The annual поздравеление-(happy birthday)-from-abroad post

Oh look at that. My last post was last year’s поздравеление for the Kwattie. How embarrassing. Well it turns out that today is again Kristie’s birthday, and I also incidentally happen to have traveled to Moldova this time. I’ve been thinking about posting to this thing for roughly... the entire time I’ve been here (since May), but unfortunately my blog has turned into what I always feared it would, that is, a big scary bad-smelling monster that lives under my bed. With the dead cockroaches and probably mice.

Anyway, hooray, I’m in Moldova. I guess that wasn’t so hard to say. But thanks to Kristie, I got off my lazy bum and posted because I need to share the videos in her honor with this year’s batch of adorable kids!

So... successfully uploading the videos is apparently not in the cards at the moment. I’ll keep trying, but I want to make sure this actually gets posted today so for now I’ll post some photos.

This is Andrei. He is Bonnie’s and my favorite child. Maybe we’re not supposed to have favorites, but he is anyway.

These are some of the boys. I feel a little terrible that I still don’t know all of their names, but the ones I do know are Vladik (the one in the foreground), his brother Marcel (my other favorite, on the back end of the slide) and Pavel (front of the slide). All three of those little guys are really good kids and very sweet. Marcel has the longest eyelashes and largest eyes I’ve ever seen. And the tiniest little arms and legs. But in spite of this, he goes around constantly showing off how big his muscles are and I humor him.

This is Dana. I think it’s short for Danila or something. She is pretty darn cute too, though she can get into some surly moods. You love her anyway.

Puppy No. 1: Immanuel. For Kant. Bonnie said she has always wanted to name dogs after philosophers (which makes sense, since she was a philosophy major for a time) and I was down. I call him Manu for short because Manny just didn’t quite do it for me.

Puppy No. 2: Pascal. A tad chubbier, but also just fluffy. And dang they’re both cute. There might be a little too much cuteness going down around here.