Like nomads, but with more stuff

Of course I had heard of Stampede before moving to Calgary. The rodeo thing, right? And when we moved here I heard a bit more about the p...

 There is not a large, thriving Jewish population in Calgary. That became abundantly clear last year during the frustrating Hunt for Hanukka...

A phenomenon we had never even heard of before our move is the magic that is Canadian Tire. They do in fact sell tires (I wasn't entire...

Structured Learning It's been about 12 weeks.  We have switched teachers three times.  We had our first assessment - a miniature/frien...

I waited a little long, so they only arrived today. But my kids are getting the thrill of opening up a little door each day and finding a ...

... no, no, don't worry, Terry and I are fine. With 5 weeks to go in my tour things are winding down. Many of my kids' friends - ...

The musical group The Zambonis, which we are not sure are even still together, put out this little gem some time in the last. It is a much-...

September 1, the Day of Knowledge , is a traditional first day of school in at least two countries where I have lived (Russia and Kazakh...

One of the many blessings of annual trips home is we appreciate our country in ways that people who don't leave it for extended periods...

When we went to England, we were desperate to find a book long enough to keep Alex's attention for more than an hour because we didn...

Kazakhstan had a presidential election Sunday April 26. I was one of the embassy folks who participated as an election observer. I'm no...

On March 22, otherwise known as Nauryz in Kazakhstan and a few other countries, we went to see how they celebrate.  We had gotten some advi...

The most exciting thing happened tonight. A neighborhood kid we know from the bus stop rang the doorbell. We've almost never spoken wit...

When it was raining our first day here and I told Alex to wear her rain pants when we went to the hospital, she wanted to take off her skir...

In my 4 years in St Petersburg, I have seen the ballet Sleeping Beauty 4 times. 1. Mariinsky, classical interpretation 2.Ballet on Ice, ...

So this post won't do much for dispelling the rumors of our high-falutin' fancy pants diplomatic lives. It was Aurora Fashion We...

Alex and I, as well as some friends and their daughters, went to see Sleeping Beauty on Ice. It was performed at the Rimskogo-Korsakova Con...

For President's Day, Terry and I had a little "date day" - nanny came for Zoltan, Alex went to preschool (American holidays s...

We're Friends of the State Hermitage Museum. That means that in addition to getting in for "free"* and being able to go past ...

Today was truly perfect. Alex went happily into her classroom at school. Zoltan even chose to wear his boots today rather than fight me for...