Winter In Kyiv

This is a view of our apartment (on the left) just across the playground. They use the playgound as much in the winter as they did during the summer. We had a couple inches of snow, but it warmed up enough that it is all melted. Some of the grass is still green as the snow melted. Another view of the building construction in the middle of our apartment complex. Almost all of the apartments in view are not yet occupied, so we expect the foot traffic to really grow as they build out the apartments. The new construction will be a health and fitness center with swimming pool. There was little construction during the summer, and we thought it was the slow economy. Since the weather turned colder, there is apartment construction work going on everwhere. I count 14 new buildings goin up from where I took the photo. So the economy must be picking up.

We went to the temple Saturday morning. This picture shows an early morning picture of the temple with a new dusting of snow. The nativity scene is on the right. The temperature has hovered around 32 degrees the last couple of weeks, and all the snow melted by noon today.

Time to get some work done.

Tom and Shauna

Happy New Year

We are still celebrating the end of the Christmas season, and the beginning of the New Year. We were surprised at all the Christmas trees, both artificial and real, that were everywhere. The Ukrainians are more festive and really celebrate the new year coming around. It was fun to experience it. These are some carolers from a local church that came by our apartment and sang. They sure had beautiful voices. It was the first time that anyone that we did not know knocked on our door. Kind of surprising.

Shauna's Christmas plant started to bloom and was in full force during the Orthodox Christmas (7 Janaury). Not sure how it knew what country it was in but it really produced.

The day after Christmas, the Stake held a children's party. It was in commemoration of Christmas, but was a cross between our holloween and Christmas. All the kids came dressed up in costumes, with a lot of animals represented. They portrayed a typical Christmas story that involved good guys and bad guys, with the good guys winning over the bad guys. They really had a lot of fun, and it was totally different than anything we had expereienced. We look forward to getting an English version of the storyline and plot.

Now we have to go back to work.

Tom and Shauna