Random pictures of our regular lives

In the attempt to catch up I am going to throw in here several pictures that highlight our life in the three months of fall. We had a couple of birthdays, that is mine and Spencer's. On the morning of my birthday which happened to fall on a Saturday the girls made us stay in bed while they cooked a delicious breakfast of coffee cake served with ice cream and homemade pecan candy. Any mom that gets a breakfast cooked by kids is a lucky one! I was twice as lucky because I got a cake, ice cream, and candy to begin my day!!! Then to top it off Spencer took me out for lunch! 

Spencer's birthday fell on a Thursday which is a busiest day for him. But the kids came to the rescue here as well: while I took Spencer out for dinner after his very tiring day, Lina cooked a delicious meal for her sisters all by herself. And when we came back, we had German Chocolate cake to finish our celebrations!

In October we had our annual fall breakfast with Spencer's basketball team. This year four more girls joined the team.  There are a total of 13 girls on the roster.

On Halloween, the girls totally made up their own costumes.  Lina was a robber, Nika was Baba Yaga (Russian fairy tale witch), Lexa was a devil, and Sophie was a special forces soldier.  They had a good time trick or treating in our apartment complex.

At the end of October and beginning of November the girls (Lexa, Lina, and Nika) had a few guitar concerts.  The first one was with their classmates at the Children's Palace.  Nika and Lina also had an additional concert at the Russian Culture Festival.  In November, the Children's Palace sponsored its first International Youth Talent Festival with teams from Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states.  Our girls played a guitar piece with their group.

Lexa is the only lefty in her group of first-year students.

The kids and their teacher posed for a group photo.

Also during November, Nika and Lina had their first track meet of the season.  Nika ran the 150 meter race, and Lina ran the 60 meter race.  They both did well, and Nika placed 4th in her age group for the entire city.

On their way to the track meet.

Nika warming up.

Lina after her run.

The kids that Nika's and Lina's coach coaches (the coach is in the middle in light blue sweater.

In November we almost got a cat.  When we returned to the university from the mall one evening, this kitten was at the entrance of the university meowing.  Our three youngest managed to get it to follow them (and carried it, too) all the way to our apartment.  After we fed it, we took it downstairs and put it outside while sending a message to everyone about the possibility to adopt the cat.  The girls almost talked us into keeping it, but not quite (both Spencer and Nika are allergic to cats).

Lexa using her "Pleeeeease, mom!" look.

Babushka came over from Russia a few days before Thanksgiving, and Spencer made it back from his conference in America soon after, so we had our whole family for Thanksgiving. We didn't have school that day, and so the girls were extra happy! I managed to find a big turkey (those are hard to find in Kazakhstan, and they are very expensive), so we had a nice traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

 One Sunday evening in November the girls had an impromptu concert. They dressed up, made a program, and performed all on their own!

This was our fall. December brought us new adventures but more about that later.

"African Beasts" Circus

Back in February, while Spencer was at the conference in America, we decided to go to another circus show with our friends, the Stices. The circus was a traveling one, but I do not know where they were from. We usually get circuses from Moscow that have really good shows. This one was from somewhere else. The show was called “African Beasts”, so we thought that they would have some African animals but otherwise it would be the regular circus, meaning lots of cool acrobat acts. Well, we were wrong. It was mostly animals that weren't in the mood with just a couple of people acts in between. Had we known that beforehand, we would have avoided the show. All of us were very disappointed. Here are some of the pictures from the show.

Girls are having high expectations for the show.

They had a couple of tigers and a lion. One of the tigers and the lion were albinos. 

Jugglers. They were the only "people" act that was more or less interesting.

They brought this giraffe that just ran around the rink. Then some woman climbed on top of that giraffe and rode it a few times around the rink. They announced that she is the only woman in the world that did this act. That is probably because other women have better judgement. The act was really bizarre and ... poor giraffe!

Then this guy tried to make the goat walk on the poll. The poor goat did not want to do it.

Monkeys were a bit more willing but still weren't in the best mood.

This dog was the only enthusiastic participant of the show. He was jumping over running rhino. 

Yuki Gets Babesiosis

One reason that we haven't put together a post for a few weeks is that we've been busy with the start of school - and the craziness that four kids and 3 different schedules, along with extracurricular activities, entails.  We are settling into the school routine quite well, and we will have a post about school a bit later.  However, one thing that happened at the end of the kids' second week of school and throughout their third week really made things a bit crazy for us.

On September 12th, Yuki began acting lethargic. She didn't want to eat her food in the evening.  That is a very atypical thing for our dog: a lover of food. She has had some problems with seizures in the past, so we wondered if maybe she was feeling ill.

On Sunday the 13th she wasn't feeling any better.  She was very lethargic and didn't even really want to go for her regular walks.  We thought that maybe she had some sort of a dog cold or flu.  We decided that we would watch her carefully to figure out what was happening.  Monday she was kind of the same, but by the late evening she was looking very bad.  Yulia decided to take her to the veterinarian in the morning.  It's a good thing that we did.

It turns out that she had been bitten by a tick.  The ticks here carry babesiosis, a disease that is in some ways similar to Malaria.  It turns out that this is quite common in the area.  We are used to tick season ending at the end of August, so we had not treated her for September.  (Read more about Babesiosis in dogs here).  In brief, the disease consists of piroplasms, which:

...infect and replicate in the red blood cells, resulting in both direct and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia, where the red blood cells (RBCs) are broken down through hemolysis (destruction) and hemoglobin is released into the body. This release of hemoglobin can lead to jaundice, and to anemia when the body cannot produce enough new red blood cells to replace the ones being destroyed. Immune-mediated hemolytic anemia is likely to be more clinically important than parasite-induced RBC destruction, since the severity of the condition does not depend on the degree of parasitemia. (Source)

When the vet saw Yuki he told us that if we had waited one more day to come in, she probably would not have made it.  As it was, the next week consisted of many trips to the veterinary clinic across town to get treatment.  For the first four days we needed to go twice a day to have a series of drugs pumped into her with an IV.  The first day they gave a medicine that kills the parasites, and then the rest of the time they gave here a cocktail of gamma globulin,  vitamins, and other nutrients, along with IV fluids.  By the end of Tuesday (the 15th, Yuki's eyes and skin were yellow from the hemoglobin, and her liver was beginning to fail.)

Yulia and I took turns taking Yuki to her morning vet appointment (mostly Yulia, but I took her one day).  We both took her to the evening appointments, which lasted for a week, after we had put the kids to bed. This meant that we were out until 11:00 or 11:30 for most nights in addition to having our very full days with the kids.

***

We hadn't been too impressed with the veterinary clinic when we took Yuki there in late spring to get her rabies vaccine (required once per year here instead of every three years).  The clinic is on the first floor of an apartment building.  It is small, smells of dogs, cats, and urine, and has peeling paint, scuffed and peeling linoleum, and a stuffy atmosphere.

Our opinion changed when we saw how hard the vets worked and how they took care of Yuki and the many other dogs (at least 3 or 4 others that we met had the same problem) that were suffering from severe symptoms. The clinic is not much to look at, but they were professional in handling their job. And they all fell in love with Yuki!

Yuki's last treatment.  By this time she was very unwilling to lay still  The first few times she had her treatments, she just laid there and took it. 

***
The first two days of the treatment were still very rough - and we were not certain that she was going to make it.  When they began giving fluids, she couldn't control her bladder and so we had to buy some diapers to put her in around the house.  She showed no interest in anything and simply slept, or laid in her kennel staring.  She didn't even look up when I would come home from work - a huge change from the dog that practically jumps out of her skin when she sees me normally - even if I've just been gone for two minutes. It did not look good.

Yuki wearing a diaper and some briefs that used to be William's, our friends' 4-year old son.

One very sick dog!

Yuki began to look better and show a little bit of interest by the third day.  She was able to control her bladder and she began to eat a bit of food on her own. By the fourth day she was looking good, if still a bit weak.

After her week of treatment she looked good, and was walking and doing normal things, but still didn't want to play.  That has changed now.  Not only that, but she seems to have stored up a bunch of naughty energy that she had to get out.  She spent the last week in trouble for going through the garbage, climbing on the furniture, and generally being a pain.  We're so glad to have her back!

The first time she decided to play after being sick, she couldn't decide which ball she liked the most... so she brought both!

Spring Break Vacation to Thailand Part III

Tuesday we woke up a bit earlier and went to breakfast.  Then we ordered a taxi to take us to the Khao Phra Taew rain forest.  It is a national park that has a hiking trail through the last remaining rain forest on the island.  We had a hard time convincing our taxi driver that it was where we wanted to go.  Most people go to see the waterfall that is there, but the waterfall is about dried up at this time of year.  We told him that we just loved to hike and wanted to see the forest, so we finally convinced him and he took us. We had to pay 600 Baht (about 20 dollars) for entrance to the park and our taxi was 1600 Baht for the round trip and to wait for us while we hiked.  The trail through the park follows a stream and is about 2 kilometers.  The trail was quite rough in places and there were a few very steep areas where we had to climb up and down into the ravine where the stream cut through the volcanic mountain (inactive) where the forest is located.

Pond at the base of the trail into the rain forest.

A bird (ibis?) at the pond.

Starting into the forest on our hike.

Hiking up the trail and under the trees.

Reading about the fungus of the forest at one of the 14 information stations.

Some of the fungus we saw.

Large bamboo stand within the forest.

The girls had a fun time.  In general we do love hiking, and the girls learn a lot about rain forests in their books and school, so it was fun for them to see the forest up close.  We saw some fun wildlife on the trail.  We found a spider that looked like a feather or a bird poop.  It was white and feathery and could jump very far - about two or three feet!  We also saw three different large lizards, lots of different butterflies, ants large and small, and little fish and water bugs in the stream.  Probably the most fun thing that we found was a little red forest crab!

Forest crab - Nika spotted it first. 

The little white fluffy thing is a spider that can jump!

Trail of ants across the trail.

One of the three lizards we saw.  Two were like this, and one looked more like a snake.

One of the termite mounds we saw on our hike.

The trees in the forest are neat.  They have large skirts on their bottom to help buttress them against the wind.  Some of the largest trees are comparable to the redwoods that we saw in Muir woods in San Francisco at this time last year. It took us about two hours to do the hike from start to finish.  Our driver was waiting for us and dropped us off right at the doorstep.  When we got home we changed and swam in the large pool for a couple of hours before embarking on our next adventure.

Hiking next to a tree with a skirt.

This interesting vine that is embedded in the tree.

Large tree with a skirt. 

Making our way through the rain forest!

Showing the size of the trees. 

What's left of the waterfall in the dry season.

Lexa loved these palm fan leaves!

Emerging from the forest.

When we checked in we were asked if we would be willing to sit through a ninety minute presentation about the Marriott Vacation Club.  They would watch our kids and we could receive a free gift.  We figured that it would be a time share type of deal, but were promised that it would not be a high pressure sales pitch.

Jane took our picture while we looked at the JW Marriott Resort property.

We arrived and had a nice time getting to know "Jane" our saleswoman.  She showed us around the resort and talked to us about the various properties that Marriott owns around the world.  The high pressure part came when the manager came to try to seal the deal.  We had to say no a number of times.  They just couldn't understand why we didn't want to spend $50,000 dollars over the next five years to ensure an "inflation free" lifetime of vacations in the future.  We finally convinced them that no means no, and we left with our gift certificates for $130.00.

The evening shuttle (Jeepney) that is larger than the day shuttle. 

Filling up the shuttle.

Fire ceremony at the kids' pool area.

We shuttled back and forth a few times to find a place to eat.  We did get to see the traditional fire show.  We had dinner at our hotel's restaurant.  It was twice as expensive and twice as slow as the Thai place where we had been eating.  The kids had non-Thai food (fish and chips and Pizza) and we had Thai.  The dinner was free with our certificates.  After dinner we went to bed because we had our biggest adventure of the week planned for Wednesday.

Waiting for dinner to start (or waiting for what seemed forever)!

Wiping the kids out with our vacation fun!