What we don't have in Ukraine.... #15

In Ukraine going into somebody's house without taking your shoes off is considered rude, especially if you're walking on the carpet. Only plumbers and baby doctors do it and it's still very annoying. Nobody wants to vacuum and scrub their carpet to get rid off mud only because somebody was lazy enough to not take their shoes off. Although sometimes you do it in your own house if you are about to walk out the door, and remembered that you forgot something in one of the rooms. At least I do it.

In America on the other hand, people go from home to car, car to store (or office, or restaurant) and so hardly any mud is tracked around. Plus a lot of the public places here are carpeted, so it helps a lot. So, it's pretty acceptable here to not only walk on the carpet in your street shoes, but to also sit on the couch with your feet on the couch.

Another Maia video

In this video you can tell she discovered her tongue :) And of course she loves looking at herself in the mirror. It's hard to tell whether it's because she's seeing herself, or because she's seeing A BABY. Babies apparently love babies.



As for the sudden unhappy ending, she didn't hurt herself, don't worry. Just got a little scared. Mama immediately came to the rescue!

Making the world safe for Christianity (a political viewpoint)

Check out this link to a speech given before the US house of representatives two years ago on making the world safe for Christianity.

Is it just me or does this guy seem to be the only sober-minded candidate this year? I am at a loss for words when I hear the other GOP candidates speak on America's Middle Eastern foreign policy and the war.

Bush's America

As a registered republican who voted for Bush twice, I can now say that I have been disappointed.

Guadalupe Beach

Maia loves the beach even more than she loves the park. As you can see in the last photo, she even tried to eat the beach.

Ukrainian Indie Music

I regularly read a blog by an artist from Ukraine who recently went to a show and saw a local indie band from Kiev perform. Their music rocks so I thought some of you folks back in Ukraine would appreciate listening to them if you hadn't aready.

Check out Kryhitka Zahes on myspace or at their site.

Maia at the park

We went to the local park today. It is officially Maia's favorite place in Nipomo. Here are a few photos of her owning the place.

What we don't have in Ukraine.... #14

Plastic wrap for food comes with this little blade that cuts your piece of plastic off for you. Similiar to a paper cutter. You just slide it after you roll out the needed size piece, and you get a perfectly rectangular plastic wrap sheet. How cool is that. You might think it's kinda stupid, but to me it's wonderful. I fought many battles with the plastic wrap roll in my kitchen before - tearing it is very frustrating.



There are way more kitchen items in America. Like an icecream scoop. Or a lemon juice squeezer. Or an electric can opener. Here's a good one - a dishwasher! Any others I'm missing?

An amusing blog

Jake and I find this blog fun to read. If you like fun facts about Russia, Ukraine or ex-Soviet Union, you might like it too. Especially if you have some free time on your hands - reading archives from this blog will give you some good laughs.

Another mastered skill

What we don't have in Ukraine.... #13

Ok, here's another one. Yard sales and garage sales! We don't have public junk-selling events like these. The other day Jake and I stopped to see one of Nipomo garage sales. That one was pretty unimpressive I have to say, but nevertheless it was a cultural experience :)

Only in a country with a rich capitalistic heritage will a person sell their junk as opposed to throwing it away or giving it to somebody who wants it or just storing it forever and ever as a burdensome inheritance for their kids. Don't get me wrong, people do give their stuff away all the time here. And throw it. And they also might want to pay hundreds of dollars a year to store it in a huge container. It is amazing to me though that some people accumulate so much stuff they don't eventually need that they have to have an event to sell it all. Seems like Ukrainians think seven times before buying something and end up accumulating a lot less stuff over lifetime.

All of that said, i must confess i like garage and yard sales. They are great to have if you're moving, or they're are great for cheapies like me who would much rather buy stuff used but cheap than new and expensive... A really good marketing tool for garage sales is calling your junk "vintage" or "antique". It definitely marks the price up. All i have to say is that people in Ukrainian villages could probably make a living here selling their farming equipment, furniture, clothes and household items since a lot of it is definitely vintage.

Missions Conference in Murrieta

Yesterday we got back from the Missions Conference where we spent 4 days. It was held in Murrieta Bible College & Conference Center (that's Southern California). Southern California is overpopulated for sure, and i don't really understand why. If you live by the beach - that's one thing, but there are so many towns that are inland, and it's not very nice there. It's hot and it looks like desert with canyons. Color green wasn't seen in the landscape of the area.
The Bible College, however, was really nice. It's actually a resort with pools and hot tubs and hot springs of all sorts. Maybe that's why I've known so many people who have gone to study in that college :)




The conference itself was great. I really enjoyed hearing the speakers, we saw many people we knew and haven't seen forever, and the food was really good. That makes up for a good conference, doesn't it? I left encouraged to share the gospel and a lot of good teaching to chew on for the next while.

We were really excited to hang out with Conor and Koren and the kids who came to visit us for a day.




Emma and Maia are a having a girl talk





Also we saw Dawn who was a missionary in Nejin (she had us over for dinner), Vica and Geoff Smith who serve in Borodyanka, a lot of people who Jake went to Bible College with and many others - it was so fun to talk to them all.

I would like to end with this one picture that i took on the way back. That's LA smog for you. Try to see the mountain peaks in the middle of the photo - the base of the mountains are hidden by the thick cloud of CO2 - yuk.

My Dad is in Africa!

Yesterday my Dad flew into Johannesburg, South Africa to work there for 3 months. Pretty cool, huh.

What we don't have in Ukraine.... #12

Umm.... hopefully people won't have too strong of an opinion about this post as they did about cottage cheese 2 posts below. I'm just doing some cultural observations and expressing my honest opinion!



Sometimes on the road here you encounter funny road signs. I guess a sign like this one is only funny for someone from Ukraine where a nice road is a luxury and bumps are just life...... Just imagine for a moment that we had to have those. The Ministry of Transportation would go broke. It probably would be easier to put up signs that said "Smooth road": a lot less of those would be needed. The funny thing is, you do get one bump right after the sign........ but i think it's most of the time a man-made bump for speed reducing. Am i right?

We did have the holidays....

Yes, I never posted about the holidays. The reason being i haven't taken any pictures either Christmas Eve, or Christmas day, or the New Year's eve. My mood for the last few weeks was the least festive ever. There was no new year's tree in the house for the first time since..... ever! i cannot remember the last time having no tree around. I must have been in the 80s. But i don't mind. I didn't want to buy a 30 dollar tree and decorations anyways. Plus i missed Chernigov, especially since the church's New Yar party was at OUR house and we couldn't be there. But we got to talk to everyone through skype, and they saw us on their end. And I know Maia recognized Marina Padiy's voice, which she reacts to like no other since she was in the womb.
Christmas day was fun. We went to Jake's Grandparents' in the morning for breakfast and gifts, and celebrated with Patty's side of the family. In the afternoon we went to Jane and Steve's house (Jake's aunt and uncle), and that was really nice. The food was great, and games were fun. Maia was being a monster, but oh well. The New Year's eve was Charlie's birthday (Jake's brother in law), so we went over there for dinner and that was the highlight of our Noviy God celebration. We went to bed early and 4 minutes before it was midnight Jake suggested that we go watch "the ball dropping in New York City" (?!)... whatever that is..... so we watched that on the tv and went to bed. What i do have pictures of, is us getting together with all the cousins and aunts and uncles and Grandma Jo right before Christmas to celbrate Grandma Jo's birthday.

That's Charlie, Steve and Jake



Lawren and Maia



Travis, Cooper (the dog), Lawren and Maia



Charles, Mary, Grandma Jo, Lucas and a little bit of Jane



Colin, Jane, Jake, Danny playing "Rock Band"..... the video of this event will follow shortly. All of you admirers of Jake's dancing talant will find it lovely.

What we don't have in Ukraine.... #11

I've been observing all sorts of differences between Ukraine and America. There's actually way too many for one blog post. So, i think I'll just write about them one thing at a time..... won't be too overwhelming.

This one is difference #11, because i listed 10 of them already in October (gosh, we've been here so long...).


Cottage cheese and butter in America are salty. Yes it's true. For all of you English language students in Ukraine, i have to tell you that you've been lied to. Cottage cheese and творог are two completely different things. And i won't deny the fact that american cottage cheese is one of the most digusting things i've ever tasted. It's white, gooey, salty and slimy and has spongy bumps that don't dissolve when you chew them.... you have to swallow them all spongy and bumpy. Salty butter isn't too bad though. It is a little weird: why would you salt a naturally good product especially if you use it with sweet stuff most of the time? But it isn't gross. You can also buy "unsalted" butter too by the way.

Maia in her own happy world

A little video of casual typical daily Maia behavior.