Catching Up - A Little Bit

(This post is written chronologically backwards)
"Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire inside's delightful..." or words to that effect. Snow! Lots of snow. Cold! Frigid temperatures (below 0 degrees F over night). Whew! It must be winter!! Fancy that.

Mel and I were supposed to be in Oklahoma today but due to circumstances that are still a bit bizarre to us, our meeting there was postponed, possibly canceled. It was weird and we still don't really know what happened, but that is life, right?

So, instead we are still in Colorado. We were at one of our long supporting churches in Colorado Springs this morning. Mel spoke for a few moments in the worship service and then gave a presentation during the adult Sunday School class. It was fun. We've known a lot of people there for a long time and it was great to see familiar faces and catch up. After church, we went to lunch with the pastor and his family at Red Lobster. Yum yum!

And the snow came down the whole time. Because we knew this storm was coming in last night, we spent the night in a motel here in town rather than take a chance that we wouldn't be able to make it down Ute Pass this morning. Glad we did! When Mel found out he had to answer an email by Monday morning in Ukraine, which makes it Sunday evening here, we decided to spend the night here at the motel again rather than take a chance we wouldn't be able to make it back out of my parents place to a spot where we can get free wifi (or any internet connection at all, for that matter). So Mel has been working on the email and I've been catching up on blogs, facebook, games and other stuff I haven't been able to read/do for the past 2 weeks. I told the pastor's wife this afternoon that I'm in "internet withdrawal - just look at my hands shake!" She laughed and sympathized with me. ha ha!

Last night, before we came down to the Springs, we took John and Stirling to the Parade of Lights in Woodland Park. It was bitterly cold at 15 degrees F with a slight breeze. No fresh snow, just cold. We went in to the Starbucks and bought hot cocoa for the adults, but Stirling wanted vanilla milk, which was, of course, not warm at all. He was shivering like crazy but totally refused to even take a sip of the cocoa. Finally John found a place where Stirling could run and run in front of a local vet's office and he warmed himself up a bit that way. Stirling didn't know what was going on, why people were actually putting chairs up along the side walk, or why some people came and sang at us, and so forth, and he was quite surprised when the parade started with fire engines and Search and Rescue trucks driving past first with lights flashing and sirens going. It was a lot of fun. The mayor of the city was there, the Sheriff, several churches had floats, Veterans groups had floats, there were even several people on horseback (my favorite-est part of all!!! I love the smell of horses in a parade :-) ), Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and oh, so much more! Stirling got a lot of candy, and even a very frozen ice cream bar, from all that was thrown out from the different floats or handed out by people walking down the street. He was very impressed with the Shriners in their little cars (3 guys), doing 8's and circles around and around. But I think his favorite had to be all the 4 wheelers in the Four Wheelers Club, each decked out in some kind of holiday decoration and Christmas lights in all colors. Stirling was in 7th heaven by that point.

Friday night we went to Denver to the Pepsi Center where the Colorado Avalanche play hockey. Stirling got out of school a bit early, but his papa and mama didn't tell him why so he could have a "surprise". We met John's mother in the Springs and then we all drove up in our car to see Disney on Ice. I've never seen a live ice skating program of any kind before so it was a real treat, even though we sat up in the "nosebleed" section. John's mother bought the tickets several weeks ago and we reimbursed her for ours. I'm so glad she invited us to go along. Stirling got bored after the first part of the program was over. The first part was based on the movie, Cars, while the rest was based on The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and after the intermission, some movie having to do with Tinkerbell which we've never heard of before (Kara tells me it's fairly new). In true Stirling fashion, he just played under his seat with his Lightning McQueen car hat, and popped up now and again to see what was going on down on the ice. Fortunately, they keep the Pepsi Center seating area floors very clean.....

Friday morning we went with Kara and John to her ultrasound at a local hospital. I was wondering why her OB wanted her to have another ultrasound (I've written before what I think about them) and was concerned that maybe he was concerned about something and not telling her yet. All 4 of us were able to go in and watch. When we first came in to the hospital, we had to stop and tell some volunteers why we were there and where we were going. The woman asked us (Mel, John and 55 year old me) which one of us was pregnant. Kara raised her hand and responded, "Me!?" We got a huge laugh out of that one!! Kara was then given a mask to protect her from swine flu and other bugs, which we all thought was really funny. So did the ultrasound tech - he asked her if she was sick, then after she responded no, he told her to just take it off, that if we got sick then she'd be exposed to whatever it was from us anyway, so why bother? Our thoughts exactly.

We got to see Baby's spine and ribs and leg bones. We got to see Baby's brain and heart and bladder. We got to see Baby's face and profile (Baby has Stirling's profile almost exactly right now). The tech said everything looked really good except one number but that the doctor would be in and go over everything first and then give us her opinion. The doctor came in, ran the whole ultrasound over again much faster and then asked the tech to do another Doppler test on the brain and heart. She went over all the numbers on the computer again (measurements of all sorts of things - size, heartbeat, blood circulation, and so forth) and gave us the not-so-good news in a round about way.

"Do you work?" "Yes." "What do you do?" "I work at .... on the overnight team." "Well, I want you on bed rest for the next 3 weeks. Baby is only 4% of the norm for size in his/her belly. Everything else looks great, but this means that possibly the umbilical cord is not providing enough blood, or the placenta isn't, so Baby's body is sending all the nutrients to the brain and heart and the rest of the body is too skinny because of that." (that's a synopsis of the conversation) So! Kara is on bed rest for 3 weeks. That means she may get a partial paycheck, but she's not sure yet about that. And since John is unemployed as of the Friday after Thanksgiving - well, things are not good at all financially for them. And on top of the money worries they've been dealing with (he's known for 3 months that his job was ending), now there are real concerns for Baby AND for Kara. She has been so exhausted since we got back that at times she's had a hard time keeping a simple conversation in focus. I've been worried about her for weeks and it was made clear to me that that concern was not unfounded when we first saw her at the airport. Since Friday night, she's slept almost 24 hours, just catching up. She is supposed to sleep or lie on her left side as much as possible. Actually, the doctor told her she is supposed to be lying down 22 hours a day, yet gave her permission to go to Denver that night (I think she figured Kara would go anyway). Kara will call her regular OB tomorrow and find out if she can go to church each Sunday and also keep two or three other appointments that she really needs to go to. We are pretty sure there will be no problem, as long as she doesn't sit or stand in one position for too long each time (the hospital dr.'s instructions as well).

Oh my. To put it mildly, we are all quite concerned for both Kara and Baby. She is at 26 weeks now, and may end up on bed rest for the next 3 months if Baby doesn't get a fatter little belly pretty quick! (I'd love to share some of my fat belly with him/her - ha ha!!)

Well, I actually have more I could write about, but I'm tired. It's been a long and somewhat stressful day, to say nothing of a stressful last 3 days one way or another! I think I'll close out now and maybe go watch some of that football game Mel is now watching! (Joy! The Broncos won today. heh heh heh)

Later this coming week we head north to South Dakota where we will see a very good friend of mine (hi Sue!) and Olya-formerly-from-Ukraine (hi Olya!) and their respective families. We are really looking forward to seeing them all. Sure hope the weather improves before then!!!

Year - New and Old New

Did you know there was a holiday named Old New Year? In Ukraine there is. Yesterday was Old New Year. I'm not sure when the calendar got changed, but Old New Year follows Eastern Church Christmas one week later, just as New New Year follows Western Church Christmas one week later. (By the way, we usually hear Dec. 25 referred to as Catholic Christmas and Jan. 7 often referred to as Orthodox Christmas. You can see the church split which happened several hundred years ago right there in the names.)

We went to the center of Kiev yesterday. All of these photos are taken in Independence Square (I won't try the Ukrainian language transliteration). If you have kept up with the news over the past 10 years and saw footage of the Orange Revolution - this is where it happened. Of course the first thing I saw was this big tree, not too impressive in the gray, dreary, gray mid-winter gray of Eastern Europe. Rather dull and blah looking to my "I love sunshine and clear blue skies" jaded eyes.
But I noticed that there were several Grandfather Frosts up there, wandering around in their somewhat Santa-like costumes. There were also a bunch of huge stuffed animals, including a Donald Duck, walking around and probably scaring kids half to death. So, I decided to take a photo of one of the Grandfather Frosts (he is NOT Santa - there is a very distinct difference in costume and personality). Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked at the photo and saw this:If you can't tell for sure, click on it and make it bigger. Three police/militsia guys along with one Grandfather Frost. We saw several groups of 3 of these guys walking around yesterday, in every part of the city we happened to be in. Always in groups of three. There were also a lot, and I mean a LOT, of security guys walking around at the mall we visited. I've never seen so many before - but I've never been to Kiev in a)national crisis and b)major holiday during a national crisis. Seeing all these guys and knowing what was happening just a few meters up the street from us in the main government buildings and just a few miles north of us along the Ukraine/Russia border ... well, it was very sobering, to say the least.
Here is the tree later that night, part=way through it's light cycle. I thought the blue was beautiful.
And here we are, in full light. I had to lighten the mid-tones of these night photos to see anything - I hope it shows well on your screen and is not too washed out, or too dark still.
I don't know what this building is, but it is beautiful. The 'firework' lights are stationery and blink off and on. There are several like this along Kreshadik Boulevard.
This is the main street of Kiev. The buildings in the background are government. Here is where what we in America would call "Congress" takes place, the "Oval Office" and so forth and so on - as I understand it. I've never been to Washington, DC, but I've been to Kiev and Kreshadik. I find that interesting, but very American.
And here is my favorite New Year photo - Old New Year or New New Year. It was taken on Jan 1 and he is watching a football game or something on television. Serious boy. Oh how I miss him! They got him up at midnight the night before to watch fireworks on top of Pikes Peak from a ridge above where they live. A great view - we've watched the fireworks from there many times. Here he is looking a little tired to me after the excitement of the night before. :)

Happy St. Patricks Day!

As far as I know, I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me. A lot of Welsh, yes, which is just across the sea from Ireland, but not any Irish that I know of.

However, I have since young childhood considered this MY holiday. Why? Because it's the day before my birthday! Therefore, it must be mine. Right?
:):):)