The last few days at our place have been a little out of control. This morning Elena caught James with a bunch of 100ruble notes that he managed grab from the top shelf of the dresser. She noticed him carefully feeding the notes one by one through the small gap in the ajar balcony door and letting them flutter six floors to the street below. As James noticed her noticing he hid the bunch behind his back, stuffed one more note out and blamed Ryan!
During the lesson about not throwing anything out the window that followed, I don’t know why but I asked James if it would be ok to throw his favorite teddy out too? Without thinking he nodded and motioned approvingly toward the window. Elena with her quick wit applauded me for not volunteering Ryan in place of Teddy!
Later in the evening it was Ryan’s turn to do something silly.
Ohh man these kids are hard work at this age! My age, not theirs!!!
There was a heart-stopping moment for about a dozen morning commuters last Tuesday in a pedestrian underpass in central Minsk, Belarus. Shortly after 10am the peak hour rush was in frozen animation for several seconds while a projectile about the size of a 1/2 litre thermos flask ricocheted loudly in different directions down into the underpass. The object came to rest near 8-10 startled people. One bystander later said it was like a slow motion scene from an action movie!
Later in the day a slightly embarrassed expatriate worker came forward claiming that it was actually a Thermos knocked out of his backback bottle holder by the hand railing as he was maneuvering his bicycle down the ramp. He added that the thermos survived the heavy fall and still works fine even with a few dents, scratches and a slightly oval shape.
Just out of curiosity I pushed the little microphone button on the google maps (maps.google.com) page and dictated an address off the top of my head. Here are the strange / funny results…
1. it’s kevin place scrotum I c t 2615
2. I did ask evan place (I tried to drop the state and post code)
3. 87 place curtain
4. meskerem play scripts in icy t 2605
5. ice skatin place cookin I ct 2605
6. ice skatin place curtain I c t 2605
7. ice skatin place clifton act 2605
8. thanks kevin place curtain act 2605
9. thanks kevin play scripts in a c t 2615
Maybe it’s my accent?
For those of you who don’t know the address see if you can work it out!!! Comment with your guesses.
During an enjoyable evening meal at the Barcelo River Maya Resort just south of Cancun James started a debate with Richard. At first it seemed like a general conversation but actually (after checking Wikipedia) it seems that they actually followed general debating rules pretty well. OK so James did all the talking and acting and Richard just sat there but all the motions were correct and fully in character.
It’s been a while since I posted but nothing really jumped out until now. Elena’s mum finally got her US visa last week so we went for a drive up to Texas for some shopping. On the way we stopped for a few photos with one of the daily stunning texas sunsets.
Of course I couldn’t resist putting the first one up on facebook and it got some classic comments. . .
Jose Angel Cantu Guzman baby on the road
Peter Speight Place of birth, I-35 South Texas
Jose Angel Cantu Guzman At least it’s the road and not on a mc donalds
Rod Saclier Are you serious? I seem to remember you tempting the gullible but really???
Gene Hewitt she did not…..nooooo!??!
Tim Benson You’ve put on a bit of weight since I saw you last Peter …
Alice Duijnhouwer Ouch that looks awfull
Peter Speight The Parkes and Garden guy (complete with gun, hand cuffs, lights on his truck) stopped to assist which was great. Elena’s Mum was trying to speak English to him and he was trying to speak Spanish to her while I was busy with Elena.
Juan Pablo Leal G nice picture
Alpaslan Bazlamatçi Elena is having pain and you take your time to take picture of her while you should hold her hand !!! çok ayıp
Alison Speight So, a Mexican child at last But what you had to go through to get one…hai raab!
Helene Uys Are you serious? Did she actually have the baby on the I35?
Bryce Bishop That’s an excellent pic…
Dylan Speight REALLY!?!
Sabrina Bazlamatci you guys are funny yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Dmitry Garin You are a man, Peter! Congratulations!
Natalya Maximova Oh my God!!! Peter, tell to us truth. Are you serious?
Alice Duijnhouwer Where are the pics of the little one? is it a girl or a boy? Anyway congrats all of you and Richard and James!!
Here is the actual photo that we stopped to take. . .
Very funny situation yesterday evening for dinner. Tatiana almost finished the washing up complaining that she is glad it’s over, what a terrible job, bla, bla, bla… Then. . . BAM! More work!
We had a great laugh the other day setting up our profiles in the Wii Fit. I was as to be expected “a little over weight” but Elena’s was funny after the balance section. It asked. . . “Do you find yourself tripping over while you walk?” Must be true because she was shocked and said with eyes like dinner plates, “that’s BS!”.
It seems a bit strange but our boy, Richard doesn’t like changing his socks!
If there is a way out of it he will find it and if there is a way to do it Babuliya will find it. Two great minds at war over socks!!!
It has gotten to the stage where he will wear a pair of socks from bath time to bath time and avoid taking a bath for as long as possible to extend his time in the socks. They just don’t get removed for anything! The usual cycle is going to sleep with socks on, not wanting to change them in the morning, then walking to school in the same socks, then sports at school, then home, then to bed again and so it continues. Just keep the socks on at all costs.
What seems to be the major problem with changing socks? Well as it turns out it is the seems in the toes of the socks. If he can feel them even one little bit then he gets very, very agitated and getting a pair of shoes on him in this condition is like trying to . . . I don’t know what it’s like, there is no comparison!!!
So Babuliya has devised a very engenious way of getting fresh socks on to the kid, at his most volunerable moment! When is that? When he is asleep! She waits until he has fallen asleep and then quietly swaps the old, in need of a change, socks for crisp fresh new ones.
Now today the plan went as usual and completely un noticed by Richard until. . . He got to physical education at school. When he was changing into his sports shoes he noticed that his socks had changed and was of course bemused about how it could possibly have happened, after all this was the first time he had even noticed that his socks had been changed without his knowing. Later that night Babuliya asked him “Richard, did you notice anything different today?” He replied calmly “yea, you changed my socks while I was asleep!”
So now it looks like we are going to progress to gettting almost fully dressed for school while asleep to avoid any early morning conflicts.
The other day Richard digging in his cupboards unearthed a mask that we used in a fancy dress management party a few years back. It is a pretty tame mask really but when you aren’t expecting to see it on someone it does take you by suprize. So Richard prancing around the house creeping up on people and scaring them seemed pretty funny from his perspective until. . . .
He took a look at himslef in the mirror with the mask on. A couple of short deep breaths and then screamed and ran into the bedroom in hysterics. Several minutes of cudling and soothing brought his breath back but still sobbing some 10 minutes later. Mum asked him, “why were you scared, you put it on?” He replied “but I didn’t see it on me so I wasn’t scared.”
