Always Somewhere: More Fun With Mama

When I was in high school some friends and I went to State Fair. I had always gone to the State Fair with my parents before this trip, and I had always enjoyed myself. I was pretty pumped about going with my friends, though. I felt a sense of independence and "grownupness" (yes, I know that's not a real word, but you understand it, I bet).

We went to the fair together, a bunch of us, and it just so happened that my parents were going at the same time, which didn't bother me at all, the fairgrounds were pretty big, but I didn't mind if we ran into each other. But the truth of the matter is, that I got so bored with my friends that when I did happen to see my parents, I chose to hang out with them for a while before joining my friends again for supper. Yeah, I like my parents.

So, when my mom decided that she would come to St. Petersburg, Russia for the birth of her first granddaughter, I couldn't have been more thrilled, on a number of levels. And now, I'm finally going to show you some of the things that we got to enjoy together with the kids. (I just love putting an "s" on that last word.)

Here's the first set of pictures. We kept pretty busy, so I thought I'd break it up a bit. From June:

Sadly, the first few days Mama was with us were cloudy and rainy and chilly, but we did venture out for a few walks and even a picnic one day. Yes, it was cold enough for Nadia to be wearing that jacket. In fact, I wish I had had one.

All four of us after Nadia's first Sunday at church

When it warmed up, it really warmed up! We took advantage of the hot and sunny weather to do some site seeing. I enjoyed being able to take Mama around with the kids and do translating for her as needed. One of our first stops was Palace Square and the Hermitage.

Isaiah chilling during one of our breaks to feed Nadia. He likes to wear my sunglasses.

Mom was quite amused by all the cars parked on the sidewalk. This is not unusual.

Mom and Isaiah by one of the many canals in the city. St. Petersburg is also called the Venice of the north.

Oh, and when it did get sunny, it stayed that way for a long time. This was taken at 11:30pm.

We did our site seeing about every other day. It's a lot of work taking these 2 kids around. On our "days off" we enjoyed some more picnics. We learned to feed Isaiah before we left for the picnic because all he wanted to do was pull the grass once we got there.

Next we went to Peter Paul Fortress, the beginnings of St. Petersburg. These pictures are all from after the apocalyptic storm that we later learned was a tornado. Thankfully we didn't see the funnel cloud itself, but we were really close to it.

Nadia's in there, I promise.

There was an exhibit of these big chairs. Isaiah got a kick out of sitting in them for a while. And it was shady, a nice relief from the heat.

With Peter the Great, the founder of St. Petersburg. I don't know why his head is so small on this statue, but I like this picture of them both looking at him.