Thursday, December 17, 2009

Oh, Christmas Tree!




shopping in yerevan for our christmas tree

Here's a peek of our trip to the store to get our Christmas tree this year! It's like a big wholesale store with lots of little stores in it.




Gotta get the candy at the end of the shopping so we can enjoy a treat on the way home! Choices, choices! :)


kindergarten readiness!

I had a friend ask me about how we know if our child is ready for kindergarten... so I went back and found some of my information. This is mostly from my friend, and mentor! ;), Mrs Schimke who's taught Kindergarten for years and Riverside! Love you, Julie!

I'll attach it instead of type it all... Hopefully you can read it! :)

Love those little ones!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Lost in Yerevan with Nadela

So. If you take taxis in Yerevan, you may not know your own way home! Ha.

Our girls needed to get some pictures taken for their certificates for dance class. After we had our language lesson this week, Nadela said that she'd go with us to get that done. I drove us down to the photo place, took pics of the girls (struggled with Ruth to sit on the stool and smile), and looked at some Christmas trees as we walked back to the car. Then I asked if I could take her home. Since her marshooka (little bus type thing) wasn't there, she said sure and we were off. After we drove for a while wondering which turn was the right one, we found it, or so we thought...

Pretty soon we were in a totally dirty factory area. On top of the smoky factories, it was foggy and rainy! Then we got into a traffic jam. There was a crane blocking the road as they worked on pipes that ran over it! We finally made our way up to the crane and followed the other cars over to the side of the crane to go up and around it, sideways, through mud and bushes. Nadela said, "Jill jan, can you do this?!" I looked at the construction guy out my window and he nodded... so off we went! :) We were laughing and praising the Lord when we finally made it through! But we still didn't know where we were.

So we drove on... past sheep and fields! Found a gas station and Nadela asked which way to go. He gave her a weird look and pointed right... which we found out was the only way to go unless we wanted to drive off toward Iran! Ha! We were way out on the south side of the city! When we realized we were headed in the right direction, we breathed a sigh of relief. Then looked up to see that we were about to drive through a big building that was under construction! We both thought we shouldn't go THERE! Only to realize that the road turned just before the building so we would actually be going around it... not through it! Another good laugh for us.

Now we're in Yerevan... but still not in her neighborhood! So were both looking and hoping that we don't miss another turn... when we see the circle just down the street from her apartment! Whoo-hoo! We knew where we were again and we're close to her home! Yea!

When I dropped her off she said that she didn't know whether to say sorry or good bye! :) All this time, the girls were in the back seat snacking on crackers and listening to Christmas music! Ruth calls out the window, "Be sure to tell Iren about our ride!" (Iren is Nadela's girl and our girl's friend!)

Nadela and I did tell our families about our adventure and laughed some more about it. She got a call the next morning from someone saying that he needed a guide to take him around Yerevan would she be interested... It was her little brother-in-law and when she figured out it was him she said sure! :)

Maybe next time we'll take a taxi... but then we'd miss out on our own adventures!

Kids Blogs

Well, today our oldest two kiddos got signed up for their very own blogs! :)

http://benjamin-crawford.blogspot.com/

http://hannie-crawford.blogspot.com/

Check 'em out!