Warning: no deep meaning is in this post!

Marc blowing out the candle on his birthday cake. That is, by the way, a tombstone-shaped candle, courtesy of my friend, Frances.

Blessed be the LORD, for He has made marvelous His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city. Psalm 31:21

Okay, so the big joke about our blogs is that Marc's is "we had tacos last night for dinner" and mine is "we had tacos last night for dinner...and this is how that makes me think of Jesus." What can I say? I'm a Jesus girl. But today's post, which I must do pretty quickly if I'm going to get us to church on time, is nothing deep. These are just some funny or interesting things that have happened in the last week or so.

• Marc took me on a date last night. A real one. We went to TGIFriday's and ate like pigs. It was fabulous. We've decided that once a month, we must escape and do something alone.
  
• We decided to re-arrange our apartment so that Marc can have some office space. Our bedroom is now the kids' bedroom, their bedroom is our bedroom and office, and the hall is the playroom. (The hall was the playroom anyway--that's where there is big, open space to see how far your playmobil guy will slide and then at what force he will hit the wall.)
  
• Because we have rearranged our apartment, it looks like we've just moved in. There is stuff everywhere. Add to that the stuff we bought from our friends who are returning to the states, and you get a mess that is basically the equivalent of a tornado hitting the apartment. Good times!
• We celebrated Marc's birthday in English Club on Thursday night. We made American party food and they made acrostics of Marc's name with adjectives that describe him. The "M" for one team was manly, and the "r" was really manly. I laughed so hard I nearly choked on a meatball.
  
• I used the tombstone candle on Marc's brownie for English Club (Russians don't make brownies and cakes like we do...they always look at my baked goods with either awe or suspicion), and then spent twenty minutes trying to explain the idiom "over the hill." "It's like life is a hill, and once you turn forty, you are on the down hill side of the hill." "But, Kellye, why is Marc down the hill? I don't understand." You try to explain American idioms. It ain't easy, my friends. It ain't easy.
• John was asleep late one morning, and I was putting some clothes in his schkaff (I think in America we would call this a wardrobe), when he sat straight up in bed. He looked at me with panic in his eyes and said, "What did I miss?" When I assured him he'd missed nothing, he replied, "Oh, thank goodness" and went back to sleep.
• Sarah Beth and I have a new game we play with our cat, Nochka. We've decided she is a Russian agent (Codename: Nochka), and that she is constantly devising ways to kill the silly Americans in their sleep. Honestly, I'm going to have to get Sarah Beth on video doing this, because it's hysterical. Add to this that Nochka is now wearing a collar with a little jingly bell (a gift we received in a box from the States), and you can imagine the stuff Sarah Beth is making up. Hysterical. I do know, by the way, that it is a little sad that this is what we do with our free time.
• On the metro Friday, Sarah Beth and I were absolutely crushed in a car with wall-to-wall people and a drunk guy behind Sarah Beth. When he pushed up against her in a way she didn't think was necessary, she elbowed him until he moved. Then she pushed a lady's bag (which the lady kept rudely shoving in S.B.'s face) back at her. My kid has become one tough Russian since she moved here. (That's a good thing, by the way. If you stand up for yourself, most people will stop doing whatever it is they're doing.)
• Marc has taken to wearing a fanny pack. It's either that, or a vest that Russian men wear with lots of pockets in it--like a fishing vest. But he is definitely wearing a fanny pack. I'll just leave it at that.
  

I think that's it. I've been saving up some of that stuff. It feels good to get it off my chest. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that funny stuff is happening to you every day, and that your home doesn't look like a hurricane just hit and you're cleaning up from the damage. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye