Reflections on the past six months! SIX MONTHS! Sorry.

Life is good.  My blog updating skills are bad.  I find the quickly inserted picture with description on Facebook sufficient in my day-to-day routine, but I know that there are many who view this blog and want "all the facts."  So, here is an update for the past six months.  Details are a little blurry, but I'll try to hit the highlights.

Our last posting was about our trip to Ireland.  The school year really began to heat up after we returned.  Kim faced two daunting projects this year: writing math curriculum and being the internal coordinator for the re-accreditation of the school.   However, she was still able to coach cross country again, and was quickly off to Tirana, Albania with the cross country team of 5 high school boys.

Albania is a small country across the Adriatic Sea from the heel of Italy.  We have a sister school in Tirana, the capital.  Albania is a developing country, and Kim found a mixture of Italian, Turkish, and Russian influence. The people were very friendly and the cost of food and such very low.  We stayed in a beautiful hotel, and we had a chance to go into the mountains on a day trip.

The Boys!

The snow began falling on December 1st in Kiev.  Everyone ooh'd and aah'd over its loveliness (tunes change - read on).  It was beautiful - so clean and white, and quite a bit of it for such as early date.

In December we took off to the United States so Angela could get her wisdom teeth removed.  We arrived in Pentwater, Michigan and enjoyed Christmas and New Years with Kim's mom, dad, brother and family, and Ali.  We also got to celebrate Ali's 21st birthday!  What a treat for us.

Off of Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan

Aiden making his own gingerbread house

Mark messing with Amy's

Ali and Kyle

Sitting down to Christmas Dinner

Happy Birthday Ali!

On our return trip to Kiev, we "had to" make a stop in Amsterdam.  Actually, it was a bit of a necessity since Kim and Ken had been entering and exiting Ukraine on tourist visas since August, and that was not the proper way to be doing business.  So, in the Netherlands, Kim and Ken made a day trip to the Hague where we were able to get the correct visas which have allowed us to get residence permits for Ukraine, at least until November 2013.  

Amsterdam is a hustle bustle city with much going on.  Being there right after New Years meant the town was kind of dirty looking.  However, we noticed things brightened up as the days went on, and we found it to be quite charming.  The Hague was much more regal yet more relaxed than Amsterdam.  Both of us feel it would be worth a stay for several days to explore.  We met two friends/colleagues there and shared an apartment - definitely a way to go to keep the expenses down!

Bicycles, bicycles everywhere - it is THE mode of transportation

And, by waterway.

We noticed pretty quickly that many of their buildings are a little uneven, leaning this way and that.  It adds a certain charm to the city,

Believe me, we smelled this EVERYWHERE we went.

Friends

We returned to work by January 8th and it was definitely "crunch" time for Kim and her two projects.  January and February were pretty much a blur.  Mid-February we did take a week break and went to a ski resort called Bukovel outside of Ivano-Franvisk, Ukraine.  We took an overnight train (fun experience) to and fro.  We had a driver pick us up and take us to the ski resort.  We are not big-time skiers.  In fact, Ken had his very first ski lesson.  It will probably be his last, but he was a really good sport about it and did not get hurt.  We enjoyed the beauty of the area and the time we got to spend together.

In our train compartment

Our train in the Kiev train station

Bukovel

Getting ready to ski

I will not fall down...I will not...okay, how do I get back up?

Where's the sun?  And the cocktail?

Kozaks!

Some of our best times on this trip

Bukovel is located in the Carpathian Mountain range.  While not particularly tall mountains, they are very beautiful and gentle.

A week after we returned from the Carpathian Mountains, Kim was off to Phuket, Thailand to finish the mathematics curriculum writing.  On her way there, she had a 10-hour layover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  With her colleagues, they decided the best way to spend the time was to go to the top of the tallest building in the world - the Burj Khalifa.  The Burj is over 2700 feet tall and 160 stories.  The observation deck is on the 124th floor with quite the ear-popping elevator ride up.  We arrived just before the sun came up and we stayed for the sunrise over the desert.  Remarkable.

With all the snow still standing in Kiev in March and temperatures resting solidly in the negative numbers, Thailand was a treat for those of us who got to be there to work.  We did work, quite a bit, but we also got to enjoy the sun, sand, and food.  Definitely worth a return visit, but this time with family.

Free day at the beach

Flowers, flowers everywhere

Mode of transportation?  Moped!

Stacy and Tony Stone

A QSI school in Phuket - yes Ken and Kim could work here if there were job openings!

Jon Mudd and Ken Chapman

We often ate "on the street."  Super cheap and delicious. My favorite was pad Thai.

Appropriate

This is how we got around when it was too far to walk - Tuk Tuk.  I especially likes the ones with the strobe lights flashing inside!

Curriculum writing team.  Yes, we were successful in our goals!

A favorite salad with seafood, chili, and lime

Very cool trees.  Not so cool that these trees are rat habitats.  When the people are away (in the night), the rats come out to play.

We had several really fun events happen in the month of March.  First, we had a literacy week.  The students dressed up as characters in books and then they had a parade and got to spend an hour or so to "curl up and read."

Another event that wasn't planned was the blizzard the last weekend of March.  The snow had nearly melted and we were not at all prepared for the 50 cm of snow that fell on Kiev in a 24-hour period.  No one was prepared.  The school shut down for a day, and the city was shut down, at a standstill, for three days.

Back view of the school.  The snow drifts covered many cars.

Kim bundled up and protected from the wind.

Snow drifts on the 13th floor?!

One of our main eight lane (four in each direction) roads.  A main thoroughfare for the city.  Completely stopped for two days.

People just abandoned their vehicles.

Hey, anyone seen my car?

On our way to church by metro.  Nothing else was moving.

Sled, the only way to travel.

Clearing our parks and streets

View of our school from above.

Another treat: one of Kim's students competes in ballroom dance.  Her parents invited us to her final competition of the year - the Ukrainian Nationals.  We had front-row seats and a fabulous view.  The outfits were stunning!

Nastya and her partner

My favorite gown

Very quickly our April break was on us.  This trip we are going to save for a separate blog.  It was a "trip with a purpose" to Prague, Czech Republic.  I will say that while we were in Prague we celebrated Angela's 17th birthday.  17!  Here she is in Prague toasting with a small glass of champagne that the hotel staff gave her as a surprise birthday gift,

Speaking of Angela, she has been a busy girl this year.  She is taking a mixed schedule of IB and AP courses.  She has mostly IB this year and next year will be heavily AP.  It is a lot of work.  She has also been taking the SAT and ACT in preparation for college applications next fall.  She tried to play soccer in the fall but her ankle was weak from the previous leg break and she needed to do PT before she could play.  Currently she is playing volleyball, and that season wraps up this coming weekend.

The week after April break, the accreditation team visited the school to make a determination on the re-accreditation of our school.  It was quite the road to get to this point, a much wider and longer road than Kim had imagined last spring when she had agreed to take on the job.  However, it was successful, and our school was re-accredited for seven more years.

Deep breath, right?  Well, kind of.  Currently we have six weeks left of school.  Crunch time for teachers and students.  So much to do and so little time.  And, Kim's class is doing a musical - Treasure Island!  Let's say, it keeps their minds busy and seems to be holding off the spring antsies, just a bit!  Kim is involved in coaching track, and Ken is coaching softball. 

As a final note, spring in Kiev is a beautiful time of year.  This spring we had the wonderful opportunity to host a student from Moldova.  Janna is a senior at the QSI school in Chisinau, and she needed to take her AP exams.  Our school was the closest. Janna stayed with us for a week, and it gave us a couple of opportunities to take her out on the town and show her the beautiful sites.  We were blessed to have Victory Day during the week she was here, so she got to see a parade.  We visited churches, monasteries, museums, and the incredible botanical gardens where 15,000 lilac trees were in full bloom.  What a heavenly smell! 

Janna and Angela

Easter Pisanki Eggs

Kim and a statue of a famous architect

Look familiar?

This art is made completely with Pisanki eggs (see above)

Well, done. All caught up (except for our Prague trip).  We hope you enjoy the photos.  We arrive in California late June and are there through mid July.  We are off to Michigan at that point, driving across the US checking out universities here and there for Angela.  We hope to see each and every one of you.  Perhaps that will happen.  If not, know that we think of all of you often and miss you.

Kim, Ken, and Angela