France Bordeaux first

     In a months time Nastya and I will make the great long journey to France. We will be without Pasha for a whole month and a half. I wonder how Nastya will be but also me and Pasha have never been gone this long without Pasha a world away. There are so many places I would love to visit, but because of money here are some of the places I would love to see or do.

Bordeaux- Is the world's wine industry capitol. It's home to the biggest wine fair Vinexpo, while the wine economy in the metro area moves 14.5 billion Euros each year. Bordeaux wine has been produced in the region since the 8th century.

Wine tasting-Bordeaux has 287,000 acres of vineyards. So imagine that they make approximately 996,000 bottles of wine a year

Place De Quinconces- it is one of the largest city squares in Europe. This place is huge and it was damaged in WWII but they fixed what had happened and it is fully restored.

Grand Théâtre De Bordeaux-It is an old theatre erected in 1780 and one of the first places to have Marius Petipa as a ballet performer.

They have a lot of famous Churches and Chateau's, museums and parks that I would love to see as well.

The centre of town. At night they light everything up and they say its the best time to see the city.

The Palais Royale

The three Cathedrals:St. Andre, St. Michel and Saint Seurin de Cadourne

Esplande des Quinconces

A Metamorphisis

     This post is kind of a heavy one but to be honest it needed to be written. Until I can freely talk about this it will always be a dirty little secret. I no longer want this as my dirty little secret or to define me as the person I am.

     Before we had a child...okay me more like, I felt my life was more complete. We got to travel whenever we wanted to, I could buy 300 dollar shoes and not regret it or feel guilty about doing so. I put cosmetics on more and took care of myself. Now that I have a child I found that...okay here it goes the shameful admission, I became that frumpy Mum. I said that I would never be that person and here I am that person I didn't want to be.

     My New Years Resolution was for I Callie Kalinyuk to take care of myself better and in turn I can care for my child better. At times I feel inadequate and not fulfilled  I need more to my life then just my child. It's not that she doesn't make my life happier but I need more for myself. I need to finish my education, I need to feel better and more confidante about the body I was given after birth. I need to be less jealous of others who either are pregnant or just had a baby and that I'm not and won't be for a while. I need to not be jealous of people who have an easy time conceiving. I need to feel beautiful, and most importantly I need to feel wanted and cherished. My life growing up was very traumatising, and feeling abandoned by my own parents didn't help. A father who worked 3 jobs to support his 6 kids and his wife's previous marriage child and in turn was rarely home. A mother who was very warm and loving to others but to her own children and husband is abusive ,hurtful, controlling, cold and callous.

     My in-laws however have been a god send. They love me and have labelled me with the moniker of a hero. They say I saved their son. He was not on a good path and I came into his life at the right time to save him from the wrong path. His parents are so proud of him and they visit when they can. They are proud of how far he has come. I am so proud of him as well. Since Nastya has been born I have lived for her and my husband. Now is my time to be a little more selfish. The first place I started was my head. I went to the saloon and got my hair done.

     I have also been working on forgiveness. I am trying to do it with my parents first. I don't feel they did the best they could at raising us and the ones that are still at home, but I forgive them for how they treated me. I accept that they are the way they are and that they will not change. I am okay with that because I decided that until they want to be in our life I will refrain from their life. I will not send cards or presents or hello's. They will not be grandparent's to my daughter until they will make and effort to do so. It's not a right to be a parent or grandparent its a privilege. I was talking to my sister and I said I know I did some things out of stupidity, but "my past does not define me and who I am today." She agreed and this is for me, I'm not doing this to spite anyone or make them more mad. I'm doing this so that I as a women, a mother, a wife, a sister and as a best friend can grow and make me a better women, wife, sister and friend.

     I still want to erase my childhood but it made me what I am today. It made me to be giving of my family that it hinders me. In some sense it has become to polar opposite of how I was brought up. My life isn't perfect and nor will it be and nor do I want it to be. Perfection is always waiting for the cracks to appear.

My favourite quote is “We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” I love this quote because the "love" can be anything in your life. No one is perfect and so it gives me great pleasure to know that each and every day I work on myself and loving me for me.

 Before hair done

After

Food

Everyone who knows us knows that we not only love to cook, but we also love to eat. I make almost all of our food from scratch and boy is it good. So to a tribute to food here is some food to drool over. We do cook a lot of Russian dishes but lately I have been trying out lots of foods from pintrest and man some of the stuff is super yummy.

 Eggplant Lasagne. One of my husbands favourite.

 Baked Zucchini

 Taco Pizza...not that good just too dry.

 Beecher's home-made mac n cheese

 My own pizza with home-made white sauce

 Home-made apple pie.

 Christmas feast

 New Years feast

 Jamaica with lime juice and salt

Blueberries

Del Mar Lights

     During the Christmas/holiday season the Del Mar Racetrack puts on the Holiday light show around the horse track. Nastya thoroughly enjoyed it and was mad when we went home. It is costly to get in, however you can go as many times as you would like. They ask that you not get out of the car, and turn your lights off (only american cars can do that/older cars), go really slow and stay safe distances from the cars. The experience for us adults is lame but to see the faces of excitement it is beyond the words of expression. We went around twice.

 I really love my dash.

This is just a snap shot of what they do.

Better than Dennys

     When we lived by the beach we had always wanted to go to this breakfast spot that you wait between 20 minutes to an hour. We read good reviews and we were not disappointed. It is called Beach Break Cafe and it is delicious. Every time we go there we can never finish our food. It is beyond enough for 2 people and its yummy. They also have home made coffee cake and it comes out warm and moist. If you are ever in the area you should definitely pay them a visit.

     One thing I love is that you don't have to wait till you get a spot to have coffee. They believe in the honour system when you sit you let your sever know that you had coffee. The eclectic style is really interesting. It has a surfing/ocean/Hawaii theme with also parts that go along with surfing. Skateboarding is a typical part of the surfing realm. Walls are covered with memorabilia from the early days to now. Magazine covers in frame's shirts and surfboards for auction. Service is amazing and they never ask you how your food is when you have a mouth full of food. The one part I wish would happen is crayons for every child automatically or for the server to ask if its okay. This is a very kid friendly and pet friendly place.

Happy Christmas

     We celebrate Christmas like every other American but dinner has a bit of old and new traditions.

 My Brother Ben, Anya and Andy

 The guys: Ben, Pasha, Andy, RJ and Sasha

 Anya and I

 The table and as you can see vodka is part of this meal.

 This was the meal.

 Everyone received banana nutella bread from us.

 Great grandparents bought this for Nastya

 Andy's Mum always gives Nastya an ornament for Christmas.

 From Auntie Anya and Uncle Andy.

 From a different Auntie Anya

 She had fun with the big legos.

 Home made apple pie!

Nastya's new fish.