November Recap

I figure if I can get at least one blog out for the entire month of November then I'm doing OK. Yowza, it has been an unbelievably busy month.

We found out that we are moving to a new house across town. Major bonus is that it is ginormous. Major drawback is that it is quite far from everything and everyone I know in Chisinau. We now have the 5 of us in a 1200 square foot house - so when I said, "please come visit", I was totally lying! Our new house will almost double our room and has a really nice gated area for the kids to ride bikes (and a sauna and whirlpool!!) Visitors welcome this time, for reals.

On Veterans Day Mike and I took our first trip into a "Rogue Breakaway Republic". We (and some others from the Embassy) got permission to visit the Kvint Cognac factory in Transnistria. Where is Transnistria? It depends on who you ask. Technically/historically it was part of Moldova. When Moldova declared their independence from the Soviets, Moldova wanted to "Romanianize". One section of Moldova wanted nothing more than to remain both soviet and communist so they declared themselves independent from Moldova and even started a small civil war in the early 1990's. This area is called Transnistira and although not recognized on an international level as a nation, they have their own currency, passports, border guards, etc. Because of their love affair with all things soviet, they are not too fond of Americans and it is very hard to get permission to enter their "country". The border crossing was full of camouflage covered tanks and other cold war artifacts. Very surreal. Kvint is a famous cognac maker and we got a tour of their factory as well as a nice luncheon and cognac tasting....12 different kinds for those that could keep up. Hiccup.

Sophia and I went to see the Moldovan National Ballet Theater do The Nutcracker 2 weeks ago. It was quite fun and the performers were very good.

Last week I had a Jewelry party at our house. It was pretty successful - at one point I think there were about 30 women in the house. It took weeks and weeks of work as well as having Mike put up with our dining room table look like this for about 2 months.

We have had a few light snow storms and the kids have had to find new ways to entertain themselves indoors. See the pictorial to find out what Anna came up with one snowy Saturday. Happy post Thanksgiving!