Vive La France

Hello and long time no write. This summer and fall have been fairly good to us. The summer was really busy but now in the months of the holidays they have become busy as well. Here is what we have been up too.

March, April & May- We were in France with my best friend Aurelie. I told her that when she had a baby that I would come and visit. She had a baby girl named Elise who just turned a year in October. I have known Aurelie since I was 16. She came to the US as an exchange student. We went to many places while there. Paris, Bordeaux, Biarritz, San Sebastian, Spain, La Rochelle and a lot more. I finally was able to meet her family that have always been part of mine. I was there for the Birth of her sisters baby boy. We had such a blast. I got to have lots of good wine and cheese and just enjoyed myself. We also met my exchange students families which was awesome as well.

June we went on a family vacation close to Yosemite and then off to Sacramento and it was a good time. Camping in a cabin is fun. It was our friends birthday and we told them we would come for sure. So we went to Pine Mountain and to Sacramento. Seeing family is always nice in Sacramento but it is getting a little old going there.

July we had our two exchange students here. We went lots of places and had so much fun that they extended the trip for another week. It was sad to see them leave but I know that their lives are forever impacted by what I could teach them and experience away from their parents.

August our friends came down for their yearly trip to Oceanside. They rent a condominium on the beach and this time it was our friends who is a family of 3, her parents, niece and nephew and her sister and her sisters 2 kids. For Nastya it was so much fun, she got to play with a 7 month old baby boy and a girl and boy who are her age. In the time that they were here it was our anniversary, our friend said she would watch Nastya for us and we had decided to do her first sleepover. She cried when we left but after a little bit she was fine. She had so much fun with her friends.

September we found out that we are expecting another baby in May so our family of three with be a family of 4.

October sick all day and didn't really get out of the house. Nastya also turned 4 years old and spent the day with Papa since I was not feeling well.

November- Sick most of the month but now that I am 15 weeks today the all day sickness has become almost non existent. Next month we get to find out the gender and in January we will revel what we are having.

15 weeks

Do You Know Your Family History?

     I do but its cloudy with a chance of Judaism, Farmers and a mix of Heinz 57. My birth mother's history is as follows:

     Father: Parent's were farmers that had many children and only a small number survived. His ancestral home is back in Gilnockie, Scotland and there is a museum as well. We haven't had family there in a long time But maybe we have a distant relatives there I don't know. Grandpa recently passed in April of last year.

   Mother: Hails from Texas and her grandmother was a Cherokee Indian who never talked about where she came from since it was taboo then. I really don't know much about my grandmother's side.

My birth father's history as follows.

     Father: Great Grandparent's fled Russia to come to the States with their parents. In Russia they were diamond fabricators and were very wealthy but since the Kazakh (Cossack's were traditional Ukrainian people) tortured my family they thought it best to come here. They went from riches to rags. They did live a very fruitful life, sadly the Russian and Yiddish language died when my grandfather died in 2006. I am the only one in my family that has learned and taken the time to learn the language.

This is my Great-Grandmother's family(in this picture Great-Great Grandmother is pregnant).

    Mother: Originally from Hungary and Ukraine. Her mother's side was of Hungarian descent and her father was from Tul'chyn, Ukraine and immigrated from there to Quebec, Canada. There side has a very good documentation on where they came from how they came here and so forth.

My husband's History is as follows:

     Father: Came from Kivertsi, Ukraine ( but the town of Lutsk was only about 10 minutes away). His father was born there as well. His father was married 3 times and he outlived 2 of his wives, the third outlived him but died not long after he did. When we went to Ukraine we saw her grave. His father's family moved here and so most of the family is here in the states.

Mother: Came from Kivertsi {pronounced Key-vert (hard t sound as in vertical) ts (as in sits) ee (as in eat)}. Her mother and father came from the same town and were buried next to each other. After her mother passed her father never remarried. When her and her husband came to the States they had 8 children the youngest being 4 months and the oldest 13, and one born here in the States.

     So where are you from?

Ouch

     I can't believe that I turned 28. It seems that after I had Nastya that time has seemed to zip by without a thought or picture of it. I sit here and have flashbacks of all the things I have done with Nastya and Pasha and how she has grown from a limp little baby to a little girl with poise and confidence and a love for life.

     I never thought that I would reach the ripe age of 28 and 1. Still have only one baby, 2. Be where I am today. Time flies as they say and boy are they right. It doesn't slow down as you become older and its a little known fact that we have slowed our lives down for this little munchkin that has come into our lives.

     This birthday was unlike any other Pasha had a plan to surprise me with my friends and decorating the home. I was surprised.

So as of 6 March I have turned 28. Happy Birthday to me!

Nastya thought these balloons were for her.

Questions!

Well on the 10th it will be two years since I started to blog about our lives, so I thought it was befitting for my readers to ask me questions if they have any. So start, shoot away and I will reply!

Grandparents

     What are grandparents? To me they are a group of people or a person who care and love you the way your parents don't. They give you advice when you need it. Most of all it is a privilege to be grandparents not a right. The debate that My husband and I have is this debacle with my birth parents. I was born to them and lived with them until the age of 18 when I was kicked out of the home for bringing alcohol into the home, among other things that are not important. I wasn't a perfect child but I always wanted to be loved by the people who gave me life. Unfortunately it hasn't been that way since I started to have my own thoughts and feelings. I felt stifled in my thoughts and feelings, I felt I had to be one way because my way was wrong. Now that I am on my own and have my husband. The love of my life has no clue what I went through. Just because I forgive someone doesn't mean I want them in my life. I don't need my daughter to go through the same heart ache that I went through. She will know my birth parents as Brian and CarolDawn and nothing else, they aren't grandparents to Nastya. They don't visit her or me or care about anyone but themselves. I'm not willing to make an effort in their life if they wont in mine. Nastya has 3 other grandparents that care for her beyond life and she doesn't have room to have unpleasant ones.

     Grandparents are there to love and do things that us as parents can't do. It is a privilege not a right.

Nervous

     I have started to get a little anxiety. I have a trip coming up with Nastya and she has never travelled so far from home and been on a plane for so long. I'm nervous because my brother suggested to take all the luggage as a carry on...I was not happy about that. I already will have enough to worry about without the luggage let alone with it. I'm not worried about the trip its self just the plane since it will be very long. If you have any tips I will take them, just don't tell me fill the iPad or Tablet up because I don't have one and don't see the need.

Paris, Pyrenees, Spain

     We have plans to go to Paris. I know we will do lots of things but I don't have many plans except to go to the Jewish Memorial in Paris.The Memorial de la Shoah in Paris is supposed to be a moving piece. It is gory but also shows how cruel a person was to everyone who didn't look like him. I have Jewish ancestors all of them in fact on my fathers side is Jewish. I want to go there for my own reasons, I want to see with my own eyes what they did to Jews, to possibly my ancestors who didn't get out in time. I know I will cry but it is okay.

     Another Museum I want to see for sure is Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation (The Memorial of The Deported Martyrs) it has 200,000 crystals that they light up at night to show how many Jews were murdered. Its quite sad but it is part of me its my heritage.


The Pyrenees, is a mountain range that sits in France and Spain, the plan is to go there for about a week or so and just have a vacation from a vacation.

Spain is a beautiful place and because Bordeaux is so close we plain to maybe get on the trail of the pilgrimage El Camino de Santiago, the journey starts when you start not in Spain specifically. It now has paved roads to make it easier which was not what I wanted but hoping one day I can do the whole pilgrimage with my brother and come out a new person.