Happenings

It is too hot to do a lot of exploring these days, but we have had some interesting fellowship. Last Saturday we had a visit from my college friends. During the week we attended a church potluck, visited friends, and had an "international" dinner with some people my parents have been reaching out to. A few evenings ago we attending an art opening and heard an interesting lecture.

It's funny noting how many people are connected to Russia in some way, at least when the topic comes up.

A family friend came over to notarize some documents and shared how he and his family had lived in Moscow one year.

If it's someone from the church where I grew up, then many members or at least someone in their family went on one of the trips we took over several years.

Yesterday we celebrated Andrei's birthday! So far the baby has missed sharing his mother or father's birthdays. But that's okay as it isn't his due date yet. July 6th is his (Russian) grandfather's birthday and potential due date. So we'll see if he picks that day or decides to choose to have his own!

He's here!

...my husband, that is, not the baby!

There were supposed to be a whole bunch of posts between this one and the last one, informative and thought-provoking. But those ones are stuck in my drafts folder.

Since arriving in the U.S. on May 15th I've been doing a lot of resting and preparing for Baby's birth (I don't want to turn this into a pregnancy blog, but for anyone who's curious, flying at 32-33 weeks along was totally fine). There is a certain quietness here as opposed to St. Petersburg. However, there is no running from bureaucracy: medical forms, health insurance, citizenship and spellings of last names are all of a part of the deal.

My sister, mom and friends threw me a baby shower, which was fun, and then once Andrei got here last week, we took a childbirth class and toured the childbirth center.

I've been going to the doctor every week and have met everyone in the practice. Overall the staff have been very friendly. I have to admit I have a slight aversion to all the technology and we did a fetal monitoring session last time that was just stressful. In general they seem respectful of our wishes, though.

Oh yeah, and I had a birthday. Wondering if I should change my blog heading...