The Weekend in Photos

So many things happened this weekend, I'm sure I will miss something. But, I will do my best to recap events.

All three kids ended the school year this past Friday. Over the past two weeks, Heidi and I have attended more "end of year" or "graduation" parties than ever in our lives. For example: Nadia's choir concert & awards party, Nadia's soccer awards, Nadia's Newcomers Class graduation, Julia's choir concert & awards party, Julia's 5th grade graduation, Julia's school carnival, Julia's church youth group graduation, Julia's birthday party, Kolya's school lunch day out, Kolya's school grade promotion, Kolya's school carnival. I'm sure I missed some thing!


Here's Nadia at the Newcomer's graduation with her teacher, Mr, DJ. Her enrollment in this class was the best thing for her, she really blossomed! Julia will be attending this program next year.

On Friday, I took Kole out of school early, despite it being his last day. We had planned a Father-Son two day fishing trip to South Park Colorado since the girls were attending a party with the Volfs. We camped overnight and got up early for our fishing excursion. Here we are at the crack of dawn.

He and I had a blast and he caught his first fish, this 12" Rainbow trout which put up a pretty good fight. In all, we landed a dozen fish or so between the two of us. Not bad for a day's fishing!

Here I am with my largest of the day, and that's no fish tale! We are honest fishermen,but we bring a camera to do all the talking! With the exception of a fish or two that can't be revived, all our boys get released to fight another day. We departed Saturday evening to get back home for our guests arriving on Sunday.

On Sunday, we had planned our annual cabbage roll making party! We have to pre-make a few of the dishes for our annual Ukraine Orphan Outreach community dinner. The orphans that attend the camp do some of the final prep work and serving of their natives dishes but the UOO group does the heavy cooking. This event affords the kids an opportunity to "pay it forward" because this dinner raises much needed funds for next year's camp, as the previous kids did for them. We made over 450 rolls this year. 'Many Thanks' to the Volfs, the Pittels, and the DeYoungs who showed up at my house to accomplish this. Here's Nadia & Ashley enjoying a little down time after the party!

Since everyone was already at my house, and it was Julia's Birthday, we sang Happy Birthday to her and served cake, cupcakes and ice cream. Mom lit all 12 candles and the party restarted, just with a different focus! Our birthday girl wanted a homemade yellow cake with yellow icing. It was so goooooood!

Birthday smiles with Mom. Standing behind me and the camera in the photo above and below are the two dozen or so friends all saying. "CHEESE!!"

Dad's turn with the Birthday girl. We both love ice cream!

Who could forget the cupcakes! Needless to say, the sugar rush kicked in 30 minutes later and things got interesting at our house after everyone left!

For our overseas friends who don't know, Monday was our annual Memorial Day observance in America. I run the Bolder Boulder 10K run every year with about 50,000 of my friends! My run wave started at 7:15 am and I finished with a personal best time of 56:47! The run ends in the football stadium at CU. Let's play a little "find Waldo" and see if you find me in this picture. I think you can click on the photo to enlarge it. Hint, I just ran by an official on the outside and I'm wearing a white shirt.

While I cooled down in a nearby courtyard, the kids played hide & seek. They love doing this every time they come to CU (where Mom works) because of the immense gardens, courtyards and places to hide. Here's Julia with me, she asked me to cover her eyes so she could count to twenty. She can do so with great ease now.

After the run, there are dozens of venues to visit and lots of free treats. One of the best places to head over to is the popsicle guys and get something cool and tasty after a long run.

We met up with the Christophersons (Ann, Sophia, Anna, Eilleen & Roland) at the run and we planned an impromptu afternoon pizza party at our place. The adults were indifferent as to who's house were should go to until Heidi mentioned that we had left over ice cream and cake. All of the kids got excited about that! Just as the Memorial Day ceremonies were closing, the skies opened up and we all got plenty soaked an our long walk to our cars. When 50K+ people are in attendance, you have to park a long ways off! We all got home and dried off just in time for the new festivities to begin. Roland even treated us to a special drink he brought to make. Yum!

Our last visitor of the weekend was Marilene, Aimee's mom. She brought over a gift for Julia and we sat and talked for awhile. I was beat from the weekend and I want to thank Marilene for not minding that I laid on the couch for the duration.

I was definitely ready for bed as the evening and wonderful, action filled three day weekend came to a close. I'll blog with ya again this week. See you soon.

~Felix~