Family Time!

Josh and I have had a fun filled month of mom and dad visits. First up was Josh's parents! We started our adventure here in Russia. Luckily we had beautiful weather, only a few days before they arrived we were still in our jeans and sweatshirts, but the Kaser’s brought only sunshine with them! We did all the normal touristy sights; here are pictures from a few of the favorites.
Peterhoff-

Boat touring

And the highlight of the summer- The beer garden!

We then took off to Germany to see the Passion Play! It was truly a once in a life time opportunity. While we were not permitted to take pictures during the play we managed to snap a few before the show began-

After our adventures in Germany we continued on to Lyon, France. It was a charming town full of beautiful cathedrals, and delicious restaurants. And of course, what would a trip to France be without a wine tour!

Miss you guys!

Happy Anniversary!

“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.”
~Winnie the Pooh

You are my best friend, my soul mate, my husband- Thank you for giving so selflessly and for making all my dreams come true. Happy Anniversary!

Victory day

This past Sunday was Victory day here in Russia. It is a great holiday for us as the center of the city comes alive and we realize after the long winter that this city really does have millions of residents. Of course the military parade and all the equipment on the streets is reason for excitement. The city comes alive with banners, this one says I remember, I am proud.

Above are some vehicles from the afternoon citizens and veterans parade, sadly many of the trucks pictured below carrying the veterans were largely empty. I am afraid the poor weather kept many of the veterans away, as it had rained earlier in the day. The sign on the front of the truck has a name of the region of the city that those veterans come from. I couldn't help but think how sad it was for some of the veterans, as every year they notice less and less of their friends in that truck with them. This is our second victory day here, and I am really impressed with how the Russians treat this holiday as a celebration of their veterans and the extreme sacrifices of the generation that survived World War II.

Before the military parade in the morning Nikki and I took the opportunity to check out some of the parade equipment. As always when Nikki sees soldiers in uniform from any Army, she wants to become their "den mom."

As many of you know, we moved during the winter do to our roof leaking, well this is one of those weekends we were very happy to have moved, as this is the display for the big party on Palace square, and behind this wall is where our old courtyard is located, hence we were actually able to sleep on the night of a big city party. Some of the young party goers really do have stamina. Many were still our on the streets partying at 8 am the next morning.

I am always a sucker for a photo with a tank.

In this picture the soldiers are fueling up their equipment for the parade the next morning. I was a little surprised at their technique. We ended our Victory Day by attending the Marinsky ballet where a special performance of the ballet commemorating the end of the Leningrad blokade was performed as well as several small scenes from the some other famous ballets . It was fantastic. We do not take pictures at the ballet, but I thought it was hillarious that Nazi soldiers in the show wore little devil horns on their helmets, as if we didn't realize they were supposed to be the bad guys. You can learn more about this ballet here, if you so wish.

Our First Cruise-up first the boat..

For our spring vacation we took our first cruise through the Greek islands. We started and ended our journey in Venice, Italy. Because of time restraints we did not plan on spending any time in Venice, thanks to the volcano we spent more time in Venice then we did on our cruise. But more on that subject in a later post. Josh and I were super excited for our first cruise. Below is the view from our balcony as we pulled out of port. Simply beautiful ..

Our weather was not the best in the beginning of our trip. We spent some time indoors on the boat instead of sunning by the pool.

But the weather thankfully cleared up and we took advantage of some of the games on board – here is Josh playing shuffle board.
Stay tuned –our first stop- Split, Croatia.

Deep thoughts?

So if you dump snow into a frozen canal, to the point where the snow you dump into the canal piles over the bank of the canal, and the fence on top of it for that matter, is that considered a flood?
For the record this picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, but I am still pondering the question.

March

So March is almost over. This has been a long winter for us. Locals and the media has told us that St Petersberg has not had a winter like this in 20 years or so. I now know why they changed the climate crises title for Global Warming, to Climate Change. :) Things are improving though, today we took a tour of a palace and wandered outside in relatively warm 40 degree weather. Well on our way home it started raining, but in saying good bye to winter a little rain can be a good thing. Here with the warmer weather as an Ally, the city is finally winning the battle of snow removal.
Which for this winter warrior, could come none too soon.

Because we are just plain tired of this... (I think that is about-9 F)

And all the time we spend indoors, because it is just too cold, icy, snowy and generally miserable outside.

But things are on the up and up, check out this clear sky!

The city can start fixing all the damage from the winter. I actually saw the snow plow run into this streetlight, but I did not have my camera that day. Surprisingly the streetlight has yet to fall down yet, and has remained for a couple of weeks.

I took these pictures on my walk to school earlier in the month, what a difference a few weeks make.

I hope we are done seeing this out our windows. Here is to a beautiful spring!