but they still managed to visit Congress Hall, the Liberty Bell, the First and Second Banks of America, and the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum (a must see for all international visitors!).  For dinner, we made sure to visit one of the two most famous cheese steak stands in the city: Geno's Steaks. After a few bites of his, Alexey decided that he needed to spice it up a bit with Hot Sauce - little did he know how hot it was and, truthfully, he used considerably more than "a bit." Good thing he had that "Birch Beer" to wash it down!05-May-08 (Mon) Ivan's brother, Alexey, is visiting us from St. Petersburg. It's Alexey's first time in America and we are happy to have him staying with us in the nation's capital. The timing is a bit unfortunate as fully half of Alexey's trip will take place while Ivan is slaving away at his finals, but I guess that means that Alexey will just have lots of time to explore the city on his own. We're hoping to also take him around to see sights outside of DC, but we'll see if that actually happens or not. 01-May-08 (Thu) Well, finals week is in full swing for Ivan. It turns out that at Georgetown Law Center instead of having one week for finals they have three weeks, so it's a bit of an understatement to say "finals week" - "finals 3 weeks" is more like it. Anyways, he had his first final last night and has five left to go. His next one is on Saturday morning, so he's spending all day today and tomorrow studying. As a result, there's not much exciting going on around here! 28-Apr-08 (Mon)  Yet another weekend chock-full of exciting activities - well, at least for Susan. Ivan's first final exam is this week, so he spent the entire weekend studying. However, to keep Susan occupied, her cousin Shelley came for a visit. She lives in Ohio, so it wasn't a very long journey for her and we had a great time all weekend. She arrived on Friday night and we had a full day planned for Saturday, so we just came home, talked for awhile, and went to bed. On Saturday, we woke up early to get in line for tickets to tour the Capitol. None of us had ever done that before, so it was a new experience. We showed up at the ticket booth later than we expected, so there were already long lines. However, the line moved quickly and within two hours we had our tickets for a 1:40pm tour. Some of Shelley's friends from Virginia drove up to spend the day with us, so the four of us got our tickets and had a few hours to kill before the tour. We first went to the US Botanic Garden Conservatory, where we arrived just in time for a tour. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and made the visit much more enjoyable. She pointed out all sorts of interesting plants and shared some fascinating facts. Without her, we would have just wandered around in circles and spent half the amount of time in there than we actually spent. Susan's favorite room was the one with the year-round orchid display. After we left the Conservatory, we went to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. We were pretty hungry by then and there was a restaurant in the museum, so we splurged and ate there (it was really expensive). All of the food was culturally related to the Native Americans, so it was an interesting experience. Susan learned that she doesn't like Jicama, but the Tamal was quite tasty. The exhibit in this museum that made the visit most worthwhile to Susan was the "Nations" flag - made of glass beads. It is so detailed the photos do not do it justice - you really have to go there for yourself and look at it in person. The "Stars" in the flag are the states of the US in the order that they became states. In the blue background of the stars are the years that each state entered the union and the "Pledge of Allegiance". The red and white stripes contain names of the Indian Nations within the US. It's so intricate. And the way the piece is lit in the museum makes it seem to glow. Definitely worth a visit. After our visit to the museum it was time to head back to the Capitol for our tour. We were given stickers that set us off as members of the tour and went through security to see the Capitol up close and personal. The tour was more limited than we expected, as the chambers for the House and the Senate are only open on days that Congress is in session, so we only saw the rotunda, a few hallways, and the gift shop. During the same time that we were on our tour, Miss USA (Crystle Stewart) was also getting a private tour of the Capitol. Leaving the Capitol, we had a fabulous view of the National Mall, with the Washington Monument piercing they sky. That was arguably the best part of the whole tour. After our tour of the Capitol we decided to do something else we had never done before: rent Peddle Boats (aka Paddle Boats) on the Tidal Basin. It was so much fun! We were really hot after walking from the metro to the Tidal Basin, so we decided to get a boat for 4 (rather than 2 boats that seat 2 people) because the 4-person boats have awnings. However, by the time we got out on the water, we realized that it was cool enough to not need an awning and the awning really got in the way of a lot of the photos. However, one benefit of the 4-person boat was that all four of us were involved in the conversation, so we had more bonding time than if we had split up into Susan+Shelley and Erika+Chris (Shelley's friends) in the other boat. So, it's kind of a toss-up about whether 2-2-person boats or 1-4-person boat would be better. After our hour on the water, we were pretty exhausted and decided to come home for a delicious Potbelly's Sandwich and a relaxing evening of going through our numerous photos. On Sunday, we all went to church in the morning and then came home for lunch. After lunch, Ivan spent the evening studying while Susan and Shelley went to explore the National Zoo. We got a late start, so we only had a few hours before it closed. It was sort of a dreary day (it rained on us a little) and we got really cold, so we were ready to come home by closing time. Most of the animals were nowhere to be found and the only really active animals that we got good photos of were the pandas - the giant pandas and the red pandas. However, we had a lot of fun! For more photos, see our DC with the Cousin and Zoo with the Cousin Albums20-Apr-08 (Sun)  Did we mention that April is a busy month for us? No sooner had Susan returned from her trip to California (on Saturday, April 12th) but she turned around and flew to Iowa with her sister (on Thursday, April 17th). Okay, so there were a few days in there for her to unpack, do some work, and recover - but not many. The trip to Iowa was great! Claire is always a fun person to travel with and makes the time in the airports fly by. We both flew into Cincinati and then had booked our flight into Omaha in adjacent seats on the same plane. It was fun to have our lay-over together and to arrive at our destination at the same time (strength in numbers, you know). Debbie and Gavin picked us up from the airport and Susan was able to meet their baby, Li'l G (aka Gideon), for the first time. Unfortunately, her introduction to him was not under the best of circumstances as he had been strapped in his carseat for a bit longer than the little guy would have liked and he spent most of the car-ride crying. Thankfully, he eventually cried himself to sleep and we had a fairly quiet ride after that. On our way back to Debbie and Gavin's house in Iowa, we stopped for lunch at Skeeter Barnes for some of the best barbeque in the world. It reminded Susan of Stephen's "Going Away Party" at that great BBQ place in the San Fernando Valley (anyone else remember that?). That was some mighty fine Iowa BBQ. We had a very relaxing weekend with them including activities such as: hanging out at home, cooking (by far Claire's favorite thing to do when she's visiting someone), going on walks, visiting the biggest tourist attraction in Iowa (the windmill), going to the hot tub, and teaching Li'l G to walk. Susan was determined to get Li'l G to take his first steps while she was there, but alas, he did not. However, Debbie called that evening to inform us that Li'l G took his first steps shortly after our departure, so that's good enough :) After church on Sunday we drove back to the airport for our short, un-eventful flight home. Susan and Claire both had a great visit and are so glad they were able to spend some quality time with Debbie, Gavin, Li'l G, and Jasper (the dog). For more photos, see our Iowa Album12-Apr-08 (Sat) Largely the silence in this "Latest News" section of our website has been due to a VERY busy April. Immediately after our tour of the West Wing, we took the metro to Reagan National Airport and flew to California. Our trip had two major purposes (Ivan's interview with INS for citizenship and sorting through our belongings in storage at Susan's parents' house) with several side purposes (Susan picked up her diploma from UCLA and visited friends). Ivan still had classes to contend with, so promptly after his interview on Tuesday he went to LAX to await his flight home. Ivan spent the rest of the week splitting his time between classes and the ASIL conference, which was a superb conference on International Law. Attending conferences is such a great way to get you fired up about your area of study and we highly recommend them to anyone whose field sponsors conferences. Susan spent the rest of her week hanging out with her parents, working from their house, and she was able to be introduced to babies of several of her friends (Ben & Tanya, Cameron & Joanna, and Timber & Georgia). With each visit, Susan was convinced that she had just seen the cutest baby in the world. They were all very well-behaved and stinkin' CUTE! 5-Apr-08 (Sat)  Yet another monumental day in our "Sightseeing in DC" phase of life: a tour of the West Wing of the White House, escorted by our friend, Abigail, who is a member of our church and, conveniently, works at the White House. Previously (in February 2008) we had an interesting self-guided tour of the main part of the White House, but we weren't able to go into the West Wing - nor were we allowed to bring cameras with us. On this tour, we were being guided around the West Wing by an escort and cameras were allowed. However, we were only allowed to take photos from inside the Press Briefing Room and from the outside of the White House. Normally, the tour includes a trip to the Rose Garden, where you are also allowed to take photos, but today the President was scheduled to return from the NATO conference and he was flying in on Marine One to arrive in the Rose Garden, so it was off-limits. The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed the tour. We started off with a bit of a scare when the guard who was processing our badges detected Ivan's accent and wanted us to show our passports instead of just our Drivers' Licenses. We didn't have our passports with us (we were only told to bring our licenses for ID) and eventually the guard relented and processed our badges without seeing our passports. The other members of our group received beige badges, but Ivan and I received red badges (for courage, no doubt... or maybe for a scarlet letter). However, it didn't impact the rest of our tour, so it all worked out OK. We started our tour by entering the West Wing from the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB) side (the west side). There is a small reception area and the Vice President's offices. The walls are lined with very recent photos of the Vice President and his exploits, which was very interesting to see. From there we went down the Navy Hall and saw the Mess (an elegant restaurant that only accommodates about 25 people at a time). Then, we went around to look at the Rose Garden (we weren't allowed to go outside). We also saw the room where the Cabinet meets, the Roosevelt Room (where the Nobel Peace Prize is displayed) and, finally, the Oval Office, complete with Resolute Desk. We learned that only three things in the Oval Office must stay the same when new presidents come in and remodel: The American flag and Presidential flags are displayed and also the Presidential Seal on the ceiling remains - everything else can be changed by the new president. We also learned that the Presidential Seal was changed by President Truman so that the eagle would face peace (the olive branches) instead of war (the arrows), but the Resolute Desk is one of the few things still in the White House with the old seal where the eagle faces war.After our tour indoors, we exited the West Wing from through the north entrance and went to the Press Briefing Room, where we were able to take some photos. After that, the tour was over and we left the White House grounds onto Pennsylvania Avenue. For more photos, see our White House - West Wing Album 29-Mar-08 (Sat)  We've been hearing about how the cherry blossoms in the spring in this area are a "must see" and today was our day to enjoy them. The trees up in our part of the city have been blooming for some weeks, so every Sunday after church we've been driving by the Tidal Basin (the best area in the whole city to see the best concentration of blossoms) and haven't seen much. But this is the weekend of the Annual Cherry Blossom Festival and we decided to join the masses and see what there was to see and we were not disappointed. If you're riding the Metro to see them, the closest stop is the Smithsonian stop and droves of people were getting off at that station to see the blossoms in all their glory. Instead of the traditional way of seeing the blossoms (ie, a stroll on foot around the Tidal Basin) we planned ahead and purchased tickets for an aquatic tour of the blossoms.  Our cruise of the blossoms started up in Georgetown and continued down, south of the Tidal Basin, to the Regan Airport. We had been under the impression that the boat would go in the Tidal Basin for the best views of the blossoms, but we found out that the Basin is too shallow and our boat too large for such a tour. However, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip and were glad that we were neither caught in the vehicular or pedestrian traffic that we could see on the shore. The road looked like a parking lot while we casually floated down the river and back up again. We still managed to get some good photos of the blossoms, more of which you can see in our Cherry Blossoms & Potomac Cruise Album28-Mar-08 (Fri)  It has been a long time since we've gotten together with our friends, Will and Christine, so we decided to plan a double-date out on the town. We enjoyed a three course meal at The 600 Resaurant at the Watergate (creative name, eh?) followed by a performance at The Kennedy Center which is conveniently located right across the street from Watergate. The performance was the National Symphony Orchestra playing selected works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Poulenc, and Shostakovich. Ivan felt right at home with all of those Russian composers on the Bill.  Initially, we were going to ride the Metro to pick up our tickets and go to dinner, but the evening was somewhat chilly with a strong wind blowing, so, at the last minute we decided to drive, instead. Traffic was miserable and Susan was concerned that we wouldn't make it to the restaurant in time for our reservation. However, everything worked out and we arrived just on time. For dinner we opted for the "complete meal" which was fabulous. Potstickers and Eggrolls for the appetizer, Chicken Watergate for the entre, and Raspberry Sorbet and Cheesecake for dessert. After that, we walked over to The Kennedy Center and found our seats just in time for the performance to begin. Our seats were in the second balcony and we had a nice view of the majority of the string section. The music was beautiful; the company was charming; and the venue was wonderful. We're hoping to catch an opera sometime in the near future. For more photos, visit our Night on the Town Photo Album23-Mar-08 (Sun)  Our plans for celebrating Easter originally involved going to Claire's house on Friday, attending the Good Friday service with her roommate, Kristen, and then enjoying the weekend with Claire, coming home on Monday. Unfortunately, Ivan is sick and we decided we didn't want to risk spreading the germs. So, we stayed home and went to our own church this morning. We came home and Ivan took a much needed nap in the afternoon. We had thought about what special ways we wanted to celebrate our Savior's Resurrection and decided upon waking up early and reading the record left by Luke. We also decided that instead of having a special dinner, we would have a special breakfast, so last night we looked through a new cookbook I purchased and found a recipe for Baked Oatmeal. It was incredibly simple to make and tasted fabulous. The only downside is that you prepare it the night before, leaving it in the refrigerator overnight, but then it has to bake for one hour the next morning - that means waking up early to put it in the oven. It worked out well for us today, because we read the Bible while it cooked, but Susan's mom suggested trying to cook it in the crockpot overnight next time - then you can wake up to a fresh, hot meal. We'll have to try that next time. Here's the recipe:Baked Oatmeal (from "The Optimal Diet CHIP Cookbook") 3 cups of oats 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut 1/3 cup raisins 1/3 cup dates (but we used dried apples, instead) 4 cups of soy milk 1 tsp vanilla or maple extract Grease a 9x9 baking dish, layer the first 4 ingredients in the order given, mix the extract and milk together, and pour the milk evenly over the contents of the baking dish. Cover it and put it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, bake it for an hour at 350F. After church this morning, we stopped by the church library and picked up a few books to read. One of the books that Susan picked up is called "Spiritual Mothering" by Susan Hunt - an excellent read for ladies interested in what the Titus 2:3-5 mandate looks like practically and how you can participate. We also came home with a few biographies which we are looking forward to reading together. After our leisurely afternoon, we went back to evening church and afterward were invited over to our friends', Justin and Abigail's, house. We had a great time eating, talking, and just generally getting to know each other better. 17-Mar-08 (Mon)  Well, this has been a whirlwind of a weekend. Every day had Andrei leaving early and getting back late. Although he would come home exhausted, he and Ivan will stay up late talking for hours. Unfortunately, this began to wear on their health and it now Ivan has developed a nasty cough. Today was Andrei's last day with us. After packing his bags we made some quick sight-seeing stops on the way to the airport.  We also had time for a final shopping spree, where Andrei searched for presents for his wife and children. Although he was not able to find everything he was looking for, he didn't have a spare inch in his bags or a spare kilogram (there are strick weight restrictions about the baggage you bring into Belarus), so it all worked out in the end. Andrei was greatly encouraged by the 9Marks Weekender that he attended and we would heartily recommend it to any pastor you know (though it's probably more geared towards pastors of small churches). We were sad to see Andrei leave, but he's already been in the States for two weeks and he was definitely ready to return home to his family and his church.12-Mar-08 (Wed)  Ivan's college friend, Andrei, returned from the Shepherd's Conference today and we picked him up from the airport in Baltimore. We went to the church to eat dinner and hang out until the evening Bible Study began. After we got home, Andrei presented us with gifts from him and his wife, Natasha.  They included chocolate (Belarussians make very good chocolate - the large bar is dark chocolate with bits of Cocoa beans in it and the smaller yellow chocolates are filled with liqueur - very tasty) and three beautiful kitchen towels with some traditional Belarussian designs (they are so beautiful to look at that it will be difficult to actually use them for drying things instead of just looking at them). The design on the edge of the towels can be found on the edge of the flag of Belarus and the background design is of a stalk of wheat (which is on the coat of arms of Belarus) and a Blue-Bonnet (which is the national flower of Belarus and also on the coat of arms). After a long day of traveling, not enough sleep during his time on the west coast, and the prospect of waking up quite early for Theology Breakfast with Pastor Mark Dever tomorrow morning, Andrei decided to retire early. Susan had stopped working early today to go to the airport, so she decided to catch up on some of the work she missed and wait up for Ivan, who left the Bible Study early to attend his Wednesday night class at Georgetown.11-Mar-08 (Tue)  Today is March 11th, which is Mama Tamara's birthday. St. Petersburg is 8 hours ahead of us, so late last night Ivan called home to be the first one to wish his mom a happy birthday. However, he was a bit TOO early (it was only 7:40am) and she was still sleeping. So, he called her again this morning (which was this evening for her) and wished her a happy birthday. Susan decided to be brave and try out her Russian in wishing mama Tamara a happy birthday, so she called, too. Really, wishing someone "Happy Birthday" is pretty easy in Russian: "S d'nome rojh-dyeniya". The hard part is what comes after that. It's a bit awkward to just say "I want to speak with Mama... Happy Birthday... Goodbye". You know - normally there is some small talk - asking the birthday girl what special things she did to celebrate during the day - that kind of thing. That's the hard part. Papa Viktor answered the phone (it's usually a bad connection, so Susan couldn't tell if it was Papa or Zhenya at first). After discerning that it was Papa, Susan said hello and he immediately called his wife to the phone. Susan sang "Happy Birthday" in Russian to the traditional American tune (.wav) and then the hard part started.  Mama, of course, wanted to gush about how wonderful it was that Susan called, but Susan wasn't able to understand much of what was said. Susan didn't want to just hang up, so she asked what Mama had done today. Mama started responding and then realized that Susan wasn't understanding what was being said so she switched to short one word answers said very loudly! Mama is much better at trying to speak Russian slowly and clearly so that Susan can understand compared with some of our other Russian relatives. Susan was able to learn that Mama was eating Manty (see accompanying photo) for dinner with Papa, Alexei, Zhenya, and cousin Nastya and that earlier in the day she had recieved phone calls from her sons Ivan and Sasha as well as from many friends. Although much more was said, not much else was understood. However, it was fun for Susan to practice her Russian.09-Mar-08 (Sun)  Claire and Kristen came to visit us this weekend. Originally, we were supposed to go visit them, but after considerable confusion regarding our work schedules, in the end they came to DC. They came on Friday and left today. We went to church this morning and then to a potluck after church. On our way home, we drove past some of the cool sights in DC: the Supreme Court, the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, the statue of Einstein, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington Cemetery. Near our house, the Cherry Trees were in full bloom, so we were expecting to see the beautiful blossoms down near the Potomac River. However, it must be colder near the water, because there wasn't a blossom in sight. On the radio this week I heard them predict that the height of the cherry blossom season here should be between March 27 and April 4. Hopefully we will get a chance to enjoy them at their peak.08-Mar-08 (Sat)  One holiday that is celebrated in Russia and around the world which should be more widely celebrated in America is International Women's Day. Today (March 8th) is International Women's Day. To celebrate that day, Ivan brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Claire and her roommate Kristen were in town, so we all went to the American Art Museum where we mostly looked at the collection of presidential portraits. After that, we went out for a movie (Vantage Point) followed by dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill. We walked past Ford's Theater (which was closed) and The White House (which is beautifully lit at night) before catching the metro to come home.04-Mar-08 (Tue)  Ivan has a college friend, Andrei, who lives in Belarus. They keep in touch regularly and, when Andrei learned that we were living in DC and attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Andrei mentioned that he knew a lot about the church and greatly admired the pastor, Mark Dever, and the 9Marks ministry that is connected with the church. Andrei mentioned that there is a conference that 9Marks sponsors which he had always wanted to attend, so Ivan started researching what it would take to get Andrei out here for the conference. By God's grace and the generosity of the 9Marks ministry, the conference fees were waived AND they contributed towards Andrei's travel expenses. So, yesterday Andrei flew into DC and is staying with us. Ivan greatly appreciates Andrei's friendship and it was fun in the weeks leading up to Andrei's arrival to hear him recount memories of Andrei. And now that they are together they are having a great time catching up with each other, sharing life experiences, and doing some sight-seeing in DC.29-Feb-08 (Fri)  We have a friend from church who just turned 7 years old. And where else would a 7 year old want his birthday party except Chuck E. Cheese's ("Where a Kid can be a Kid"). We went there to celebrate with him and had a really fun time. In case you haven't guessed yet, he was born in 1980 and he's only 7 (instead of 28) because he was born on February 29th (leap day) so his birthday only officially comes around every 4 years. So, there were a bunch of adults at his party having a lot of fun on the games meant for younger folks. Apart from the driving games, which we always enjoy, we also had quite a bit of fun on a version of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). Thanks to a friend from The Master's College, Susan had some exposure to that type of game, but it was a first for Ivan. Just about all of the party attendees had to give it a try and we were no different. It's certainly harder than it looks - especially as the location of the pads to stomp on were in different locations from DDR. But we had a great time anyways. Happy Birthday, Noah!26-Feb-08 (Tue)  Today was another milestone in our DC tourism repertoire. Previously we had seen the outside of the Supreme Court (which is when the picture was taken - again, tight security disallows cameras in the building, so we left ours at home) and today we not only were able to see the inside of the building, but we sat in the courtroom while listening to Oral Arguments for Allison Engine Co. v. United States (here is a brief on the case prepared by Cornell University).The courtroom has the bench at the front, an area for the counsel involved in the case, a seating area for other lawyers, and the main seating area for spectators with advanced reservations. What you don't see in the picture of the courtroom are the small wooden chairs arond the perimeter for the tourists or other spectators who show up on the day of the argument to get tickets.  That's where we sat. In addition, those columns that you see behind the bench also wrap around the perimeter of the room and the seats we had were squarely behind several columns, which considerably detracted from our view of the proceedings. However, once we overcame our disappointment at the quality of our seats, we settled in to enjoy the grandeur of the room and to listen to the Justices and Counselors at work. We agree that Justice Scalia has quite a sense of humor. Some classic quotes from today include: when talking about how far down the line of transactions you can carry the concept of defrauding the government: "[T]his other guy thinks he's just honestly cheating the guy who's buying the chemicals" or when discussing evidence that the petitioner said was not admitted in the record of the case but the defendent said was admitted: "Well, then there's less to this case than we had thought. My goodness, even under the Petitioner's theory, you win....I wish you had said that in your brief because we could have saved ourselves a lot of reading." Justice Breyer also had his moments when talking about the far-reaching effects of the reading of law suggested by one of the parties: "The difference is that government money today is in everything. So if it's in everything, then everything is going to become subject to this False Claims Act. And of course I exaggerate by using the word 'everything,' but only a little." We also agree that, having heard the interaction between Justices and the Counselors we probably won't read another decision in the same way. It really helps you see the personalities of the Justices and understand their opinions more clearly.So, now we have seen the Supreme Court in action and, although we didn't have the best seats in the house, we still tremendously enjoyed the experience and are very glad that we came. We learned some tips for next time (if there will be a next time) such as: before getting in line, get an admission ticket from the officers on duty; don't wear shoes that will set off the metal detector; bring a quarter to put your stuff in a locker; and be prepared for uncomfortable seating with an obstructed view. 23-Feb-08 (Sat)  This weekend Claire came into town. She's on a much easier rotation this month and actually gets evenings and weekends free! Amazing! Today we drove out to Fauquier County where our (great) Aunt and Uncle live (the brother of Susan and Claire's mother's mother). We had been out to see them previously, but Claire hadn't gotten a chance to see them in the 2+ years that she's been on the East Coast. During the summers, every weekend is a party at their house with their 5 sons + families coming out to the house to relax outside and eat lots of good food. Our Aunt and Uncle live in an addition to their son Mike's house, so they have the benefit of a nice big yard while Mike takes care of the upkeep. Today, however, was a bit of a stormy day, so it was just us, Claire, our Aunt and Uncle, and Mike. We had a great time relaxing in their living room, swapping stories, and getting caught up on the family news. Mike's youngest son, Kevin, just started college at Duquesne University (pronounced "Du-cain") where he is on the wrestling team, so we enjoyed hearing stories about his adjustment to college wrestling versus the competition at the high school level. All-in-all we had a very pleasant, relaxing visit and were glad to catch up with them again.
17-Feb-08 (Sun)  This weekend we decided to do a bit of sightseeing outside of DC. Ivan has a college friend who is in law school at Liberty University and Susan has a high school friend who graduated from Liberty and still lives in Lynchburg. We haven't seen our respective friends since 1998 (or 1999), but we reconnected using the social networking site Facebook. Ivan has always wanted to see the Liberty campus and Susan has a relative who lives only an hour from there in Roanoke, VA, so we decided to do triple duty on this trip: visit Mike, Ashley, and Granddad. We had a great time. Ashley told us all about her two months in Europe last summer and gave us some pointers and suggestions in planning our own Europe trip, while Mike showed us around the law school and joined us for a late dinner. The following day we drove to Roanoke and hung out with Granddad. It was a lot of fun hearing stories from his time on a World War II submarine at the end of the war, from his time as an actuary and entrepreneur, and from his childhood. He even took us for a drive and showed us the old Homestead where his grandparents lived while he was growing up (he's trying to convince a relative, such as Ivan, to buy it to get it back in the family for all of the family reunions that we'll be having), pointing out large houses that, as a child, he thought of as castles; the creek where his drew water for his grandmother to do the wash; the river where he went fishing to avoid working in the field; and the corn crib which was converted to an apartment for some newly weds. He is a very entertaining story teller and we were so glad that we visited him. Roanoke is only about a 4 hour drive from DC, so we will be making plans to visit him again before we move away.
09-Feb-08 (Sat)  We came back to the White House this morning in hopes of getting in to tour the East Wing and we were able to! Hurrah! It was very exciting. The tours of the East Wing are self-guided and they allow you to take as much time as you want with a typical tour lasting around 30 minutes. We wanted to make the most of it, so we went as slowly as possible, reading and admiring everything in sight and we were still done in 45 minutes. By far our favorite room was the Blue Room (pictured to the right). The Blue Room is right in the middle of the White House and is oval in shape. As a result of it's shape, the windows are curved, providing an excellent view of the surrounding grounds including a fabulous view of the Washington Monument. If we were allowed to take a single picture of something we saw on the tour, it would definately have been a shot of the Blue Room with the Monument framed perfectly in one of the windows. It was breath-taking! The end of the tour has you walking out the front door of the White House, which was a pretty exciting moment, too.
08-Feb-08 (Fri)  What would be the use of living in Washington, D.C. for a whole year if we didn't take advantage of some of the sightseeing opportunities. Through some friends at our church we were able to join a tour of the East Wing of the White House without requiring the usual process of contacting our Congressman and requesting tickets several months in advance. What a blessing! Our visit was greatly enhanced by a informative stop at the White House Visitor's Center first. We watched a movie about the construction of the White House which included several interesting stories about the current and former occupants. At one point in the building's history, the wooden floors became so rotted that during President Truman's tenure the family piano broke through the floor. However, the outside walls were still structurally sound, so they decided to leave the outer walls intact and gut the inside. They even disassembled a bulldozer and reassembled it inside to facilitate the task!As you can imagine security at the White House is very tight so cameras are not allowed inside. Therefore, the photo associated with this post is one that we took several months ago. The weather was not quite this nice today! We left the Visitor's Center to join the line to enter the White House about an hour before our tour was scheduled. As we approached the security checkpoint we saw that they were evacuating the visitors. They sent us across the road to the Ellipse where we waited for another hour or so. We didn't know what was going on, but there were Secret Service cars everywhere and a few Fire Department Haz Mat trucks. Obviously it's not a high priority to tell the visitors what's going on or how long it will last, so we were left in the dark. Soon they evacuated us from the Ellipse and we decided at that point to get lunch and come back later to see what was happening. In the end, they cancelled all tours for the rest of the day, but said that if we come back tomorrow that our tour would still be honored. 04-Feb-08 (Mon)  When it rains, it pours! That in reference to the fact that in the course of one week we've written not one, but TWO articles on our daily happenings. Wow! Okay, we have some friends who update their blogs MUCH more frequently than that, so I guess it's not that exciting. So, what have we been up to? I'm glad you asked. On Friday we went out to the Outback Steakhouse. We had gone there once before and really enjoyed the Bloomin' Onion as an appetizer, a hamburger (with ALL the toppings) for Susan, and a big juicy steak for Ivan. Did you know that there's over 2000 calories in a Bloomin' Onion (2210, according to one website). Needless to say, we didn't eat it all.
01-Feb-08 (Fri) Where has time gone? The entire month of January has passed without a single comment from us. Well, let's see if we can get you caught up... As was previously mentioned, we spent Christmas Vacation with Claire. We were originally planning on just staying for a week and instead spent the ENTIRE vacation there (3 weeks). We had a great time and Susan's parents arrived during the last week of December to liven things up a bit. They had driven across the country and were taking a bit of an extended vacation themselves. We came back home for Ivan's classes which started on January 7th and then Susan's parents came down to DC to spend a few days with us. We had a nice time, but Susan was supposed to be working while they were here. In our 1-bedroom apartment that was a bit difficult, but Mom & Dad spent the days sightseeing, so Susan was able to get a few hours of work in.  Then we decided that we weren't eating a healthy diet and could use some more exercise. That revelation started a quest for a combination of foods that were inexpensive yet complete in their nutrients. That leaves us mostly with fresh fruits and vegetables, which require more frequent trips to the grocery store and more time to prepare (lots of chopping, peeling, and cooking). We found a great deal on a blender at Costco, so we've been using that to create a blended mix of fresh oranges, apples, (occasionally bananas), and a small amount of frozen fruit (usually strawberries - which adds a great flavor). Susan is a bit concerned about wearing out the blender (she insists that she can smell the engine almost every time we use it), but so far so good.Along with the healthier diet has come grandiose visions of more exercise. It's been hit and miss, but we're getting better about it. Our friends, Peter & Linda, recommended the website www.FitDay.com to help us keep track of our daily calorie intake and expenditures and (yet another Costco buy) a spiffy scale helps us keep track of our progress. 25-Dec-07 (Tue)  We have been at Claire's house, but she had to work today (she's working 30-hour shifts this month), so we decided to go back home for awhile. Once we got home, we ate breakfast, took a nap, and decided to go for a walk. After much deliberation, we decided that most everything downtown would be closed, so instead we opted to go for a shorter walk to the National Cathedral. What a treat that was! When we arrived, we were just planning on taking a few photos, walk around the inside, and leave. However, once we got inside, we learned that they were having a 4pm Vespers service to celebrate the birth of Christ, followed by an amazing recital on the 10,650-pipe organ with Cathedral Organists Scott Dettra and Christopher Jacobson performing. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening and the brisk walk home. See more photos.
15-Dec-07 (Sat) Alas, the snow has all melted. Perhaps it will not be a white Christmas after all... only time will tell. Ivan is in the middle of finals at Georgetown (they last two weeks there). He has two finals down and two to go. That's a lot of twos in a very short space. Anyways, we will see how that goes. His last final is a take-home exam, which is due on Wednesday, and then we're planning on going to Claire's house for a week. Since we won't have much of a chance to celebrate the end of finals week then, we decided to do a bit of an early celebration last night. Susan picked Ivan up from school around 5pm after his final and we set out for a "surprise" restaurant. There's a steak house called Outback that Ivan has always wanted to go to, but we've never gotten around to it. When Susan was driving to a friend's house in Virginia on Sunday she saw an Outback right on the way, so she decided that would be the next place they went on a date. She downloaded the menu off the internet and removed all references to Australia and the restaurant name. On Thursday she decorated it and gave it to Ivan with the clue "It's a restaurant you've always wanted to go to." Well, that turned out to be too big of a clue, but Ivan wouldn't admit that he knew exactly where we were going - he played along as if he had no idea what restaurant it could possibly be. In addition to celebrating the successful completion of two finals, we also felt authorized to celebrate Susan starting to work again. She was getting bored at home, because all of her friends have been travelling for the holidays, and we decided that it would be helpful to have some extra income (we're planning a trip to Europe with Claire in August), so Susan went looking for a job. She didn't have to look far, because her supervisor at her last job (as a Software Engineer at The Master's College) readily offered her to resume where she left off. So, for a week and a half Susan has been telecommuting to California and working full-time. That leaves considerably less time for all of those other wonderful things that she said she wanted to do while in DC, but it's so much more fun. 08-Dec-07 (Sun)  Ivan's finals start this week, so today after church he went to school to study, study, study. That left Susan wondering what she should do with herself on a weekend. She promptly decided to spend the afternoon with her friend, Michelle, in Virginia and then go to her cousin, Mark's, hockey game in the evening. On the way from Michelle's house to the hockey rink, Susan prematurely exited the freeway and ended up at the dreaded "7 corners" in Virginia (image courtesy of Google Maps). It's a very confusing intersection that she hasn't quite gotten the hang of yet, so she made a few wrong turns and ended up missing the whole first period of Mark's game. It turns out that Mark's goalie had a similar problem (probably NOT due to the 7 corners intersection) as he also, apparently missed the first period. As a result, Mark's team was down 2-4 when Susan arrived. However, Mark's team rallied and came back to tie the game 5-5. Watching the game was a very interesting experience and we hope to catch another one when both Ivan and Susan can be there.
05-Dec-07 (Wed)  "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know..." Some of you may not know this, but both in Kazakhstan and Northern California where we both grew up we always had white Christmases. And now, with our first snow of the season in DC, our hopes are up that we'll experience a white Christmas in our adulthood (Christmas in Finland in 2005 doesn't count! We want snow at HOME). Of course, with snow comes some inconveniences. Right now there are more of those for Ivan (who has to walk to school from the metro station and he doesn't have good cold weather clothes yet) than for Susan (who gets to work from home). But, at least for now, we're both enjoying it. For more photos of our Christmas cheer, visit our Christmas 2007 Photo Album.
03-Dec-07 (Mon)  Another thing that came in the Christmas Tree in a Box (see previous post) was oragami paper and instructions for how to make some Christmas-related shapes. However, after two miserably failed attempts at folding things like starts and candy canes, Susan decided that there was a better use for the colorful, square paper - homemade snowflakes! How many of you remember folding and cutting paper to make snowflakes as a child? Susan certainly does! However, her first snowflake ended up boringly square looking and not at all like a beautiful snowflake. So, with a simple query to Google for "paper snowflakes" she found the perfect websites to explain how to make five awesome snowflakes. After you get the secret of folding the paper down for a good six sided snowflake from http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html, then you can use some patterns to help you make a creative looking flake. We used the patterns from http://www.noelnoelnoel.com/famfun/crafts/snowfl/snwflk.html. For more photos of our homemade snowflakes, visit our Christmas 2007 Photo Album.
01-Dec-07 (Sat)  As promised (albeit a bit late) we introduce to you, for the first time ever, our brand new Christmas tree! Back in California, we had purchased a nice 6' fake tree from Wal-Mart. However, when we decided what would come with us in the stationwagon to DC, for some reason bringing the tree was not very high on our priority list. We hope that Susan's parents are getting some use out of it, but they kindly sent us a nice portable Christmas tree for this year (as mentioned in a previous post). Tada! It's aout 2' tall if you count the base and the star and it's very cute and festive (it even came with its own ornaments). For more photos of our Christmas cheer, visit our Christmas 2007 Photo Album.
08-Nov-07 (Thu) Okay... our apologies to all of our over-active blogger friends who update their websites every single day (sometimes multiple times a day). Almost a month between posts is a bit longer than we thought it had been... we'll try to be better at this. Our goal was once a week (which still isn't very often, but better than once a month). 
So, for all of you with good memories out there, you will recall what happened four years ago today: We got Married! That's right - can you believe we've been married for FOUR years now? We sure can't. We still feel like newlyweds :) But we are now considered old-timers as we are past the cutoff for the young marrieds' class at church. Can you believe it? Anyways, we celebrated our anniversary by going out on the town. We went to a yummy restaurant (Old Ebbitt Grill) which was recommended by Julie - one of Ivan's JD classmates.
We thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance and the food. We decided to splurge and get an appetizer (Beef Carnitas) which was SO good. Although they are famous for their oysters, neither of us are keen on shellfish (except shrimp, but some people don't include shrimp in the shellfish category). So we were boring and ordered a sandwich and a hamburger (guess which one Susan ordered). She can't live without her sandwiches! We tried to take some photos, but it was already pretty dark, so most of them didn't turn out very well, but here they are anyway.
We finished off the evening by attending a live concert of classical music. We enjoyed such pieces as Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," Pachelbel's "Canon in D," and Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." It was very beautiful music and the concert was within walking distance from home. In fact, it was a bass guitar, an acoustic guitar, and a violinist playing at the top of the escalators at the Van Ness Metro station, only steps from our building. 
That trio has played there before and they are by far our favorites when it comes to street performers (there are quite a few at various metro stations). It's the best when you get off the train and as you proceed up the escalator this gorgeous classical music wafts down to you from the heavens. We would have stayed longer listening to the performance, but Susan was wearing new heels for the occasion and her feet were starting to hurt. So, we went to the local grocery store, bought some ice cream (sherbet for Susan) and cheesecake, and went home to eat dessert and watch a movie. All-in-all, we had a lovely evening.
We also received a few cards/presents to celebrate the day. Several family friends (both sets of parents and the Simsons - might as well say all three sets of parents, but that might confuse people who don't know the Simsons are Susan's second parents) sent us cards (an e-mail in the case of Ivan's parents - it's easier to time the arrival of things if you send it by e-mail). Ivan got the spiffy grey scarf to go with his professional looking overcoat that you see in the photos, Susan received a bouquet of roses and Susan's parents also splurged and sent us a few gifts including a Christmas tree, so we can be festive during the holidays :) We plan on setting it up after Thanksgiving and we'll post a photo of that when it's all decorated. 11-Oct-07 (Thu) Yesterday Susan went to visit a friend from TMC, Erin Zaman. The Zaman family now lives outside of Richmond, where Rick is an associate pastor at Grace Bible Church. The ladies enjoyed a casual day and spent much of the afternoon baking some new recipes. The temperature here in D.C. has been quite warm (it was up in the 80s yesterday), but the remainder of the week is supposed to be more like Autumn (Highs in the 60s) so maybe we'll get to see some leaves start changing color. A few trees have done so already, but, quite frankly, it still looks like we're in Southern California (except for more greenery in the hills than what we're used to). We expect to spend the rest of the week hard at work, as Ivan has some deadlines coming up for his extracurricular activities. 24-Sep-07 (Mon) Well, almost one month of Ivan's school has gone by. So far, so good. His schedule has settled down to five classes (11 units). Last week my sister, Claire, came for a visit. She spent the night and then we flew out to Ohio to visit our cousin, Shelley. Poor Ivan had to stay home all by himself. Claire loves to cook, so we made sure to leave him with some new yummy left-overs to eat while we were gone. We came back late on Saturday and Claire stayed a few extra days. She went to church with us on Sunday and then left around 4pm today. We introduced Claire to a wonderful (addictive) computer game called "Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings." In a word, she's hooked. We're so glad that she enjoyed it, but it can definately be a time-consuming game, so she doesn't want us to buy it for her as a present. Instead, it will be our new fun thing to do together when she comes for a visit. Claire is the Chief Resident at her hospital, so one of her duties is to make the schedule for all of the Interns and Residents. It is a notoriously difficult and time-consuming process, so Susan helped her revise the schedule for November. We are looking forward to seeing her again around Thanksgiving. 03-Sep-07 (Mon) Happy Labor Day! One of the perks of living in D.C. is that Claire only lives 2 1/2 hours away. So we drove up yesterday to visit her and spent the night. She had just returned from a wonderful trip to Honduras, where she worked in a medical clinic, studied Spanish at the Ixbalanque Spanish School. We saw photos from her trip, went shopping, and hung out. It was great. We look forward to seeing her again in the not-too-distant-future. 27-Aug-07 (Mon) Well, we rented an unfurnished apartment and didn't bring any furniture with us, so our house isn't very comfortable yet. Thankfully, Susan has two former roommates who live in northern Virginia (not very far away) so Susan has been able to hang out with them instead of sitting at home in an empty house. They went to Target and Walmart to buy some essentials for the house and Susan will spend the rest of this week getting the house in order. 26-Aug-07 (Sun) We made it! At 11:30am we arrived at our new home. Ivan did most of the driving and we saw some pretty amazing lightening shows! We had a few more adventures after the car trouble on Thursday, but thankfully nothing serious - and we made it here with about 12 hours to spare! Ivan needs to be at school by 9am tomorrow. 23-Aug-07 (Thu) So much for driving fast! We had a problem with our tires yesterday (they couldn't take the weight of our belongings and started cracking) and then today our serpentine belt broke! Argh! Well, five hours later the car was fixed and now hopefully we can make up for some of that lost time. 22-Aug-07 (Wed) Goodbye, California. We left our family and friends to drive across the country to our new home in D.C. Ivan's school starts on Monday, so we need to drive fast! 02-Aug-07 (Thu) We just sold our home. Escrow on our condo closed today. So, you ask, where will we be staying? Well, friends from church, the Cespedes family, has graciously offered to allow all three of us (Ivan, Susan, and Zhenya) to spend the month of August in their home while Zhenya studies at ELS. We are so thankful for their hospitality and look forward to spending a month at "Las Palmas." 26-Jul-07 (Thu) Whew! Ivan has just finished the last day of the Bar Exam. He took the exam in Ontario, California, so we've spent the last three days down here at a hotel. Susan spent the days watching TV, preparing lunch, and visiting Ivan on his lunch break, while Ivan sweated it out (literally - it was VERY hot this week) with four hours of tests each day. But now he's done and we're going to celebrate by eating at the Old Spaghetti Factory tonight. Yeah! We won't find out the results of the exam until November 16th (at 6pm)... so don't hold your breath for that one. 16-Jul-07 (Mon) We found an apartment. Susan, her mom, and Zhenya travelled to Washington, D.C. last week to find a place for The Chebotariov Family to live once Ivan starts school. After only two days of searching, we found a comfortable, semi-affordable place in Northwest D.C. to call home. After that, we were able to do some sightseeing and visit Susan's sister, Claire, in New Jersey. Zhenya and Susan took one day to visit New York City with one of Claire's friends, Tiffany, who was visiting from California. Then, Susan, her mom, and Zhenya spent a day at the New Jersey shore (they don't call it the "beach" here on the East Coast - weird). They all decided that the Atlantic Ocean was more comfortable than the Pacific (sorry, California-lovers). The water is warmer and the sand is finer - so you don't cut your feet on rocks or get tar stuck between your toes. We are very pleased that this trip was a success and now we are itching to move out to D.C. and start a new phase in our lives... but first things first! Don't forget about the Bar Exam, Ivan! 05-Jul-07 (Thu) Hey everbody! Please welcome Ivan's brother, Zhenya, to America. He took the 12-hour flight from Moscow to Los Angeles and arrived in one piece. He will be staying with us until the end of August. We will spend the month of July sight-seeing (while Ivan continues to study for the Bar) and he will spend the month of August studying English at ELS Language Centers. We're sure that it will take him some time to grow accustomed to the differences between Russia and America (especially the food and water - they basically only drink carbonated water over there). So, if you see us and this tall, thin fellow with curly hair be sure to say "Hi" to Zhenya. 03-Jul-07 (Tue) "While the cat's away, the mice will play." Or in this case, while Ivan is studying for the Bar, Susan went to St. Petersburg, Russia to sightsee and visit Ivan's family. It was strange going to a Russian-speaking country without our resident Russian speaker, but Susan's parents accompanied her on the trip, so she wasn't all alone. We stayed in a wonderful apartment on Nevsky Prospect, which was organized by a company Susan found online called Oksana's. We would recommend it to anyone interested in staying in St. Petersburg. The apartment was much cheaper than a hotel of similar quality would have been and Oksana's provided us with wonderful opportunities for tours and information about the city. However, we were doubly blessed because not only did we have Ivan's immediate family there to show us around the city and make us feel welcome, but also his Aunt Vera and her granddaughter, Marina. Susan's mother was able to get her fill of sightseeing: the Hermitage, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Summer Gardens, Peterhoff, and a plethora of museums. We were also able to experience the culture of St. Petersburg, as Ivan's parents treated us to see Swan Lake at the Marinsky Theater and a Mozart Concert at the Philharmonic. We were able to see a bit of the country when we took the electric train out to the summer house (which is now brother Aleksey's house) in Vsevolozhsk, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Susan's father was able to explore his interests by learning about Russian wiring and accompanying Ivan's father to work at St. Petersburg State University, where he is employed as the head of maintenance for the Economics Department (where Ivan's mother is also employed as an administrative assistant). We are all so glad that we were able to go and Susan is looking forward to going again soon. Her sister, Claire, has already expressed that she would like to go and meet Ivan's family and experience St. Petersburg, so we hope to be able to go again - possibly even next summer, when Claire finishes her residency at Cooper University Hospital. 20-May-07 (Sun) We would like to introduce to you, our favorite lawyer, Ivan V. Chebotariov. That's right, folks. Ivan has graduated from law school! Hoorah! His graduation ceremony was held at the beautiful Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. After graudation, we drove down to Mission Viejo where Susan's Aunt Frances lives to celebrate at a local restaurant. After two years of intense studying, Ivan has finally finished law school. Next on the agenda: studying for the California State Bar Exam. He will be taking a BarBri preparation course, which starts tomorrow. Enjoy your celebration while you can, Ivan - it's back to work tomorrow. 11-May-07 (Fri) Today is Ivan's birthday. Guess what he got for his birthday? An acceptance letter to Georgetown University Law Center. What? you ask. Isn't Ivan just about to graduate from law school? Indeed he is, but he has decided to pursue an advanced degree in Taxation Law, because he likes it so much. The two top schools in the nation (for Tax law) are New York University and Georgetown University Law Center - and Ivan has been accepted to Georgetown! We are so excited. Here we come, Washington, D.C. 21-Nov-06 (Tue) Guess what?! It looks like Ivan has an externship lined up to begin in March! He interviewed with the Federal Judge today and they accepted him to intern with them on the spot. We are both excited about this opportunity. The Federal Building is in a convenient location (within walking distance of L.A. Union Station). So, that's our latest news. 19-Nov-06 (Sun) After such a long time of not updating this "news" now you get two days in a row! Wow! The exciting news prompting this update is yet another conversation over the phone with Ivan's family. First, some background information: The local community college (College of the Canyons) partners with ELS Language Centers to offer English classes to speakers of other languages. Ivan thought it would be useful for his brother, Zhenya, who graduates from college in the Spring, to come study English in the U.S. for a month after graduation. Zhenya would be able to live with us, study English intensively, and go sight-seeing with us on the weekends and for a week or two after his program ends. Zhenya completed the application and we sent it in with the necessary supporting documents and it seems that ELS will accept him to study at their program. They will sponsor him for a student visa, but those are not trivial to obtain at the U.S. embassy in St. Petersburg, so that will be the next hurdle to overcome. However, Susan wanted to start thinking about what sight-seeing trips to plan, so she decided to call St. Petersburg again. This time Ivan was around, so we spoke with Zhenya on the speaker phone, but it was mainly Susan and Zhenya speaking - Zhenya speaking mostly in English (once he got into it) and Susan trying to speak in Russian (but with frequent lapses into English). Susan discovered that Zhenya wants to see EVERYTHING :) They narrowed it down to some realistic ideas, but if any of you have additional suggestions, please let us know! For weekend trips we intend to visit Hollywood (very famous in Russia), San Francisco (especially the Golden Gate Bridge, but maybe Alcatraz and Pier 39 as well), the Sequoia National Forest, and maybe San Diego. As more extended trips, we would like to take a road trip to visit Claire on the East coast, but that might be too expensive. If it happens, though, along the way we might stop at the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon (and maybe see the Bardons), Washington D.C., New York (and see the Statue of Liberty), and maybe also visit Niagra Falls, the Kings (in Iowa), the Means (in Idaho), and Mt. Hood (and stay with Beth). Those of course depend on financial and scheduling constraints, but it sure would be fun to take Zhenya all over the place. We will start visiting our local AAA to get more ideas about how to plan this road trip on a student's budget, but suggestions from you are always welcome. We certainly hope Zhenya is able to secure a student visa to make this trip possible. If it all works out, he would arrive near the end of June or beginning of July and start his studies on July 2nd. His classes would finish by July 30th and then we would start our road trip(s). 18-Nov-06 (Sat) Considerable time has passed since our last posting. We will not trouble to fill in all of the gaps, but here are a few. A new school year has begun. Ivan is in his final year of the SCALE program at Southwestern Law School (they changed their name from Southwestern University School of Law). Ivan's course work ends in March, followed by a mandatory full-time 8-week internship program (which is called an "externship" in SCALE). Ivan has an interview on Tuesday with a Federal Judge, which we hope leads to an internship. Susan has also started another quarter at UCLA where she has started her second year in the Computer Science Ph.D. program. This quarter she is also taking an introductory Russian course so that she can learn enough to communicate with Ivan's family who live in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her studies have already begun to pay off as she mustered the courage today to call Ivan's parents BY HERSELF and talk to them in Russian. When she called at first, only Sasha was home. They had a brief, but productive conversation with Sasha speaking in English and Susan speaking in Russian. The parents, however, were not at home (they were at the Theatre), so Susan decided to call back later. This time, the parents had returned from the Theatre and Susan was able to speak with both Mama and Papa entirely in Russian. Susan was able to tell Mama about her Russian class, our Thanksgiving plans, and a few other miscellaneous topics. Mama talked about the opera they had just seen (Tchaikovsky), their plans for the weekend (rest and relax), and several other things which Susan was unable to understand :( The conversation was peppered with Susan asking "Medlenno, Pozhalusta" ("Slower, please"). Even with that, Mama used many words which are not yet in Susan's vocabulary. There is much room for improvement. The conversation with Papa was quite brief. He spoke slowly and clearly, but again used complicated words and Susan understood little. She thinks he said something about him learning English and he certainly mentioned how happy he was to speak with her. 28-Jun-05 (Tue) Today was Ivan's first day of Law School. Yesterday we had our last "hurrah" in Ventura. We went to the beach, enjoyed the sights and sounds, read for awhile, and Susan got REALLY sunburnt on her legs. Ouch! Then we went to Susan's parent's house for dinner and came home to get a good night's sleep before Ivan's big day. Unfortunately, Ivan was so excited about everything he couldn't fall asleep until after midnight. But we were both up bright and early at 5am so we could have breakfast and send Ivan off to the great unknown. We're so excited that the day has finally arrived, but we must admit: we were enjoying our extend vacation a WHOLE lot...it makes you look forward to being retired :) Stay tuned for more details on Ivan's first day of Law School... 24-Jun-05 (Fri) Hey, y'all, we just wrote our first Newsletter. If you've been keeping up with these "Latest News" postings, it won't be news to you, but we put it in the mail today so you should be getting it soon. If you would rather not recieve future editions or if you did not receive this one and would like to, send us an e-mail at susac20@juno.com or at Susan's work e-mail address, which is her first initial followed by her maiden name @ masters.edu (for the sake of spammers we won't actually spell it out for you.) If you would prefer to receive our e-newsletter in an e-mail, please e-mail us your e-mail address and we'll send it to you that way. 23-Jun-05 (Thu) We have returned from Palm Springs relaxed and refreshed. We found out why it is "off-season" in Palm Springs...it is so HOT! It was 117(F) degrees yesterday, so, needless to say, we did not spend much time outside. Thankfully, the hotel was so nice that it was quite pleasant to spend most of our time inside. We would fill up our water bottles and explore the great outdoors for about 20 minutes at a time. When we returned, out water bottles would be empty and we would be ready for a cold shower. There was a restaurant inside the hotel, so the first day we dressed up and spent our evening there. The second evening we spent playing billiards near the bar in the hotel. Another day we walked to an art museum that was nearby and we also discovered the best thing to eat for lunches. There was a Stater Brothers grocery store in the next town over (NOT within walking distance!) and we went there on Monday for a 12" deli sandwich. The deli girl didn't have any 12" rolls, so she made us our sandwich on a loaf of French Bread. They call it the "Family Size" sub and it is massive and delicious. Any time we didn't go out to eat, that's what we ate. One of those sandwiches was large enough for two meals, so we got away with not spending too much on food. And, if you know Susan, you know how much she LOVES sandwiches, so she was in 7th Heaven. We really enjoyed our vacation, but now it's back to Santa Clarita to a very messy house awaiting our return. 20-Jun-05 (Mon) Today is the day we have been looking forward to all month! We're leaving for our mini-honeymoon in Palm Springs. It is the "off-season" in Palm Springs so the hotels are all offering heavily discounted rates. Ivan found a really nice hotel for us to stay in at an affordable price. We are leaving our house in more of a shambles that Susan would have liked. She was hoping that we would be able to get everything done at home before we left so that when we return we would not have any responsibilities, but, alas, that is not the case. We did, however, complete the purging process, so all we have left to do is put it all away and clean up the aftermath. But we don't have to worry about any of that now...We're off! 17-Jun-05 (Fri) In a word: Failure. That is how we would describe our trip to San Francisco. We will have to wait for Ivan to become a US citizen before we can visit St. Petersburg, Russia. Perhaps it is for the best, since Ivan will be in Law School (which is REALLY expensive) for the next two years anyways. We would not have money (or time, for that matter) to spend on a vacation to Russia. After driving for seven hours, we arrived at the consulate at 1pm. We waited for an hour and at 2pm we were third in line so it was a short wait, 30 seconds at the window, and utter rejection. We quickly left the scene, and for a Thursday at 2:15pm we hit more traffic than we expected, but were back on Interstate 5 by 3:30pm. By this time, we were both very tired and a bit sad, so we decided to stop and see if we could spend the night somewhere along the way. We stopped at a Day's Inn and even with the AAA discount it was more than we wanted to pay so we were going to leave, but the guy asked us how much we were willing to pay. We told him our price and he offered it to us for $5 more than that, so we stayed there. It was nice to get off the road and relax and not have to drive at night. Susan used to prefer driving at night, because then the bright sun is not blinding you or beating down on you, but now she would much prefer driving in the day time. Of course, after dawn in the early morning is the best. So we took it slow getting home, forgetting our distress from the day before, and have officially begun our vacation! 15-Jun-05 (Wed) Can you believe that Ivan's last day working at Mercury has finally arrived? In a few weeks it would have been two years since he was started working there. Law School starts in exactly 13 days! Susan is taking some time off work, too, so we have just under two weeks to relax and spend enough time together so that we still remember what each other looks like in two years when we come up for air! Southwestern has already given Ivan several homework assignments: brief a few cases and read a book called "Gideon's Trumpet." We have been reading the book together and it is quite interesting. It is about a Right-to-Counsel case that came before the Supreme Court in 1962 and it gave the Justices a chance to overrule a very unpopular decision they had made 20 years previously in Betts v. Brady, where they said poor defendants are not entitled to counsel unless they had a "special circumstance" such as being illiterate, among others. The difficulty with the Special Circumstances rule was that the Supreme Court kept adding to the list of Special Circumstances so a lower court would convict a defendant who was too poor to pay for counsel and the court would not appoint someone, but then the convict would appeal to the Supreme Court and by 1950 the Supreme Court found a special circumstance in every appeal. When Clarence Earl Gideon's appeal came around in 1962, he was not claiming any special circumstances, he simply declared that the Constitution's Due Process clause guaranteed him a fair trial and no one can have a fair trial without benefit of counsel. The nice thing about reading books together is that we get to talk about them and we both remember much more information that way. Of course, when classes begin in earnest, we will not be able to share very much of what Ivan is learning. He will definitely need to learn how to speed-read and type really fast. What we are hoping to accomplish during this two-week hiatus is 1) go to the Russian Consulate in San Francisco (can you believe there isn't one in LA?) and try to get Ivan's paperwork sorted out so we can visit his family in Russia this year and 2) go through all of the boxes that have been sitting in the guest bedroom's closet for the 1 1/2 years we have been married, throw away all of the JUNK, and consolidate the boxes and 3) enjoy a few days at a nice hotel in Palm Springs to simply relax and be together. Tomorrow we will go to the consulate - we will have to wake up at Dark:Thirty in the morning where "Dark" equals "Five" - and drive the 361 miles to San Francisco to be at the consulate when it is open for Russian Nationals to do business at 2pm. Then we'll drive back home and SLEEP! After that, we'll take a few days to start sorting through our boxes and maybe Ivan will work on his homework and then we leave for Palm Springs on Monday, June 20th and we'll stay there until Thursday. Then, Ivan starts school on the 28th and Susan will return to work on the 28th or 29th depending on how well we do with going through our boxes and getting our house in order. 31-May-05 (Tue) What is in the foreseeable future for the Chebotariovs? Here's a summary: Ivan and Susan can never get enough of school, so both of them have decided to go back to full-time school for the next academic year. Doing what??? You ask… Well, ever since High School, Ivan has wanted to be a lawyer, so after several attempts at the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), numerous applications sent across the country (14 to be exact), and months of waiting (5 months since the first application was submitted) Ivan has been accepted to a law school. And even better: we praise the Lord that we don't have to move to accommodate Ivan's dream! He has been accepted at Southwestern University School of Law, located right here in Los Angeles. Typically Law School is a 3-year ordeal, but Ivan has been accepted to the accelerated 2-year program…and he starts 4 weeks from today! See, the way they are able to cram 3 years of school into 2 is to basically eliminate all breaks. They get a 2-week break for Christmas and that's about it! Although Ivan isn't sure what area of law he wishes to go into (he teases his coworkers at Mercury Insurance about going into Personal Injury Law) he's thinking he will probably opt for something more along the lines of corporate or tax law (though many of our friends would benefit from him being an Immigration Lawyer). We talk about how cool it would be for us to obtain jobs with the federal government enabling us to go work for an arm of the US government in Russia, allowing us to get acquainted with Ivan's family and assisting Susan in learning Russian, but we really don't know where Ivan will end up. With the 2-year program, Ivan will be in class from 9am until 3:30pm Monday through Friday (and, from what we hear, spend the rest of his waking moments studying). However, rush hour being what it is around LA, it looks like Ivan will have to leave our house around 5:30am to avoid spending multiple hours on the road. We have looked into taking the train to school, which would keep Ivan off the freeway, but would still take more than 2 hours one way. So, we'll look for a small, reliable car to purchase and entrust Ivan to the craziness of LA traffic. So, that's what Ivan is doing for the next two years, but what about Susan? Well, she has equally ambitious goals for herself. After completing a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics many (three) years ago, she just earned a B.S. in Computer Science this May and has been accepted to the Computer Science Ph.D. program at UCLA. Susan has always wanted to be a teacher, but hasn't found the right age-group yet, so she'll try her hand at teaching College/University students. The Ph.D. program at UCLA takes an average of 5 years to complete, with candidates earning their Master's degree after about two years. With surprisingly little course work required (48 quarter units), UCLA puts much more stock in the final thesis which is required of all students. However, for funding reasons, UCLA requires all Ph.D. students to take a full load (12 units) each quarter (but they only take 3 quarters per year). To allow for plenty of time to work on the thesis, students are encouraged to take only 1 or 2 courses to count towards their 48 quarter units and fill up their 12 units per quarter with “fluff” classes – classes that don't count for anything, but which enable the department to have a maximum number of full-time students. Susan is anxiously awaiting the class schedule to be released so she can plan for the fall quarter (which begins September 26th), but the schedules aren't published until June or July, so she has to be patient a bit longer. In addition to these plans for UCLA, Susan has been offered the opportunity to teach two Computer Science courses at her alma mater (The Master's College). One course, entitled IS Applications, is essentially an advanced tutorial for Microsoft Access and Excel. The other course, Systems Analysis and Design, is a database course which is closely related to what she has been doing in her job for the last few years. Although the realities of these insane schedules hasn't hit home yet, it is sure to be a difficult, yet exciting and rewarding few years for the Chebotariovs. 29-May-05 (Sun) Susan's sister, Claire, graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine today. We woke up at dark o'clock (4am) to leave by dark:thirty (4:30am) to make it to the school in time to save seats for family and friends. In addition to several of Claire's friends from her church, her parents, and us in attendance, there was also Peter, Linda, and Beth Simson, and also Aunt Frances Wood. The ceremony was punctuated by interesting and fun comments, including the class president asking everyone to say "Happy Birthday" to Claire (her birthday is tomorrow) as well ask the Dean wishing her a Happy Birthday as he handed out her diploma. After the ceremony (and NUMEROUS pictures, which we intend to post...someday), we went to Marie Callendar's for a celebratory meal. At lunch, we were joined by the Caldwells (Uncle David, Aunt Valarie, and Shelley). We returned to Claire's house to present her with Graduation/Birthday presents and then went our separate ways. Overall, it was a lovely day and a great finish to Claire's long-hard four years in Medical school. The next thing on her list is her 3-year residency at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Camden, NJ. It will be a big change, but one she has been working towards for a LONG time. 14-May-05 (Sat) Well, TMC's graduation is today. Although Susan has just earned another Bachelor's degree (this one in Computer Science), she is not actually allowed to graduate. She has already graduated from Master's once, so the college won't let her graduate again, but the Computer Science department still considers her a graduate. Every graduation, each department gets their graduates together for an official "Department Photo" and Susan came to the graduation ceremony for the photo, which was actually before the ceremony. It was a really hot day, so after the photo we left. Several of our friends graduated today. We went to a combined graduation party for 8 or 9 of them and we saw the results of sitting in the hot sun for hours. Everyone was sunburnt and the graduates had cute little tan lines from their caps. Whoops! Didn't think about that, did they? Even people who slathered themselves in sunblock were showing quite a bit of color. Good thing we didn't stick around :) On another note, Ivan's X-files DVDs arrived in the mail! Yeah... now we'll see how good they are - you can never fully trust what you buy on e-bay, but, as they say, "You get what you pay for..." 11-May-05 (Wed) Today is Ivan's birthday. Here in the Chebotariov household, we have decided that we don't want to limit the celebration to a single day, but instead are in the middle of celebrating Ivan's "Birthweek." This allows Ivan to have a special "yummy" breakfast (eggs and toast), pick what we have for dinner, and choose what we do after dinner. Ivan received several birthday presents including a gift certificate to Starbucks (his favorite) and the complete DVD set for the X-files - 9 seasons - 69 DVDs - 201 episodes. The X-files was a Sci-Fi TV show that aired from 1993 until 2002. Susan purchased this gift on e-bay a few weeks ago, and, although it has not yet arrived, we expect it to come any day. For dinner tonight, Ivan chose KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). It has been a LONG time since we have been to KFC, so it was a fun treat. 01-Oct-04 (Fri) Earlier this week, we were talking about how eager Susan is to be teaching. Just being in class makes her want to teach it (especially when it is a subject she has a pretty firm grasp on). Little did they know, Susan's opportunity to teach might come a little sooner than she expected. By May, she will have a BA in Mathematics and a BS in Computer Science. Rather than waiting until after she earns her Master's Degree to give Susan her first Collegiate course to teach, the faculty of the Computer Science Department at The Master's College have offered for Susan to teach a course in Fall 2005. And there was much rejoicing (yeah!)... 28-Sep-04 (Tue) No new developments with the Russia story, but here's some more news. Susan is getting ready to finish her second Bachelor's Degree in the Spring and she's thinking about what she would like to do in the great beyond. Since her stint teaching high school and junior high, she has had a bug in her bonnet to teach. Granted, certainly not in a local public school, but maybe at the college level. She has looked into several programs to get her Master's Degree and/or Ph.D in Computer Science and she has several options. UCLA or CalTech (in Pasadena, CA) are more prestigious schools (translation: way more difficult) and they would be Susan's top choices. There is also CSUN, which would be much easier to get in (and it is closer than the other two schools). All graduate schools require you to take the General Subject GRE (Graduate Record Examination). CSUN lets you get by with just this exam. UCLA and CalTech, on the other hand, also require you to take the Subject Matter GRE (in this case, Computer Science). The General test should be relatively easy (it's quite general) and Susan is taking it in Pasadena on Saturday, October 9th. The Computer Science Subject GRE has Susan a little more nervous, but she isn't taking it until Saturday, November 13th. We'll let you know how it goes... 27-Sep-04 (Mon) Well, it just gets more complicated. Things are going smoothly for Susan to get her visa to Russia, but there's this complication for Ivan! You would think it would be easier for him to go to his own country for a visit. Well, it is. They just won't let him leave once he's there. No problem with America letting him back in. Ivan has his Green Card (which is really pink) and he is considered a Permanent Resident of the United States, so he's free to come and go in America as he pleases. The only problem is, as far as Russia is concerned, he's a Permanent Resident there, as well. As a throw back to the Soviet days, not only do they have normal passports to travel between countries, they also have internal passports. There aren't required (any more) for travel within the country, but they are mandatory as an ID card. (Most people do not have driver's licenses, so it kinda makes sense.) Well, Ivan has been in the US for almost a decade. His regular passport expired so he got a new one. His internal passport has long since expired (he left it with his parents for safe keeping) and now the Consulate is telling him that his regular passport isn't valid to leave Russia unless he gets a stamp in his internal passport. But they can't put a stamp in an expired internal passport, so he must get a new internal passport. When Ivan's father applied for his new internal passport, it took 8 months! Needless to say, we don't have 8 months to get one if we are to go to Russia for New Year. The saga continues... 21-Sep-04 (Tue) So the latest idea we have is for us to go visit Ivan's family in Saint Petersburg, Russia. We would love to be there for the New Years Holiday (one of the biggest holidays for Russians to celebrate, since all of the religious holidays were illegal for so long). Currently we are looking into what needs to be done to get Susan a visa. Since Ivan is still a Russian citizen, he won't have to worry about getting a visa. The plan so far is to go on a Wednesday (preferably December 29th) and come back on a Wednesday 2 weeks later. The cheapest we've found so far is to fly Aeroflot (aka Air-flop). Wonder why it's so cheap? Although Susan has never flown with them before, rumor has it that it's about as cramped as can be. But hey, it's only 15 hours straight to Moscow and then another few hours to Saint Petersburg. To quote one of Susan's professors, "What could possibly go wrong?" We'll keep you posted... |
