Saturday we went to an African circus. It was interesting to see the cultural differences between this show and the others. The Chinese circus emphasized grace and focused movement, the Uzkbek one seemed to be a really bizarre story line with lots of animals, and the African one was full of energy and fun. The acrobats interacted with playfully together, ate fire, and showed amazing flexibility. Some of the Chinese circus performers surprised us with our two favorite acts from their circus, and the clowns left Christoff and Kade laughing hysterically and even produced chuckles from me (the ultimate test). :)

Spring Has Sprung!

Happy Navruz (March 21)! We went from our last snowfall on Sunday to full-fledged Spring by the end of the week--perfect timing to celebrate Navruz, the first day of Spring!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Friday night, the kids put the finishing touches on the leprechaun trap and then Jared and I spent a good chunk of time trying to get them to calm down enough to fall asleep. With prospects of leprechauns who grant wishes, sleep was apparently hard to come by...

Unfortunately, the morning of St. Patrick's Day, we found that the leprechaun once again escaped from our trap. But he colored our milk green that went with our Lucky Charms (we brought them here with us).

That afternoon we had Wadi and Zaria (the two kids who do Primary with us) over for our St. Patrick’s Day party. It was tons of fun! We had teams build treasure chests out of boxes, played Chubby Bunny (a St. Patrick’s Day version), the flour game, the Human Knot, and the raft game (where the boat keeps sinking and you have to all fit onto progressively smaller rafts). Seeing the kids bond made all the planning and preparation worth it.

Potholes

Now that the weather is in the freeze/thaw cycle, driving here has taken on somewhat of a video game feel. As you drive along, you must be on the constant lookout for potholes, and making important decisions about which maneuver to try: The Swerve, the Straddle, or the Slam on the brakes? Usually following the car in front of you is a good choice, just in case you didn’t see the pothole they’re swerving around, but since our van is so much bigger than other cars, I can sometimes successfully Straddle what they cannot (and if I tried to Swerve in the same spot as they did, I may not have enough room, depending on the width of the road or the width between potholes). Then again, it depends on how many potholes there are in a given spot and just how deep they are. And of course, you must also check to see if there is a car coming (in which case you cannot avoid your pothole by driving on their side of the road. Then, of course, you simply Slam on the brakes and drive Slowly. :) It’s amazing to see new potholes developing all the time. I thought there were a lot of potholes when we arrived here, but...I was wrong. Maybe because we have a big police center on our street, though, they actually fixed about 2/3 of them so that you only get a smaller bump up instead of down along a good portion of our street--I haven’t seen other roads like that, though...just ours. Other potholes have dirt, rocks, and sometimes even garbage thrown in to fill them. On the bright side, people don’t speed as much here in Tashkent as they do in America!

Happy Women's Day!

Thursday Jared and the kids got a day off for International Women’s Day--a big holiday here. We had decided that we wouldn’t celebrate it since we already have American Mother’s Day. But Christoff and Megan had made cards for me in Russian class, and Megan and Mia decided they needed to make me a present. When I walked in the door after going out, the kids had hooked up Christoff’s ipod to speakers and there was an applause sound effect going on right outside the closed living room doors. I walked in and everyone jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!” They gave me their cards (and Megan had helped Mia make one, too), and Megan and Mia presented me with a homemade scarf and skirt, held together with tape (kind of reminded me of the dress I made for Christy’s birthday when I was that age, but I loosely stitched mine together) and a bracelet and earrings they had made to go with it. Christoff turned on some music and we all danced around together. Kade gave me some baskets he’d made out of pipe cleaners. After the celebration, I told Jared he might as well give me the Mother’s Day gift I’d ordered for myself (a DVD--it had arrived two days before) and we could just call it good for both days. :) Since we were now celebrating, we made a day of it and went out to Babour Park. Everyone rode bikes (except Caleb and the adults), and it was fun to see Mia starting to balance on her own more and more. We got to try a new ride (it’s now our new favorite!) and a brand new bouncy house with a giant slide, so it was a great time.