Happy meals

Our current dinner-date destination.

As I was cleaning the refrigerator today in preparation for our departure (8 days and counting), I had a happy thought: Soon, Eric and I can go on dates that don’t include the Golden Arches. Soon, we can go to a ballgame or a movie and drive home alone together, discussing life freely without worrying about attracting attention because we’re speaking in a foreign tongue. What bliss! While we’re thankful that the McDonald’s here offers us a safe, buckwheat-free place to spend some time together, there’s little romance to be found in a Happy Meal. And, while public transportation saves money and helps the environment, there’s something cozy about chatting in the car. We’ll have to savor those moments until Baby O arrives and gives us whole new experiences to savor.

Happy Father’s Day, grandpas

A profile view


Facing the camera


Baby’s symmetrical brain

On Wednesday, we received the perfect gift for a pregnant couple: A surprise ultrasound! There didn’t seem to be any real need for this ultrasound (called an Uzi in Russian), but we had to wait at the clinic for an hour between blood tests, so my theory is our doctor was just giving us a fun way to pass the time. Unlike our Mother’s Day ultrasound, we didn’t have enough time to mail these to you, but we thought you’d still appreciate 1) the thought and 2) seeing Baby O at 7 months.

Baby was sleeping with one arm behind his/her head. The ultrasound technician (a.k.a. the person who knows how to handle an Uzi) informed us that Baby O has successfully developed two feet, five fingers (we’re assuming that’s on each hand) and a symmetrical brain.

We love you, can’t wait to see you and know that you’re going to be great grandpas, just like you are great dads.

Happy Father’s Day!

love,
eric & josie O.

A bed for baby

Getting ready to go back to the States for five months has been a hectic whirl of tying up loose ends. Apart from work for SEND, my to-do list is heavily stocked with tasks I should have done ages ago, but didn’t really want to. (Clean and store winter boots. Throw away last summer’s tomato plants. Sort and print photos.)

But Wednesday we took a bit of a break from such chores to run a fun errand: We finished buying a bed for Baby! We’d already purchased sheets, a blanket and a crib (still unassembled, as it will be taking up much space in the guest room, and we have a guest expected this weekend). The mattress was the missing ingredient. Thankfully, with minimal effort, we found one that met our criteria: White, washable cover, not too hard, not too soft, fits crib and sheets.

My boots might not get cleaned, but Baby O will certainly have a space waiting for him or her when we return. We can’t wait to post a picture like the one above, but with Baby soundly tucked between the sheet and the blanket!

‘Watching’ the ball game

Eric and I have started a Sunday-night tradition that, thankfully, will soon no longer be necessary. Kyiv is 10 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, which means that most baseball games start sometime in the middle of the night, our time. We love baseball, but not enough to roll out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to catch a game.

Most Sunday games, on the other hand, start at 12:35 p.m. PST. That’s 10:35 p.m. for us. That is a reasonable hour. So, on Sunday nights, we hunker down in my tiny office, log on (using dialup) and “watch” our Angels play on GameDay.

GameDay, if you’re not familiar with it, is an option on MLB.com that lets you follow the game in real time. What the viewer actually sees is a little drawing of a batter and the strike zone. When a pitch is thrown, a green, red or blue circle indicates where the pitch ended up. It’s somewhat like a cartoon, except that the batter never moves. Green circles are balls, red circles are strikes and blue circles are balls in play.

When a blue circle shows up, a quick-fingered person types, “In play, out(s) recorded,” “In play, no out recorded,” or “In play, run-scoring play.” All eyes shift an inch left, to the side of the screen where there’s a drawing of a diamond. A red circle indicates where the ball landed, and that quick-fingered someone types out what happened. Last night’s game included way too many explanations like this one: “Ichiro Suzuki reaches on force attempt, fielding error by pitcher Jeff Weaver. Jeremy Reed scores,” and “Dallas McPherson strikes out swinging.”

In fact, last night, it seemed like we only watched Seattle play. Every time the Angels were up to bat, they got smoked so swiftly that even the quick-fingered person couldn’t keep up with their fast-paced stinkage.

Let’s hope they’re just saving up all the wins for when we get home and can watch the actual batter swing the actual bat.

On the town with Del

We had a fun time yesterday showing Del Chinchen around Kyiv. Del works in theological education in Kenya, and he is one of the men God used to point Eric toward missions back when Eric was a long-haired teen. (It was a summer missions trip to work with Del that forced Eric to cut off his long locks; that same trip convinced him to pursue a career in cross-cultural theological education.) I particularly enjoyed spending the day with someone who is a much better photographer than I am. He got some great shots that capture the beauty and culture of this city.


The church building at St. Sophia’s in downtown Kyiv. Eric and Del climbed the bell tower to get a better view of the city, but my belly wasn’t up to it, so I sat in the sun and enjoyed the scent of the flowers that grow on the church grounds.


I love how this photo captures the juxtaposition we notice all over Kyiv between the historic (the statue shows the Apostle Andrew, a Russian princess and two early missionaries to Ukraine) and the trendy.


The three of us on Independence Square downtown.

Hankering for a hot shower

Soup's on? Nope, just part of our morning routine.

The great thing about apartment living in Kyiv: An endless supply of really hot water. The bad thing: The two weeks every summer when the city turns off the aforementioned hot water in order to work on the pipes. I realize that many, many people on our planet face a life full of cold water every single day, and so I'm being a whiney wimp. Be that as it may, those two frigid weeks are quickly topping my list of least-favorite times to live here. Last year, it didn’t seem so bad because a) the first week, I was babysitting for a family that has their own, personal hot-water heater, b) the weather was really warm, and c) I was having some stomach pain, so the doctor put me on an all-oatmeal diet for the second week, and you just don’t need hot water to wash the mush pot.

This year is last year’s polar (as in “I’m as cold as a polar bear”) opposite. This year, of the 14 days that the water is expected to be off, we’ll have had unlucky houseguests for a full seven of them. This year, it’s still chilly outside, with powerful (and beautiful) thunderstorms. And this year, I need to cook using chicken, beef and other slimy, germy foods that cry out for a good, scalding dishware scrub.

Eric braves the cold water and comes out of the shower with his teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, enlist the aid of every pot we have, boil as much water as possible and take a lukewarm bath in about 2 inches of water. Sigh. Only three more days.