There has been a bit of a gap in our regular updates since the last post, so now it's time to play catch up. A lot happened to us after the August update and we couldn't really bring ourselves to articulate any of it, but now (this is actually being typed in February 2010) we can fill you in a bit regarding how we've learned God's goodness afresh. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After enjoying our cruise in June so much, we decided to go on another one, but this time to Canada. Ivan had a long weekend for Labor Day, so we took a short trip up to St. John's. Susan had been having some health problems leading up to the cruise and they came to a head on the only day we were at port, so that was bad timing and pretty much ruined the rest of the cruise experience for us, but it was a nice get away. We did enjoy the towel animals, which we didn't get on the first cruise.

The main tourist attraction in St. John's seems to be the Reversing Falls. Ummm, can I say "not very exciting?" Certainly the concept is interesting. The fact that it happens is noteworthy (namely, that the river is so low and the tide so high that at high tide the sea water flows into the river instead of vice versa). But going there to look at it? Not so much. It doesn't look any more impressive than a river flowing. See for yourself.


Another mandatory stop in St. John's was the Tim Horton's (thanks, Zhenya) basically the Starbucks of the North. Ivan enjoyed his cup o' joe.

We returned on Monday and on Tuesday Susan had a doctor's appointment. The diagnosis was bleak, but, as we learned a week later, incorrect. Earlier this year we had worked through the sorrow of an early term miscarriage (3 months) learning a considerable amount about how much God loves us to send His Son to suffer the physical and emotional pain of the cross so that we can be reconciled to Him. Also learning that, like Job, we don't have to know why God does something, but to trust that He is doing it for a good purpose. That's a really great lesson that can be applied to many areas of our life and we continue to face situations where we remind ourselves of that very important fact.

But, back to the doctor's misdiagnosis. "Another miscarriage," he said, only to revise that a week later to "you have an ectopic pregnancy." Oh. Okay. How do you treat that? Chemotherapy. Thankfully it was only two doses and Susan was back to having blood tests twice a week. Her arm was a bit worse for the wear.

Nothing like a care package from family to cheer us up. With all of the essential ingredients: food, clothes, and entertainment!


Actually Susan had other complications that added to her discomfort, so even better than the care package was having Susan's mom come out and stay for about a month. We were very thankful for her help. By the middle of October, Susan was feeling much better and we were able to enjoy a trip to Long Island for some wine tasting.

Labels: NY, Quick Trip, Summary

This was a fun week for Susan. Her sister just finished up working in South Dakota and came by New Jersey to hang out with her ex-roomie, Kristen, for awhile. So, after church on Sunday Susan drove down to NJ and spent a few days with the girls. We cooked yummy food, played fun games (our cousin taught Claire FLUXX and she taught it to Susan - that is an intense game - you have to keep your wits about you!), and overall just relaxed and hung out. Claire and Kristen went tubing down the river on Saturday and they got sun burnt extremely badly, so our hang out time was punctuated by frequent visits to CVS for more aloe vera. We've always wanted to get a hard-sided suitcase and put flag stickers on it from all of the countries we've been to. For the job in South Dakota, Claire bought such a suitcase so we proceeded to buy a dozen or so flag stickers online to start Claire's collection. Another reason why this is a fun week is because one of our parents celebrates their birthday this week. We couldn't be there in person, but we're happy to celebrate vicariously with them.

Labels: Quick Trip

The 4th of July. What a great day for picnics, parades, and fireworks. Well, does one out of three count? Which of the three did we get? Fireworks!! And where, do you ask? The National Mall in Washington, D.C.!! Although we technically lived in DC last 4th of July, that was the day Susan's dad and his friend, Peter, rolled into town with the UHaul to take all of our stuff to NY. In the interest of beating traffic, we left DC around 3pm, made it to Claire's house in NJ (she was gone camping with friends, so good thing Dad had a key). And on the 5th we made it to NY and unloaded all our stuff. That means no fantastic 4th of July show last year and we wanted to get a chance to see the celebration in the nation's capital while we're still living on the LEast Coast (no, that's not a typo - that's intentional... as opposed to the BEST Coast AKA West Coast - at least if you believe my sister...)

So, our holiday weekend began a bit early as Ivan got Thursday and Friday off. Thursday morning we got ready for the trip and drove down to NJ to pick up our friend Kristen. We spent the night at her house and headed for DC around noonish. Traffic was significantly better than we had expected, so we took a detour through Annapolis. We had never been there before, so we went to the Capitol building and walked to the pier. It's a quaint little tourist town. If we had more time we would have liked to visit the Naval Academy, but that will have to wait for another trip.

We stayed with friends from our church down there and had a nice time visiting with them in the evening. On Saturday, we packed some PBJs and water and headed downtown with the purpose of seeing the parade and going paddleboating (or peddleboating, if you prefer) on the Tidal Basin. "But I thought you said you didn't see a parade?" you ask in confusion. Quite right. Although technically we did see the last float of the parade. Twice.

It took longer than we expected to get going in the morning (hey, we were on vacation - prime time to sleep in!), so we didn't get to downtown until about an hour after the parade started. We decided paddleboating was more important than the parade and thought we still might have time to catch part of the parade after we were done. While walking to the Tidal Basin, we passed the starting point for the parade and there were the Hare Krishna's congratulating our country on it's birthday. Or at least that's what the float said. (Here's a photo of the float - the words were on the back).

We made it to the Tidal Basin and rented a 4-seater (although only two can peddle at a time). We got some nice photos of the Jefferson Memorial and enjoyed the sunny, while not too hot weather. We ate some sandwiches, reminisced about many of the important lessons Ivan and I have learned during our marriage, and talked to Kristen about life in general. It was a great time. Eventually we got tired of peddling and we returned to the dock. It felt like forever, but was really just over an hour later.

We then headed to the Old Postal Tower to get a nice view of the city. Our path took us across the parade route and what did we see but the last float bouncing along (yes, the Hare Krishna float again). So I don't think that counts as having actually watched the parade. When we made it to the Postal Tower there was quite a line, but it moved quickly and we enjoyed a brief look at the skyline and the crowds below. We were somewhat surprised that there wasn't more decorating done to commemorate the occasion and apart from the crowds (and the garbage left behind) it could have been your average Saturday in DC.

We went back to our friends' house to cool off and recuperate before heading back to the National Mall for the evening fireworks display. The show was set for around 9:30pm and we got there about 2 hours in advance. We had prepared ourselves for the prospect of standing room only on the Mall, but brought a blanket to sit on just in case we found a square of grass. Surprisingly, although it was crowded, it wasn't as bad as we had expected. Not knowing the best place from which to watch the show, we approached the Washington Monument from the East and got a front row seat along Independence Ave. There was a tree blocking the bottom two-thirds of the monument, but from what we read on the internet the fireworks would be exploding above the monument, so we figured we would be all right. Well, you know what they say: "Don't believe everything you read." Sure enough, that lone tree was blocking 95% of the show, so we (along with a hundred other people sitting in the same vicinity) quickly jumped to our feet and skedaddled to a spot on the sidewalk with an unobstructed view. It wasn't too bad standing for the show, but now we know that the fireworks actually explode on the north west side of the monument and you're better off approaching the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial side than the Capitol side.

Apart from a strange malfunction to the screen on our camera, we enjoyed the show and got a few photos and a video to boot. Perhaps I'll post some of them when I get them on my computer.

One of the benefits of vacating our spot on the ground and heading for the sidewalk was that we were about 200 people closer to the metro and we didn't have to waste time gathering our belongings after the show. Instead, we high-tailed it out of there and made it to the Federal Triangle station with the first thousand people. The station was a madhouse, but the federal employees did a remarkable job at keeping everything running smoothly. We had opted for the Federal Triangle station over the Smithsonian station because for the direction we were headed we thought the metro cars would fill up before even getting to the Smithsonian. However, the Metro employees were on the ball and sent completely empty trains to the Smithsonian station every now and again to keep things moving.

We had prepared ourselves for an hour long wait for a train, but it was really more like 20 minutes. Once on the train, us gals had a seat the whole way while Ivan gave his up to an older woman (like the gentleman that he is). Once the train left DC and ran above ground, we could see some of the locals making their own fireworks displays (highly illegal in LA county, but apparently not so in MD). We had a few scares as the train stopped on the tracks waiting for the platform to clear and some locals seemingly intentionally aimed their bottle rockets in our direction. We thought we were in for a direct hit, but there were just a few near-misses, instead.

On Sunday we got an early start back home (we were planning on staying for church, but since Kristen and Ivan had to be back at work on Monday we didn't want to risk the afternoon traffic). It started out as smooth sailing, but we were glad we left when we did because by the end things were quite congested.

And now we can say we saw 4th of July fireworks in our nation's capital. And it was so worth it :)

Labels: NY, Quick Trip

Another few busy weeks have gone by. A few days after Papa Viktor left, some friends from California came for a visit (JK and Ira). They were on the East Coast for a conference and were able to stay a few days extra. They also celebrated their anniversary while they were here, so on Friday evening they went to Manhattan. On Saturday, Ivan and Susan went to Mike and Prospera's wedding. It was our first New York wedding/reception. We had no idea what we were in for! Most of the weddings we've attended have been for college friends in California, where it's usually a punch and cake reception that lasts for a few hours. This was a full on crazy expensive reception and we had a blast. It started with appetizers (which were so extensive we thought it was the whole meal). Then, we moved into the dining room where the wedding party was announced. There was a DJ playing music and the couple had their first dance. Then came the four course meal with dancing interspersed. Ivan and I enjoyed a few slow dances and tried to swing dance to a few numbers. We decided we need to take some dancing lessons so that we can feel less foolish next time! But we had a lot of fun.

After the reception, we decided to join JK and Ira in the city for a bite to eat. Ivan showed them his office and took them up to the 33rd floor, where there's a great view of Manhattan. Then, we went to a Sushi restaurant. Usually, Susan is afraid of sushi, but she ordered a few California rolls (ie no raw seafood) and they were quite tasty. We drove the Sheas to the airport on Sunday.

The following week was Susan's birthday and Memorial Day weekend. We went out to a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan for Susan's birthday dinner and then Ivan had a few days off, so we went to Boston, MA. We had a great time, although we were sort of hoping that Susan would be able to meet with some people at MIT to discuss research ideas, but since it was a holiday weekend, no one was around. So we just enjoyed watching the scullers on the Charles River, walking around Cambridge, and looking at Harvard. The Mets were playing the Red Sox while we were there and we debated going to a game, but it was cold and rainy, so we opted not to. We did, however, make it out to the JFK Presidential Library, which is only a few miles from the city. It was pretty interesting and made for a good half day trip.


Basically as soon as we got back from Massachusetts, Susan turned around and went to New Mexico to hang out with Claire for her birthday. What many people don't realize is that Memorial Day is actually on May 30, but it's observed on the last Monday in May. Well, Claire's birthday is on Memorial Day, but the rest of the nation observed her birthday on Monday, so we decided that she needed to celebrate her birthday every day that week. Susan learned how to play "Happy Birthday" on the guitar and so she played it and gave her a present every night that week. Our cousin, Shelley, also came out from Ohio to celebrate Claire's birthday with her, so we had fun together. On Friday we went up to the top of Sandia Peak and then went to the Petroglyph National Monument. It was a lot of walking and it was a hot day, but we had a lot of fun. On Saturday we took a trip to Santa Fe to see the capitol. It wasn't as exciting as we had expected - Albuquerque is a much larger and more interesting than Santa Fe, but now we can say we've been to the capitol. After we got back from Santa Fe, we went to see "Up" in the movie theater. What a sad movie! It's a tear-jerker: cute, but very sad. After the movie we went out for Claire's birthday dinner to an award-winning barbeque place. Wow! That was good food! We split a sampler meal so we could try three different kinds of meat. We then went back and bought a pound of the best stuff and took it home. We watched a movie and ate some fabulous Strawberry dessert, which we made last time we were all at Claire's house (in NJ).

Susan left on Sunday to fly back to Boston, where she had finally set up a meeting to discuss research ideas with a professor at Southampton University who was in Boston for a few days for some board of directors meetings. It was a productive meeting and hopefully will lead to some concrete progress in her PhD.

Susan took the train home and is ready to return to a less hectic schedule soon.

Labels: NY, Quick Trip, Summary

"What happened to Madrid Days 9 and 10?" you ask. Well, those last few days were rather busy with lots of staying up late. I came home on Saturday, April 25th and was greeted by Ivan and his dad. That's right, Papa Viktor arrived in NYC while I was away. It was his first trip to the US and we tried to do everything possible to make sure he got the most out of it. The first weekend he was here we stayed in NYC and took it easy. The second weekend, we took a trip down to DC, stopping at Philadelphia on the way (thanks, Kristen, for letting us crash at your place). During the second week that he was here, Ivan had an alumni event for Southwestern in the city, so Susan and Ivan went to that while we sent Papa Viktor off to enjoy the New York City Ballet. The third weekend that he was here, we all flew to CA to spend time with Susan's family and introduce Viktor to the west coast (or, as Claire says, "the best coast" - not to be confused with the east coast aka "the least coast").

We left for California on Thursday night. On Friday we spent the day in Ventura. On Saturday we went to Santa Clarita where we had brunch with the Paradises (Papa Viktor had met them almost 15 years earlier in Kazakhstan). Gayle (Ivan's English teacher in Kazakhstan) came with Nanci on her way out of town and it was touching to see how emotional the reunion was for Papa Viktor.

After brunch, Susan hung out with some friends (Joanna and her family and then Caroline and her family) while Ivan showed Papa Viktor The Master's College campus. Then, we all went to Vitaliy and Michelle's house to hang out and catch up with them. I think Papa Viktor enjoyed having a real conversation in Russian! Monday the 11th is a birthday shared by Ivan and Vitaliy's oldest son, Daniel. Daniel is such a cute kid, he loves it when we come over to visit and always wants to talk to us and when we sit down for a meal he wants to sit in between us. It's so much fun to have a friend's kid be so affectionate.

On Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day and Ivan's birthday. Then, we drove to LA, where we showed some of the sights to Papa Viktor before meeting up with Uncle David and Aunt Valarie for dinner. Finally, Susan's parents dropped us off at the airport and we were on our way back home. Yesterday we took Ivan out to the Outback Steakhouse for his birthday meal and today Papa Viktor left to go back home. So, now we have our house all to ourselves again. Overall, it was a very nice visit although quite rushed. Ivan and his dad had some great conversations and even Susan had a few lengthy conversations in Russian. It will take quite a bit more practice for Susan to become adept at conversing in Russian, but this was a good chance to brush up on it.

Labels: NY, Quick Trip, Summary

Yes, I know. A rash of blog postings! What has gotten into us? Well, don't get used to it. Today Susan was cleaning out her office and came across an empty box. The contents at one time (barely 2 weeks ago, in fact) made up a care package sent to us by Susan's family. The great things about care packages from Susan's family is 1. they are guaranteed to contain yummy food, 2. they are guaranteed to contain a few non-food items to brighten your day, and 3. they are guaranteed to come decorated if Susan's sister is in charge of mailing them!!!

What do I mean by "decorated"?

Well, see for yourself:


So many fun stickers!!

As you can see from the photo on the right, we got all sorts of good stuff in this package: Almonds, Beef Jerkey, Chocolate, a card featuring Mom's new dog, Shortbread Cookies, Coconut Macaroon Cookies, Craisins, Gatorade powder, Chocolate-covered Sunflower Seeds, Dove Special Dark Chocolate, Homemade Jam (made by Susan and Uncle David during her visit in October but which couldn't be smuggled onto the plane), Gummy Bears, Homemade Persimmon Cookies, 17 Bean Soup Mix, Sudoku book, Sabrina movie, and a Latin Music Mix CD. Not pictured are copies of the family portraits which we got taken during our Christmas visit as part of our gift to Susan's dad. So as you can see, lots of good stuff to cheer up anyone's day! In fact, the Sudoku book and Gummy Bears came in handy because the very day that we received this package we decided to hop a plane for CA and Susan was able to keep herself occupied with the Sudoku and gummy candy for the entire plane ride. I would dare say that receiving this package was, in fact, a catalyst for our speedy departure to warmer environs. The thought process went something like: "Wow! That's so sweet! I love my family! What are we doing here? Let's go visit them if we can find cheap tickets!"

We love you guys!!

Labels: Food, NY, Quick Trip

Where does time go? How do people manage to post to their blogs as often as they do? Seriously, we try to keep y'all up to date, but it's already been 2 weeks since the last post. How can that be? Well, we'll just have to blame another "busy week". I could just write a program that updates my blog every Monday to say something like: "Wow - another busy week! Where does time go? We had a great weekend, went to church on Sunday, and are ready to face another week." That would pretty much keep you "up to date" for the rest of our lives :)

Actually, these last few weeks were a bit out of the ordinary. If you don't know why, then you can e-mail me, because I still have no intention of blogging about it. On Monday we decided on the spur of the moment to catch a plane to CA. In less than 30 minutes we bought the tickets, packed, and got a friend from church to drive us to the airport. Needless to say, we packed light :) We've been enjoying the time out here with Susan's family. We know some of our CA friends have been looking forward to seeing us the next time we were out on this side of the country, but this just wasn't the trip for that - sorry. Tomorrow we head back home and aren't particularly looking forward to it. Alas, all good things must come to an end (or that's what they say, at least).

Unfortunately, we don't have any layovers in Memphis, so no tasty bbq on this trip. We didn't bring the camera with us, so you don't get any photos of sunny southern California to look at, but we'll leave you with this little token of the weather we're not actually looking forward to return to back home.

Labels: Quick Trip

Back in October, Susan took a trip out to California. You may have read a quick summary about it a few posts ago, but one thing Susan didn't tell you about was her layover. The best layover ever! "What?! How can a layover actually be a GOOD thing??" That might be what you're wondering, but it's true. And if you look at the following photo, you might see why.

Have you ever had a layover in Memphis? This was Susan's first time and she sincerely hopes it's not her last. The minute you step out of the jet way into the airport your senses are accosted by one of the most delicious smells in the entire world. BBQ. Not just any BBQ, but FANTASTIC BBQ. She asked one of the locals which restaurant in the airport had the best BBQ and it seems there are two competing restaurants (fast food chains, really). The "best" (according to one local) didn't have a restaurant in our terminal, so Susan settled for "2nd best": Jim Neely's Interstate BBQ. As far as we're concerned, it IS the best. Well, truly, Deb and Gavin took Susan to a BBQ place somewhere on the road to the Omaha airport and that was probably better. And there's the Bodacious BBQ place in Ventura that was also really good, but hey, when it comes to airport food it doesn't get any better than Memphis BBQ.

Look out Memphis, we'll be back!

Labels: Food, Quick Trip

November was another whirlwind month. After Susan's return from CA, we left that weekend for a church retreat on the "shore" in NJ (that's what the locals call the beach - kinda silly, huh?) The retreat was a great time to get to know more people in the church and to be challenged to live life in abundance.

After the retreat, we drove straight to Connecticut, where Ivan had several days of training. We had a great time lounging around in the hotel between sessions and even made a few runs to Costco to buy some much needed winter gear.

The next week we were scheduled to go on another business trip to Orlando and we had made plans to go down early and spend time with Susan's relatives who we had last seen in 2003, but the trip was cancelled and we missed out on hanging with the cousins.

The week after that was Thanksgiving. Ivan shared his testimony in the Thanksgiving Eve service (he did a great job, considering he only had 3 minutes to share it) and bright and early on Thanksgiving Day we headed off to CA to spend the holiday with Susan's family at Claire's place in Sacramento. She had to work Thanksgiving Day, so it wasn't a problem for us to travel on that day (and it helped us get slightly cheaper tickets). We celebrated on Saturday the 29th and flew home on Sunday the 30th. We decided that, for future reference, it probably isn't worth the 10+ hours of flying to spend 2 whole days with relatives, but it was fun to have the whole family together for the first Thanksgiving in probably 7 years.

Labels: Quick Trip, Summary

So much for posting on Mondays. Oh well. We had another great weekend - this time involving a visit to a friend of Ivan's from Jr High. The strange thing is: she also works for Ernst & Young! She and her family live in Charlotte, so we caught a quick flight down on Friday and spent the weekend with them. She and her husband are both from Russia and have been in the states for about 3 years. They have an adorable son who just turned 11 months old. He is so easy going and has such a sweet personality. We spent a lot of time catching up and hanging out, but also spent a day sightseeing in Charlotte. We went to the Visitor's Center and got a map of a self-guided walking tour of the city. We opted for the "Historical Walk." At first glance, with over 90 points of "historical" interest, we were quite impressed. However, as the walk continued, we found that more than 3/4 of the points of "historical" interest turned out to be condominiums that were built in the last 10 years. We quickly tired of walking just to see a bunch of condos, so we scoured the map for actual points of interest. It boiled down to just visiting a cemetery, an old fire house, and a really old purple home that is now a restaurant. We learned that the Bank of America Tower is currently the tallest building in the city and it seems that there is some shady work behind the scenes involving money changing hands that keeps it that way (ie, proposals for taller structures get rejected by the city). It reminds me of St. Petersburg, Russia, where we were told that there is a max building height imposed on the city, but the governor (or mayor) - who is receiving "contributions" from a government-run gas company - has approved an exception to that rule for said gas company.

Anyways, we went to church in Charlotte on Sunday and had a relaxing afternoon before catching our flight home later in the day. Below are some shots from the plane.

View of Charlotte

View of Manhattan

Labels: Quick Trip

Yet another fun filled weekend and yet another post without photos from our camera. I brought it with me, but we forgot to take photos (and I still haven't found my cable yet, anyways). So, what have we been up to? Well, the next few weeks are going to be very busy, so we decided to take a special trip this weekend to celebrate our anniversary a month early. The weekend of our anniversary we will be on a retreat with our church and the three weekends before that Susan will be in California and next weekend we have other plans. Yep - like I said, we'll be busy.

One of our favorite things to do is go to a nice place and simply enjoy each other's company (and eat food that we don't allow ourselves to eat at home). This weekend we stayed fairly close to home - only about 40 minutes away - in a town near White Plains, NY. Susan left home shortly after noon and checked into the hotel. When Ivan got off work, he took the train to White Plains and Susan met him at the station. White Plains is an area that we were considering moving to when we first learned about Ivan's new job, so we were looking forward to this as an opportunity to check out the area. Although we didn't get in any serious house hunting or neighborhood reconnaissance, Susan has determined - based solely on Friday evening traffic around the train station - that she hates everything about White Plains. That was easy - cross another city off our list! Truly, it is a nice area within an easy commute of Grand Central Station, but everything about the traffic was atrocious - badly marked lanes, unclear turning zones, improperly timed lights, too many cars, and too many one way streets, to name a few. Thankfully, our whole weekend did not revolve around bad traffic, so after collecting Ivan and going to Whole Foods to pick up some of our favorite snacks (although they didn't have Cheez-Its, which left Susan rather disappointed), we returned to our hotel for a relaxing evening.


The view from our balcony

We were pleased to learn that the hotel had a great fitness center and tennis courts, so on Saturday we made good use of those. Tennis is such a fun activity that leaves you worn out (if you try hard enough) but not bored to tears (like riding the stationary bike).

Speaking of tennis, Susan has been playing quite a bit of it lately. Last Wednesday she played with a sweet, elderly woman from church, Alma, who has played quite a bit of tennis in her day and had lessons from Van Der Meer University. She was able to share her wealth of knowledge to help Susan improve her game and they had a great time playing. On Thursday Susan played with another gal from church, Ayumi, and they had a great time. Hopefully a few tennis games a week will become a staple in Susan's schedule to help her jumpstart the need to get physically active again. Today Susan and Ayumi will be playing again and tomorrow she has a date with Alma, so things are looking good.

On another note, Susan has been feeling quite discouraged and confused about her PhD progress (or lack thereof). After much thought, she decided that making a daily schedule would help her squander less time and be more productive. Finally, yesterday she sat down and made that schedule. It actually did help her stay on task yesterday and was a big factor in why she actually did the dishes this morning (yeah - pretty sad when you have to schedule in time to do that, but some of us need more structure in our lives, what can I say?)

Anyways, that's probably way more information that most of you wanted to know, but we don't have much else to blog about, so there you go!

Labels: NY, Quick Trip, Tennis

Labels: NY, Quick Trip