It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

It's been a while since I wrote, but that's only because we have no internet at home and it's been a while since I made it out of the house. We are babysitterless at the moment, so I tried to come to the synagogue last week with the kids. Well. Let's just say that between getting on and off the bus with a heavy stroller, and hanging out with to kvetchy kids in the cold synagogue, it's no wonder I wasn't able to focus enough to write a blog post.

So life here is great, and full of exciting things as usual. We met another Jewish American here. He's been living here for about a year, and is living here just because he likes Vladivostok. We had him, and a Jewish man who works in the U.S. consulate over for lunch of Shabbos. There is something very exciting about speaking English to someone with an American accent.

Mendel turned two, much to our excitement, and his (mostly) indifferance. We are having a party for him on Monday, the point being to try to get to know other preschool age children. Russians consider a birthday a big holiday, so we have a nice group coming. Mendel may be the youngest one there, but we are happy to have kids coming out of the woodwork.

I have a women's program coming up soon. We are wrapping up this year for women's programs, and then we will form an official club. Russians love official stuff.

We are slowly, slowly getting our house in order. We moved to a new apartment recently, and between Purim, Pesach, and our trip to Japan, organzing and settign up the apartment was pushed to the last burner.

And last, but definietly not least, I made the most delicious birthday cake for Mendel on Friday. I wish I took a picture of it, because it was pretty too. I did, however, learn my lesson about converting ingredients in a recipe. The recipe called for 24 ounces of chocolate. I know that you can susitute cocoa and oil for chocolate - but forgot about the sugar. I also forgot that if you are mixing oil, cocoa, and sugar, it should equal up to 24 ounces all together, and 24 ounces of cocoa is a bit much. It did work out eventually- 2 tries and 18 eggs later.