Pictures from the Weekend

 Here are a couple of pictures from our last few days, which I assure you, have been action-packed, fun and totally exhausting. It turns out that Roma's reunion was a two day affair. Saturday the boys went to the cemetery to pay their respects to their classmate. I opted out of the cemetery visit because I figured it wasn't something I needed to be a part of. I did attend all the other events, including the hour and a half of reminiscing they all did in their hot and stuffy classroom.

It was definitely interesting to see his friends and classmates sitting in their old assigned seats yucking it up. I could almost picture some of the classes that I taught all grown up and reuniting. Even more, I could picture all of Roma's classmates as young 8th and 9th graders and believe you me, I would not have wanted to teach that class. What a bunch of hooligans!

The second day of the reunion we shashleeked out in the forest. There was also the opportunity to play paintball, which I did because heck, how often to you get the chance to play paintball in a Ukrainian forest? There was only one other wife who opted into playing. She and I spent most of our time crouched behind trees avoiding heavy fire. We got pelted a few times, and I've got the welts to prove it; but we fared way better than the boys. They really went to town on each other.

The little boy pictured is Dima, Roma's godson. When I met him he was not even a year old and now he's about to turn five. He's totally funny. He spent a good part of the shashleek talking my ear off. He has a list of cartoons he wants to watch with me that's like a mile long. We'll see if we get to them...

While there has been a lot of celebrating since Roma and I arrived, it's been nice to see that everyone – for the most part -- has matured over the last five years. (I guess, as one hopes they would.) And while we've certainly partaken in many a toast, they are no longer poured by a heavy hand. It's been really nice. One of the things Roma and I worried about was coming back to Ukraine and feeling pressured to drink a lot. So far that hasn't been the case.

We are most likely off to gather mushrooms in the woods today so I guess that's all for now 