The last school year in Review

As mentioned in my last blog entry, the last year somehow disappeared. I have been a very bad blogger over the last year, and it seems wrong to just forget about the experiences that we have had. Ths is especially the case as this last year, although being long, was our last year in Uzbekistan. I have not reallly shared the feelings we have had about leaving, nor the "lasts" we enjoyed.

Looking through our pictures and experiences I realize that it has been a particularly busy year for both of the boys. Less busy for me besides the fact that I had to travel to London for a job fair, and then also the long job search process.

This year both boys have been very active in school. Namejs began the school year with deciding that he wanted to run for Elementary Student Council. He ran for president and won! Thus all year long he had the responsibility for attending weekly meetings, organizing activites and participating in weekly assemblies. Here you see him giving his speech.

This year Didzis began Middle School. Being in Secondary he has begun to change into the teenager he is becoming. Below is a picture of him before going to the first secondary dance.
Once again both boys celebrated their birthdays at home. Namejs had a sleepover with 4 friends. Didzis had his first boy/girl birthday since about 1st grade with a lot of fun swimming and hanging out.





Where ever we are we recognize Halloween. Although the boys have never been trick or treating or invited to a US Embassy Halloween function, we always carve pumpkins. This time we invited several friends over to carve some pumpkins, and had fun taking pictures.

Both boys had the opportunity to participate in the Middle School play. The play was called Once Upon a Time in the West. The students used clips from Western movies to create a cohesive play and created the text and sound effects to create the play. The boys were responsible for creating such sounds as the windmill creaking by scratching glass to an apple crunching and a loogie. They even created the typical sound heard at the beginning of all westerns. Waa, waa, waaaa... It was quite interesting to note that of those who saw the play, it was mostly the adults who got the majority of the sound and the humor. I realized that this generation of kids has never really watched the amount of Westerns that we did as kids. All the scenes used in the play were familiar to me, but I know that the kids had not seen them prior to the play.

Windmill.

Singing and dancing...

Getting ready to crunch the apple.


Breaking glass for the fight scene.

The after party.


Every year in Uzbekistan I have hosted Thanksgiving. If you go back through the pictures over the years, there are many similarities between years. This year I couldn't buy a large enough turkey to feed everyone, so this year I had to buy two. Here you see our friend Lola with the two turkeys.
Here you see our regular carver, Alex, carving up the juicy, perfectly cooked turkeys.
As always lots of guests. The first year we began with about 20 guests. This last year we ended up with about 80. A great day was had by all, as always with many international dishes to share. I will miss these events and the people that I worked with.

This year we could just not afford to travel outside of Uzbekistan, and as the boys' Dad was not able to find a flight without a 12 hour layover in Istanbul, they also did not travel to visit him. Thus we celebrated Christmas in Uzbekistan for the first time. For the first time in a long time we had to make our own piragi and piparkukas. Here you see the boys working on the piragi.

Namejs wanted to make a giant piparkuka also.
Here are the results of all of our hard work.

Brotherly love!

Our Christmas tree consisted of a small tree with a doppi as our star. Here the boys are posing prior to opening gifts.

This was our family Christmas day feast, to be partaken of while watching a Dr. Who marathon. The boys are now not only Dr. Who officiandos, but also fans of Buffalo Wings. This has begun a more recent tradition of periodic Sunday dinners of Buffalo Wings.


Easter was also spent once again teaching the boys how to color eggs the Latvian way. This time we tried a variety of dying techniques. The picture below has eggs colored in onion skins, beets and some red flowers. The onion skins make the eggs brown, the beets make the eggs pink, and the red flowers make the eggs green!
We also organized an Easter brunch for the day. I will miss my large dining room with space enough for all of us to be seated together.

The teacher kids swimming after the brunch.
This year has been a fantastic year for sports for the boys. They have been able to actively participate in both basketball and soccer activities. Somehow I have lost the basketball pics I had taken earlier on. But here are the soccer pictures.








This year Namejs was in Grade 5 which in the Primary Years Program means that he had to do authentic research in the form of the Exhibition. His topic was Cyberbullying, and here you see him with his partner at the final presentation.
Namejs also finished Elementary School this year! I am now the mother of two kids in Secondary!



Throwing up the Doppis in the air.







This year we have slowly been saying goodbye to Uzbekistan. The boys both requested a party in order to say goodbye to their good friends. They both had a party with classmates, and had the opportunity to spend some fun time together.
Didzis with his friends.
Namejs with his friends.