Downtown Sightseeing

It is an unusual thing for our family to be able to take some time to just walk around downtown in the city of Krasnoyarsk. When we lived closer to the city, I would often enjoy a trip downtown to the different stores and cafes with friends. Now there are many more shopping centers located in other areas which include the stores you can find in the "center" so I tend to stay away from the downtown area. We are usually only passing through making one or two stops only if we have to since the amount of traffic and lack of parking makes a trip through the city very difficult. 
One day in June Rebekah and I had planned a "girl's day out" outing for the two of us. The day ended up coinciding with David needing to teach an English lesson in the city. He had already agreed to take us into town in our car to help us not have to make the two hour bus trip.  So, in order for Beka and myself to get to the hair salon on time, the kids and I decided we would just walk around while David was in class. David's English lesson was held right across the street from the Opera and Ballet Theater. The city of Krasnoyarsk has numerous fountains all around the downtown area. The Opera and Ballet Theater also has a large park in front of it with many fountains. They recently rebuilt some of them making them able to shoot water from one pool to the next along with fountains that "dance" and light up while choreographed to music. In the evening there is supposed to be a laser/video show as well. Since you are probably wondering how all these fountains work with our cold temperatures, I will tell you that they don't! They have crews who come out and remove all the pumps and special equipment so they are not damaged by the cold. In the winter these fountains have lights in them which makes them so pretty at night! (Maybe I will post some pictures of that in another post!)
Below are more of our photos from our walk in the park. And don't worry, even though we took the time to chase pigeons and sit by the fountains in the morning, Rebekah and I enjoyed a nice time at the hair salon, lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, and a little shopping!

The middle fountain.

This is one of the side fountains that can shoot water towards the middle fountain.

Rebekah

The boys loved this lion statue!

Timothy

Ryan and Timothy hugging the lion.

The boys at the top of a separate fountain to the side of the theater.

The kids at the bottom of the fountain.

Timothy asked me to take a picture of his "favorite pigeon".

Timothy - happy face. Ryan - sad face.

Ryan - happy face. Timothy - sad face.

Silly boys!

Sweet Things My Kids Do

One day while David had taken Ryan on a trip to the city, Rebekah and Timothy came up with this creative way to show me their love.

If you ask me that is the best use I've seen yet for dandelions!

Celebrating Timothy's Spiritual Birthday

While our internet was down we have celebrated some family holidays which we wanted to share with you. One of these fun days was celebrating our youngest son, Timothy's, spiritual birthday. On May 3rd, 2010, Timothy prayed at our home and asked Jesus to come into his heart. Our little Timothy is the logical, level-headed one who is hardly ever moved to tears. Since he had been asking questions about salvation and about how exactly to pray for several weeks, as our other children did before they accepted Christ, we spent time with him confirming he understood completely. Timothy, without any hesitation, kept repeating he was ready and just needed to pray! We were a little taken back by his "matter of fact" manner but as we had already seen that is just how Timothy is. He was very excited to tell his brother and sister about his praying and accepting Christ. We rejoiced that now all of our children were saved! Timothy still talks about when he was saved and uses that event as a way to remember other events. For example saying, "I remember that before I got saved, we went to the zoo." We are so thankful for our children and the precious memories made with each of them as they tenderly accepted Christ as their Savior.

Here are a few photos of the celebration dinner and dessert!

Hot dogs on the grill was Timothy's dinner choice.

This small little chocolate cake sure meant a lot to him!

Posing with two people who prayed diligently for him to be saved!

Burnt Flowers

Alright ladies, remember the burnt flowers that another missionary wife and I did here for the 8th of March (Women's Day) tea party? I know it has been a while but since we lost our internet connection I had been unable to post this until now. (By the way, have I mentioned how happy I am that we are back online again?) As I promised here are a few pictures of our process and here is the link to blog on which I found them. Thank you ladies at Achieving Proverbs 31 for giving us this great idea!

This was our finished product displayed in the shape of an "8" for the Women's Day holiday

Now, I know this is quite a humorous photo of Katie and I making these flowers. We were in the new house because the smell given off from burning the edges of certain colors of the fabric we found would not have been too pleasant in our little house.

So thankful for Katie's helpful hands to get all of  the flowers done!

If you have any questions for me after reading the link I posted which gives the directions for making the flowers please feel free to ask! Have fun trying them at home (with proper ventilation of course!)