New tradition

Well, there's a lot of nostalgia surrounding leaving Ukraine with a little toddler Dietrich and returning with a Big Boy Dietrich. Indeed, I am often overwhelmed by emotional floods these days.

But Big Boy Dietrich is capable of such grown-up things as walking to the market, picking out an ice cream and walking home. And that, my friends, is our new Saturday night tradition.


He ate the whole thing!


Sharing with Daddy. Do they have the exact same face or what?


Momma got a Vanillachino from a machine (notice tiny cup in my hand). Sadly, it disappointed. Next week, a Maxibon for me!

So grown up

Dietrich, who is on the verge of turning 3, upon seeing raspberries on his dinner plate:
"When I was little, I didn't like rabbidies. I like rabbidies now."

In the midst

As Eric has been getting back into the swing of things at the seminary, I've been trying to restore order to our apartment. Another family lived here while we were gone, and we'd packed up a lot of our personal belongings so that they'd have room in the wardrobes and on the shelves.

I love unpacking -- such a good opportunity to purge things that strike you as particularly unattractive or no longer useful once you pull them out of the box they've been sitting in for 10 months. Also the perfect chance to try out a new system, like storing your spices in one central location rather than scattering them throughout your kitchen.


Herbs and spices generally come in packets here. Can you tell which herbs these are?



I've hoarded empty bottles as people have sent spices from the States over the past five years.


Oh, how I love Sharpies!


The finished product. Kinda. I've already had to make some adjustments, like putting the baking soda and baking powder into wider containers for less-messy leveling.

We're back ...

... in Ukraine. And happy to be here. Though typing under the influence of jetlag is rather challenging.

The trip over was really quite smooth, once we got rid of our six suitcases and one cardboard box of theology books in San Francisco. A good 50 percent of the pre-trip stress was over whether any of our bags were overweight ... but they were all fine, and a few were even a few pounds under (guess I could have bought those flour tortillas after all). As an added bonus, all six suitcases and all those books made it to Lvov, where we're at our team's annual conference. Every plane was on time or early; we even had ample time to grab caffeinated beverages during our layovers.

Dietrich held up very well, especially considering that he lost out on about eight hours of sleep. Still, like any almost-3-year-old, he would rather be stuck like this:



than stuck on a plane for eight hours. Thankfully, it should be a couple of years before we attempt such a lengthy journey again.

Mix up at storytime

To encourage Dietrich to enjoy books, we've started a daily popcorn-and-story time. It's totally working; he wakes up from his afternoon nap, then calmly chomps on popcorn and listens to stories for at least 30 minutes (i.e. about 27 minutes longer than he does anything else).

Another benefit: He has started making up his own stories. Most of them involve things (like balls or goats) jumping off of buildings and crashing into cars. Or houses. Or trees.

But last night, at dinner, he started telling Eric a different tale. It started, "One time, Jesus had a tractor ... "

Things you never hear in Ukraine

"Take On Me" and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," back-to-back on the radio. Yes, that was me you heard, singing along at the top of my lungs.

Two more zoos

We Oldenburgs love the zoo. Any time we're in a new country, we try our hardest to visit its zoo. Our zoo experiences thus far:

Orange County (A distant memory from our dating days, but we do recall a pacing wolf.)

London (Rainy, but it was our honeymoon, so it was romantic. It was there that I learned that Eric's parents used to buy him those enormous lollipops -- the ones that are as big as a kid's face. My parents NEVER let us get those! And thus began our first-ever parenting conversation. Guess who buys Dietrich donuts?)

San Diego Wild Animal Park (We slept there for Eric's 30th birthday. Nothing like waking up to a rhino passing gas.)

The National Zoo in DC (Lame zoo, but with good friends.)

Kyiv (Many, many times.)

Budapest (Cool baboons and hippos, but they don't stop patrons from feeding the animals, which creeps me out.)

Prague (Built on a hillside -- a nice zoo and a nice workout.)

Krakow (Dietrich got bit by a duck.)

Hamburg (Serious German quality -- probably the best zoo we've been to.)

San Francisco (A great brown bear and a lovely location, right next to the ocean.)

In March, Dietrich and I added two zoos to our list. Dietrich is rather hard to pose at the moment, so I've no photos of him with anything actually wild.



Dietrich's favorite animal at the Santa Ana Zoo was the rooster, although he's still talking about the swinging monkeys. Here he is in the big eggs on display next to the chicken coop.

Our first stop at the Los Angeles Zoo was the petting zoo. This really threw Dietrich off ... for the rest of the day, he begged to touch the less-touchable animals ... the zebras, the giraffes. Finally, he got to climb on an elephant. Well, an elephant statue, to be quite technical.



Cuddle-bugging a goat.


Dietrich's Baba and Papa have goats and sheep, so Dietrich didn't really understand why he couldn't touch these animals on their faces or try to climb on them.


The elephant.