Hello, weekend!

Suddenly, another weekend!! The time goes so fast, and the spring is already here. There is still some snow outsode, in the shadows, but otherwise everything is getting greener and summerly. We even cleaned up the garden today and prepared the terrasse for summer!! In a couple of days the rest of the snow will melt too.
Greta is almost counting days until her grandparents come to visit us. She is very fond of them, of course! Otherwise, there was not much happening here today. I spent the morming (after the garden work) going through Greta's pictures from the kindergarden for the last four months, many good pictures I have not seen before, so I saved all of them for myself. During the weekends we allow Greta to use the flamenco dress at home, but she would use it every day if the could. She likes it too much. Santiago changed our car to summertires today, too. Greta is very proud to become a sister soon, and talks about it all the time :-)
So while Santiago were having his afternoon siesta, Greta and I were playing making heart beads.

Playing with beads is fun!

I am quite impressed how concentrated she can be sometimes. I am a bit jealous that am am not so patient.

After a short trip to the groceries store on a bike to buy butter, I decided to make apple and cinnamon empanadas for dessert. Liked it, even I struggled a lot with the dough.

After the dinner and some computer time, in the evening we went for a stroll with the scooter. A lot of fun now when the weather allows it, but Greta still has to learn to control it better. Also it was interesting to fing flowers along the way.
So it was getting late, even you can not say that when it is so much light in the evenings now. So I told Greta we head back home because I started to freeze :-)

A happy girl found some flowers along the way!


The last two pictures are taken not too far from our home, during our evening stroll. Usually you do not see them, but if you look closer, it is full of flowers everywhere now. We liked them, Greta and me.
We have no big plans for tomorrow, but we surely find something interesting to do!
What are you doing this weekend? Have a good one anyway.

Ksenia.

Mormorio for a present

If somebody tells me once again that I am not patient, I will show them Mormoio. The shawl is pretty easy to knit, that you fell asleep every time you take the knitting needles. But the border part is a bit tricky, because you got used to knit straight all the time, but now you need concentration! Anyway, the original plan was to knit some female present, and it is still the present, even though I don't know for whom.
It is knitted in Holst Supersoft garn, approximately 65g of each color (maybe a bit more white). Wonderful warm and soft wool.

Do not relax!

Even if you think: "ok, now I have a 4 year old, things should go smoothly now", when the evening comes, you get in bed with a couple of parenting books.
The rest of the day was quiet, relaxing after yesterdays party. Greta is so happy about her new dresses that she said that now I need dresses. One with hearts, one with dots and one with flowers. The first one was made today.

Something about our Easter trip. Day 1. Guayaquil

When we went to Galapagos islands, we stopped for a day in Guayaquil, a nice city in Ecuador, from which you usually take plane to the islands. It rains a lot there, and it rains often. It was not a surprise when it rained the day we were there.
But before it started raining, we started in Simon Bolivar park, just in fromt of the Cathedral.

The park is famous for its iguanas.

Then the pauring rain started, so we soon got bored of walking wet and needed to buy some dry things. So we waited until the shopping mall opened.

Me, wet.


If not for the rain, the nature there is beautiful, and everything is green.






The day after we continued to the islands, but I will show that some other time. :-)

The birthday celebration

Last year at this dates we went to the forest and there were no snow, we actually was going to have Greta's birthday party outside. There was no doubt this year, we actually got some new snow in the last couple of days. But is getting wasmer, so the spring will finally come. Eventually.
But this post is not about complaining. It is about the day today, the berthday celebration for our BIG girl now. Because she says she is 9, not four. :-)
She got our presents yesterday already, but was so lucky to get the presents from both pairs of her grandparents today. Since we get up early, and it was still to early to start the preparations, we spent the morning reading books on the sofa and eating popcorn for breakfast :-)
So we started the day with unpacking the presents and getting prepared for the party. The grandparents are always very nice with the presents, and send some cute clothes Greta just loves (the trick is that the clothing has to have either cats or hearts, or both). The doll was also quite a surprise for Greta. The Spanish grandparents sent us a present that will be lovely for the next carnival season - the flamenco costume
It is a lot of work to prepare to receive many 4-5 year old kids at your home, so I was a bit freaking out. I must admit the beginning was just crazy, nothing looked like it was going to stick to our plan, but suddenly I even had a moment to relax and grab a piece of food, too.
I am glad I did not bake the cake, because I just could not. Went for the simple solution and bought the best cheesecake they had. No wonder there is no left.
We started by handing two big pizza doughs to the kids, and the toppings, so they made pizzas. But nobody of them wanted to eat them... Thew wanted sausages. Ok, the parents loved the pizza, though.
Greta loved opening her presents, and I must say she got realy good ones, too. We appreciate the effort.
After the party it took a while until everybody left, but it was also nice to sit and chat with the parents while the kids seemed to have fun.
(I even felt so relaxed I started missing the starbucks coffee - so I made a cup with vanilla whipped cream. Yummy!)
When everybody left, Greta just had to try on the flamenco dress, and had hun dancing.
Great! Take a look how wonderfully we spent time today.
Why not start the day with the popcorn?

Greta it trying on her new dress from the grandparents.

And opening the present from Spain.

Waiting impatiently for the cake.




The flamenco dance outside.



Did you have a good day today?

Greta 4 years old!

Our wonderful child has birthday! It looks like she had fun in the kindergarten today!
She got some presents this morning from mom and day, and tomorrow we are going to fetch something her Russian and Spanish grandparents sent her for a present. Tomorrow is a big day when her friends are coming over. This is going to be fun!
Mom and dad love you, Greta ))

Where have we been?

The week before easter we traveled to the Galapagos islands. This year we could not wait for vacations anymore and decided to travel to the warm place right away. This looks just like another world. We experienced lots of new things, but the best is the nature, the animals you will never see any other places, exotic fruit, the tropical rain, and the feeling of being in such an authentic place. It takes really a lot of time to travel there, to we needed to spend some time there once we did it. Two weeks went very fast, but we got an unforgottable experience. We travelled to Amsterdam, then to Guayaquil in Ecuador (with a short stop in Quito airport), where we stopped for a day, and continued our journey further. 2 hours from Ecuador we were in Galapagos Islands. We stayed mostly on Santa Cruz, several days on Isabela, and short day trips to Floreana and Bartolome. The tropical rain was incredibly good, but it damaged our camera and we could not use it for almost a week. Greta loved the animals, she was running after iguanas and crabs. The tortoises are huge. The sharks are exciting. The snorkeling is great.
I show you a couple of pictures so you make the idea.
The travel went pretty good. Greta enjoyed watching films during the flight, and slept happily the last 4-5 hours.

Our day in Guayaquil was also rainy, to say it some way. But it is beautiful.

Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. Near the fishermans bay, where sea lions and pelicans come to steal some fish from the market.

Tortuga Bay is the best beach I have seen (and Hauklandstrand in Lofoten in the North Norway), even walking for 40 minutes under the sun through the cactus forest could not stop us from going there three times.



Snorkeling is great with a child on the back )



 Greta observing iguanas on a beach on Isabela.

This is really a one in a lifetime experience, and I strongly recommend Galapagos for vacation if you like the real authentic places.
Good to be back home, too.