Our first week of winter in Russia. It feels so weird to experience it again after 9 years. Sometimes I find myself looking at the snow and feeling so disconnected with the season. I wonder how long it’ll take before I can get into the winter mode.
Favorite Trip
I had to call a few times to the Emirates office before I could finally go to our Kurumoch airport and pick up my bags.
They called me the morning of January the 3rd and my dad drove us there while mom stayed with Nika.
The road was black and white, the whole scenery was like that actually. The sky was gray and such weather would normally make me a bit depressed, but this time I thought that no matter how miserably gray the sky is, just above it is the bright and beautiful sun.
After the arrival back to the airport it took us no more than 15 minutes to get my suitcase back.
Favorite Outing
On January 4th we woke up to a beautiful sky with the sun shining and a “heat wave”. The temperature went up to +2C!
My parents said the weather was perfect for Nika to experience the snow for the first time.
We obviously still needed to layer up regardless of the “heat wave”.
Grandpa wanted to put her on the sleigh but she wasn’t ready so they just walked around and touched the snow.
I don’t know if she was unhappy with the layers, paparazzi, or the snow.
While grandma showed her how the snow covers the pine tree.
Favorite Night
The Orthodox Christmas is coming up. Nika didn’t want to go to bed like she normally would go around 8-9pm and stayed up till midnight.
We welcomed Christmas together.
The night was beautiful and very calm. There is something magical about a winter night. The sky turns dusty pink, it’s very quiet because it’s too cold for the birds to sing, and everything is very still.
Favorite Holiday
Here comes Christmas. We normally celebrate it with our family and go to church in the morning, but because it was pretty cold, my parents went but Nika and I stayed home.
Mom and I were cooking different dishes and setting up “the table”. We made Olivie, which is a number one Russian Potato Salad, I made a South African Potato Bake, mom made meat dishes and sandwiches.
My parents, Nika, brother with his wife and son, my uncle with his wife and son, and I gathered by the family table and celebrated the Holiday together. It’s been a while since I was here for Christmas so it was pretty special.
Favorite Dish
I brought a South African Potato Bake recipe with me and made it for my family. Pardon the picture, everyone loved it and polished it quickly.
Favorite Deed
My family loves salads. We have them with almost every lunch and dinner. We also love adding herbs to our salads. Back in the day I sent my parents a pretty cool 3 tier container for growing herbs but they haven’t used it so we decided to try and home grow our own dill, parsley and spring onion.
We shall see how it goes.
Thank you, Lord, for a great holiday week with my family.