You Are Invited

You Are Invited

to a

LIVE Chat (via Skype)

with The Hallenbeck's

& LUNCH

 

Sunday, January 27th

1:30pm

Changepoint Church

70 S Hamilton Street, Poughkeepsie, New York

 

*if you bring a dessert to share, we'll love you forever

 

 

We want to thank our support team for their prayers, encouragement, friendship and help to our families in New York

 

Never heard about us before? Come and hear about what we have been doing in Ukraine and eat some pizza.

 

 

***Are there any willing souls out there who could assist us with a few things that we cannot do from another continent? No money required.

Let us know if you can!

Snow!

I'm sure you are all wondering what we have been up to since the holidays:

• Mike has a 2 week break from teaching at the school as it is closed for the holidays. He just has his weekly Beginner's class at our apartment on Fridays.
• We celebrated 2nd Christmas: Christmas Eve with our friends and their family; Christmas Day at a Greek Catholic church for their service and then watching some Christmas classics from our youth on YouTube with Solomiya.
• Annie currently has only 1 patient and has seen them once or twice a week for the past few weeks (due to the numerous holidays people celebrate here).
• We have been planning a Skype event for our friends in NY:

Sunday, January 27th at Changepoint Church

1:30pm-ish

***Lunch***

70 S Hamilton Street, Poughkeepsie

 

Be There

 

And now onto important matters like how it snowed every day this past week:

... and for the 2nd day in a row, our blog is not allowing us to upload pics from our computer. Stay tuned for snow pictures.

 

 

 

Holiday Adventures

The preceding blog entries explain what we have been up to during this Christmas and New Year season (Orthodox Christmas and old New Year are yet to come).

New Year's Day

What a beautiful day- we decided to go for a long walk in the sunshine.

Getting in the elevator. I did not I refused to ride in this thing for the first 2 months that we lived here. It's not so bad now.

Going down. Not quite enough room for 2 adults and a stroller.

We walked through the park on the way to the center of town.

The pond was ice.

Awesome artwork.

Don't know who this lady is... or what she's looking at.

Walking along the river. So many people were out today! A lot of the cafes opened up around 1pm.

You can see the Christmas tree on the right.

Gorgeous day. The pedestrian bridge that crosses over the river.

Christmas tree!

Random artistic work: a "knot" in the railing.

We stopped at Lviv Chocolate factory for a New Year's Day celebration.

Cappuccino, cafe Americano and a piece of their famous cheesecake. Oh yes, that cake is covered in melted milk and dark chocolate. #paradise.

Let Solomiya roam free from her stroller for a bit. She was watching these guys fish.

Attempt at a family pic. S has the most awesomest expressions ever.

Our little Ukrainian girl <3

New Year's Eve

We were invited to spend New Year's Eve with some of our favorite people. The table looking quite festive.

We arrived around 9:30pm, had an awesome supper together, prayed at the stroke of midnight (while fireworks were exploding outside), played a game, watched a bit of a movie, then headed home around 3:30am.
We missed our yearly New Year's gathering at the Ackerbauers, but this more than made up for it!

L-R: Dennis (he is a doctor and lives/works in another town); Alisa and Victor (our hosts; their new house; they just had a baby girl about one month ago); Zhjenya (Victor's brother; he and his wife Oksana have a baby girl); me; Mike is taking the picture; Solomiya was sleeping on a bed upstairs. Sleeping? Yes, sleeping. All thanks be to God.

Victor and Alisa's Christmas tree.

Melissa- their baby girl!

Nicole- Zhjenya and Oksana's daughter! Such a cutie pie.

Post-Christmas Events

Christmas party at the Life English school (where Mike teaches) for the adult students. L>R: Ira (teacher), Yura (teacher), Valya (teacher), student, student, student. It was a wild night...

Weekly Hope & Life meeting at the English school/Hope & Life office. This is what Solomiya does during it: sits with her crayons, paper, toys, juice and of course- a Maria cracker or two.

Christmas party for the Life English teachers at our apartment! L-R: Katya, Valya, Volodya.

The spread. Thanks, mom, for sending the Christmas plates and knapkins!

Katya (L): not only a wonderful friend, but an awesome babysitter! She hung out with Solomiya while Mike and I went out by ourselves for the 3rd time since Solomiya was born. Katya reported that Solomiya did not shed 1 tear AND that she understood when Katya sopke in Ukrainian.

Solomiya entertaining the guests.

Ooo! The Christmas pillow that Beth made for us (Solomiya threw it on the floor in an attempt to get her hands on something that was out of reach).

Christmas Day with Friends

Christmas Brunch with some wonderful friends! We are so glad that they invited us. These are some very special people!!!
L-R: Beth (also an American; she has been working in Ukraine for 8 years; she made us an awesome pillow with a Christmas tree on it); Kent (Canadian, working in Ukraine for 12 years, genuinely kind person); Svetlana (friend of our hosts); some dude with a mustache; Laura (American; working in Ukraine for almost a year; she makes soup- from scratch- 5 days a week and brings it to the train station to feed the homeless people hanging out there); Valya (Ukrainian; my awesome Russian language teacher; she has a real gift for teaching); Inga (Ukrainian- but if you didn't know this and you heard her speaking English- you would swear she was an American; she has her own English school in Uzhhorod and hosted the brunch at her apartment and let Solomiya touch all of her Christmas decorations- hardcore.).

Christmas Day dessert with our friends Timea and Edic. We love these guys! Their oldest son, Samuel (3 years old) stands by.

Their youngest son, Nathanial (almost 2 years old), on the other side of the table.

Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa- purple and grey striped hat. Have I mentioned she really likes putting clothing on and dressing up... and then looking at herself in the mirror.

Christmas Morning

Our Nativity scene.

Christmas morning! We bought Solomiya a sled and a Ukrainian alphabet book.

She LOVED the sled. She sat on it right away.

LOVES the book. It has a lot of pictures of animals in it- her favorite thing.

Looking through her Christmas stocking.

Maria's! Her favorite cracker. She also scored a new tooth brush, a coloring book and a 'Barney' ("healthy" snack-cake for kids filled with chocolate; she opened that package and devoured that thing shortly after this picture was taken).

Tato had a package of 'tato' in his stocking. Turns out they were similar to corn nuts.

Playing hide-and-seek with Tato. Can you find them?

Tato was giving free rides around the living room on the sled. Notice she is still clutching her Maria's...

Then, Solomiya decided to put some stuff on her sled and push it around the room herself.

Trying out the new tooth brush.