and Happy New Year... again?..

This Saturday kids and I were looking through a "things to do around town" kind of magazine and I came across a post about Slavic New Year celebration at a public library. Apparently, New Year is celebrated on a different date at a Russian Orthodox church. I kind of knew that, but never could remember the correct date. We decided that we will drive the 25 miles and check it out.

When we got to the library, I was rather surprised that there was not a single parking space available, so we had to park around the corner. Place was packed with Russians (hee hee) and their families. There was a music band playing in the back and a kids' activities in the front room. We got invited to attend the latter, but were told there was only one more spot open :-( but were able to find two spots though. Jon didn't want to participate anyway, he was happy to observe.

This is where it started to unravel... Let's just say the kids now know what it feels like to be in a foreign country and not speaking the language.

Kids were read a Russian folk tale by two ladies. First in Russian by one of them, then the same thing in English by another lady. Pretty soon though, they went into instructions on drawing some characters from the book, and English translation was abandoned. Larissa got very discouraged, got up and left the table (no surprise there) and refused to behave

, but Gabe stuck with it and finished his project.

By that time, music performance was done with too. We bought a CD from the band for $5 and played it in the car on the way to a Russian food store, where we got lots of yummies.

Sunday we scored a really good deal on Christmas sale at Jo Ann's Fabrics store (90% off!!), got a few nice things for next year, then got home and put all the Christmas decorations, tree, lights, etc away in boxes.

I am just glad we only have to do this once a year!..