Myrtle hosted our socially distanced trick or treat, with a nice costume and impressive props courtesy of the girls.
Pandemic Halloween
Category: Jenya Lestina
First Pandemic Haircuts!
After no haircuts at all since the start of the pandemic, and everyone getting really, really fed up with long shaggy hair, we found a place that is doing fully masked haircuts that let us basically take over their shop for our family for a few hours. Everyone looks awesome!
Shopping Trip
Nut Free Charoset Recipe
In honor of Jenya and her nut allergy….
- 4 apples
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 tablespoons Mogen David sweet red wine
- 1 matzo, or 1 cup matzo farfel
Pare and core apples. Chop apples finely, but you want apple bits, not applesauce! If you are using matzo and not farfel, crumble the matzo into small bits but not powder. Mix together apples, matzo, cinnamon, honey and wine.
This quantity serves our normal passover table of 8 to 10 people, with enough for the ritual plus some extra because it’s delicious!
Jenya’s Graduation
Jenya graduated from CCAC with her A.S. in Computer Information Systems back in December, and today she just picked up her Diploma – very nice! She also got another Dean’s List Certificate.
Dulles Air and Space Museum
Nice day at the Dulles Air and Space Museum. Jenya did a lot of drawing, De took pictures, and Ana read all the informational plaques.
Pirates and Pools
Day one of our Eclipse trip – we drove through Ohio, had dinner at a Culver’s near Cincinnati, and ended the day in an awesome pirate ship themed hotel room at Wildwood Inn in Kentucky. The hotel room has a loft with a bed and sitting area upstairs, bunkbeds under the stairs, more beds downstairs, and is painted and decorated like a pirate ship throughout, complete with rigging and sails and lamps that look like oil lamps. It’s very awesome. Plus, there’s a pool and a hot tub and air hockey. And good free wifi. Too bad we are only here for one night!
Niagara Falls
NonQual Regionals in Atlanta
Ana competed at non-qualifying regionals in Alpharetta, GA, very close to where we used to live. She had very good skates, all her jumps were clean and she looked very good. She got 2nd in her preliminary compulsory (out of 9), and 11th in her free skate.
We also spent some time visiting some of our old Atlanta haunts, including the house where we used to live:
And the playground near our old house – we were last there when Jenya was 3 and the twins were one.
Teaching English in China
Jenya is volunteering as an English teacher at a school for young kids in Tianjin, China. She’s the only American there — all the other teachers are Chinese, and of course all the students are Chinese. She’s having a great time, and learning bits and pieces of Chinese as well. The school is only 3 blocks from our hotel, so the walk is not bad even given the 95 to 100+ degree heat.
