Thanksgiving and First Snow!

Greetings from the Snow-covered streets of St. Petersburg:-)

Winter got off to an unusually early start for St. Pete's this week as cold winds and snow greeted us. St. Petersburg, while certainly subject to cold temperatures and snowfall, is not all that different in terms of its weather from Northern Indiana where we lived before, so even the locals here were surprised by the several inch deep snow that has covered the ground for the past half week. With temperatures in the upper teens and twenties (Fahrenheit) and a nice stiff breeze from the Gulf of Finland, we've been getting a taste of what will no doubt be the norm for all of January and February:-)

However, an early start to winter weather did not dampen our spirits of gratitude as we celebrated Thanksgiving this past week. While Thanksgiving day was spent working at school, we had the day off on Friday and spent it with Masha's family on Kronstadt. A good time was had by all and Amanda and I got to stretch our Russian language abilities a bit. Saturday was the World Partners Thanksgiving celebration with the rest of our team members. We enjoyed a meal of typical American foods like turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie:-)

We certainly have much to be thankful for this year, as these past 11 months have been extremely eventful for Amanda and I:
- graduation in May
- wedding May 22
- a summer filled with planning for departure, visiting friends and family, and
adjusting to married life
- moving to Russia and settling in to a new country
- beginning work as first year teachers at IA

Through all of this, we have been so blessed by God and what He has done through other people. The support we have from our friends and family both here and in America, the prayers and gifts of our wonderful donors, and the constant encouragement from everyone at IA has sustained us and helped us thrive through our first four months here in Russia.

So a heart-felt thank you to everyone who has prayed for us, given financially, sent us words of encouragement, told others about our work, or done anything else known or unknown to help us here!

As is often the case, here are a few photographs that cover the past week or so of our activities:


Tuesday night we watched CKA, St. Petersburg's hockey team, take on Spartak Moscow in a great game. Unfortunately, Spartak won 5-4 in a shootout. We sat right behind the fan section and took this picture of their colorful flags.


A picture of the action at the other end. Watching world class hockey from the 18th row for less than $7 a ticket is easy to get used to:-P


The goalie for Spartak was none other than NHL legend Dominic Hasek! He's still playing at age 45 and looked pretty good in the game.


A snow-covered bridge on Kronstadt from the night we had dinner with Masha's family.


A picture of our snowy courtyard taken from out of our window.


Our playground is even more fun with the added snow!


World Partners Thanskgiving in Russia! I couldn't get everyone in the picture, but a good time was had by all!

-Matt

Flowers and Q& A

So our anniversary (6 months! Not a year yet.) is the 22nd! So we gave presents last weekend and Matthew gave me a lovely daisy bouquet. :-) As of now we have spent more of our "married life" in Russia than in the US!

Pictures!

We also recieved a wonderful package from Grace Church and their kids department! It had tons of things like postits, fun computer paper, stickers for good papers, and games for our classes!

They also sent us tons of pictures they drew, some of which are on our refrigerator.

The whole thing made us smile a lot and was a lot of fun.

We also got cards with questions for us so we will answer those here!

Q) Is it cold there?

A) Yes, but no more so than when we lived in South Bend, IN. The weather is fairly similar actually. Constant, drastic changes in weather or temperature from bodies of water. But the wind here is the killer. We live fairly close to the Gulf of Finland and the wind that comes in from the Gulf is cutting and frigid! So that is much colder.

Q) Do you go to church/do they have church?

A) They do have church. Traditional Russian Christianity is called Orthodoxy, but Protestant or Lutheran is common here as well. We go to a Protestant church and the service is in Russian, translated to English.

Q) What do you like to eat?

A) We like our American food and they do have Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and KFC here. But as far as Russian food, there are many things we like. One is called Perogi. It can be like a pie or it can be like a pastry. They have ones filled with meat and they have ones filled with fruit or chocolate. We have a little store that makes them on our walk to school and they are very cheap and wonderful there. About $1! We also like something called Blini. They are like crepes but the Russians have many more kinds of fillings for them. They fill them with caviar and chicken, and chocolate and banana. Tons of different kinds! For more about blini, check out Matthew's post. Finally, there is a wonderful thing here called Sirok. It is a kind of dessert cheese and they have them in little chocolate covered bars. They taste just like little cheesecakes!

Q) What is your favorite store?

A) Our favorite grocery stores are called Paloshka and Lenta. They have a huge variety of things that other stores do not so we like going there. We don't really go clothes shopping because clothes here are so expensive! There is a new department store that opened here on Nevsky called Stockman's and they have a grocery store in the basement that has all sorts of things that we can't usually get here (like oreo's and Ritz Bits with Cheese!).

Q) Have you had a good time?

A) Yes! We really like being here. The city is nice and we live in one of the best areas in the city. Also the school we teach at is the best school I have ever taught in and we love everyone we work with and our students! It will be very hard to leave here someday.

Q) Have you gotten sick and had to go to the doctor?

A) No, thank goodness! We have both been pretty healthy. We've both had colds and I have a but of stomach weirdness right now but we have not been so sick we have had to go to the doctor. Matthew did have to go to the doctor for another reason though! He had to go so that the government would see if he was healthy and decide if we could stay here or not! So he went with other people from school and they had to go to different doctors who did different things and sent the results to us and the government. He is healthy so we can stay!

So if anyone else is interested in sending us questions, we would be glad to answer them! Thank you Grace for your wonderful package and constant prayers!

Amanda

Harvest Party!

Hello everyone!
It has been awhile! Things got busy and routine around here but we are back with a photo filled post for today!
November the 5th Matthew and I helped with a high school lock in. It went really well and because we have amazing kids there were no problems at all! I stayed up till about 3 am and then slept for a while and Matthew stayed up all night.
Yesterday we ran a 80's themed room for the school's Harvest Party. Very much like a Halloween party but in November and not everyone in the school is from a country that does Halloween. So this allowed everyone to get in on dressing up!
Our room was karaoke from the 80's (in theory though we had many other songs).
So some pictures!
These are two of my students. On the right we have a World War I aviator (he had goggles on and off through the day) and on the left we have an 80's punk. He used to have fairly long hair so that was a surprise! They sang various songs but in this picture it was Do-Re-Me.

Here we have Ben, one of our Australians, singing Yesterday!

One of Matthew's Korean students singing Solider of Fortune by Deep Purple. We were very impressed he knew it! Especially since the only other song he knew in the book was Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree!

In purple and also (at least the girl on the left) styled to the 80's!
Our amazing 4th and 5th grade teacher singing a very dramatic and apparently weird (it was in Russian so I couldn't tell!) song.

Her family came as the Flintstones (full picture below). She is in my 6th grade class and was a good Dino!

From the Japanese families there were paper throwing stars. The twins are Japanese school girls and the older girl is in traditional Japanese dress.

These girls went as 50's ladies. The one in front looked exactly like a 50's Menonite which was hilarious!

We had a Bottle of Coke and the one next to her is one of my 6th graders as a greaser. He has the most hair I have ever seen on a boy so it was perfect!

Again we have the meonite and next to her "Dancing Queen" from ABBA (read her sign!)

And the Flintstones in their car! You can't see Dino but you can see the rest of the family. And they sang the whole theme song which was pretty cool. :-)

Here we have the high school Mafia. Apparently these amazing clothes were left in their apartment by their landlord! Very nice!

And Pacman for the 80's! On the back they had the blue and white aliens for when they are being chased!

And finally, our Swedish family went as the Swedish royal family!

So that is all for now and there will be more again soon!

Amanda