Wednesday, October 19, 2011

What to do in Kiev?

We arrived in Kiev at 5:30am after leaving Almaty in the middle of the night as usual.  Too bad it turns out that this city wakes up late.  We sat around the hotel lobby until a cafe opened and then did what this family does to entertain itself - found a wifi spot!



Local attractions open at 10am and since we are still sitting around wasting time I thought I would get in on the wifi action.  Easy access to the blog. Unfortunately I dowloaded all my photos from my camera card last night so they are back in Almaty.  Maybe I'll have time to blog through out this trip so that I don't get back to Almaty and never get it done.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Happy Birthday to Marcy!!

Frank is home so I thought I would use his computer and finally do a little blogging.  Marcy's birthday was more than a month ago.  High time I got it on the blog.

As usual, we had multiple celebrations for her birthday.  We had a family celebration a little early before Frank went out of town and a party with her friends a little late so we could fit it in among a few other girls birthday parties.  And, of course, she took treats to school on her actual birthday - MUFFINS - her favorite!

At home I made the now traditional Betty Crocker mix cake and she decorated it herself with a little help from Emily.  Always a stunning display and always tasty!



Marcy was very excited about her party with her friends.  She hasn't had a "real" birthday party since right before we moved to Calgary and that was hastily organized and combined with a going-away party.  This year she had a slumber party with her friend Elise who shares the same birthday as her.  Luckily for me, Elise's mom offered to host the party at her house.  I went to the party for the evening until movie/bed time and then went home to sleep in my peaceful house in my own bed.  Perfect!!

The party was a Nancy Drew Mystery party.  They did a treasure hunt, played a spy game all dressed in spy gear, and a few other themed games.  They pretty much organized the games themselves and kept themselves entertained so we really just had to feed them pizza and cake at the appropriate times and make sure no one got lost in the building during the treasure hunt.  Here are the photos:

The whole gang in spy gear


Pizza

Cake!!



Right after they blew out candles fireworks started going off across town.  Of course, we acted like we planned the whole thing especially for their birthday!  Fireworks go off here all the time and we're never sure of the reason but these couldn't be better timed.


I think she had a great birthday and is very happy to be 9 years old.  Can't believe next year all my children will be in double digits.