(Maureen's Post)
Well, Sean's still a little bit under the weather today. He was still feeling well enough to visit James and go to Joan's get-together in the evening, though. There is definitely some kind of bug going around. Both Inna and Oleg are having flu-like symptoms, and the city in general is going through a flu epidemic, I heard. Hope we don't catch it. I mean, we got flu shots at home before we left, but we don't know if it covers the strain going around here. For all we know, that's what Sean's coming down with, too.

Our visit with James was great, as always. As new parents we truly had a "duh" moment as we forgot to bring our camera today! Fortunately, the camcorder does take pics, too, so we used that. The only problem is that it won't date-stamp our family picture for court for today, but Darryl and Jenny let us borrow their camera so we took our court pic with that. We walked in and James was wearing a totally new outfit neither of us had seen before, so we think that he must have either had a very messy diaper or threw up on himself so that the caregivers had to change his clothes. Hope we still get to eventually see the outfit we brought that he was wearing yesterday, but I'm not holding my breath. We again started with leg and arm exercises, as always, jamming out to Baby Einstein music. James doesn't seem to tire of the sit-up game, and he's always ready to play. His legs seem to be getting stronger, as he's been putting more weight on them when we try to stand him up. He still needs help rolling over, but he seems to be getting just a little bit better at it each day. He tried to fight the nap again today, but after scooping him up and singing a lullaby he was out like a light. We took full advantage of him sleeping and cut his fingernails today. Those little claws are something else! Then we woke him and changed his outfit to a clean one. When he first awoke he was so cranky and kept crying while I was changing his diaper and changed his outfit. Then I picked him up, we played with him a little bit more, and then he was a happy camper. Even when it was time to go we put him down in the crib, played with him a little bit and left him playing with his plastic keys. No crying when we left today, thank goodness!

We figured out what was up with the DVD player. Oleg had someone look at it, and apparently it needs a converter. We were under the assumption that it didn't need one since it had been used overseas before, but that's apparently not the case. Oleg even found someone to repair the adaptor for us (don't know how much we owe yet), and he loaned us a converter to use for a couple of days.

After our visit with James we hung out at the apartment watching Seinfeld episodes for about an hour before going to Joan Mesker's apartment. Then we met Jodi and Bob Mechem and their interpreter, Rada, at the Viola market to get a side dish and dessert to bring to the get-together at Joan's place. I've included pics of the bakery counter at the Viola market above. The Mechems picked up a fruit preserve-filled cake and various cookies from the bakery section of the store, and we got a kilo of the potato, carrot, and pea with mayo salad that we had the other night. I'm not sure of all the ingredients in the salad, but according to Rada, it's a traditional Russian salad usually eaten for the New Year. We then took a 15-minute walk to Joan's apartment, again trying not to slip on the ice. Fortunately, it had snowed a little bit during the day, so the snow on the ground did provide some traction for us. Joan's apartment is very nice and has DSL available, too. This is the apartment used by a lot of WPA families. Dinner was great - Joan made a couple of pizzas and lentil stew, and Steve and Mechelle (now feeling better) Baardson brought some roasted chickens (sold at a stand close to Joan's apartment) and couscous. In addition to the salad we brought, I believe Rada also brought a cabbage and carrot salad. The cake and cookies were fantastic, and I think we all ate until we felt like we were going to pop. The guys brought some beer and we did have a little bit of vodka, just not as much as we did the other night at the Rainbow Cafe! Another nice thing is that Joan happened to have an extra power converter! So, she is letting us use it for the DVD player until we get home, then we'll send it back to her once we return to the States. At the end of the evening Rada sent us and the Mechems home in a cab so we didn't have to try to walk back in the dark on the ice. Glad we had been working with the Pimsleur Basic Russian I lessons back home, as we were able to at least tell the taxi driver to drop us off "here" in Russian!

Speaking of the Pimsleur Basic Russian I CD's, we found them to be surprisingly helpful, especially combined with some Russian phrasebooks loaned to us. The dialogue on the CD's are pretty repetitive so it's not too hard to use. Sean says it should be called "How to Pick Up Russian-Speaking Women 101." Anybody who's listened to these CD's would know exactly what we're talking about (i.e. "would you like to have something to drink...u minya?")

So that's our post for today! Love to all!