Cold start to 2018

Happy New Year!!  We celebrated our eleventh straight NYE with our Kras Connection, the Parracks.  Through the magic of social media, both families are still in touch with Yelena Zykina, who was our sponsor while in country.  She loves wishing us a happy new year from Krasnoyark each year.

This winter will be remembered for the bitter cold streak over the holidays.  When we have sub-freezing temps for over a week, the city floods the park in our neighborhood for skating.  The boys don't have ice skates, but loved slipping around the area even when the temps were in the single digits.

Much of the holidays were spent enjoying Christmas presents.  Here is Carson's most involved metal model to date.  Appropriately, it is St Basil's Cathedral which is arguably Russia's most recognized landmark. Click on the picture for a close up!

Another holiday gift was one we had to give away.  Mommy helped with a big school fundraisor, and she accidentally won a kids Tesla!  The CNMs are too big for it, so here they are presenting it to friends with two small boys who live on a dead end street.  Perfect!

We missed a chance to include this pic in our pre-holiday posts.  Conner continues to be a backstage head honcho for the St John's theater productions.  There he is, right of center in the back row.  In between his buddies Preston and Ben. 

We hope you are keeping warm this winter and enjoying the beginning of a new year.  One of our new years resolutions is to stop making outdoor fires so close to the old wooden fence...