Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Davis family in Russia!

On August 4th Embry and I loaded on a plane and headed back to Texas for one last time before going overseas.  I was able spend some time with my dear, dear friend Allison Knobel Sitton.  It was wonderful to see her and watch her boys love-on and play with Embry. We had a very quick visit with my nephews, brother, sis-in-law Nancy and my mom.... special time. 

My sweet Allison Knobel Sitton
The cutest nephews in the world
Special time with  Drew & Gran

Em and I returned home to Springfield on the 7th just in time for a great visit from my parents and to get ready for the movers.

The movers arrived on August 23rd and packed up our air freight, then our surface freight.  At one point during the day we had an earth quake.  YUP, an earth quake. 

The movers returned on the 24th, packed up or items for storage and then that weekend we sat in our hotel while Irene came along.  Thankfully the hurricane didn't cause too much damage in our area and our flight was right on time Monday morning.

Come on Irene
100% to capacity! Heading to the airport
 We arrived to Moscow, Russia and after a little work we got to our new house.  It's wonderful!  We have a great four bed room apartment home complete with a playground 20 feet from our front door and Maya's & Sagan's school is literally about 60 yards away.  Life is good!

view from our front windows
first day of school
ballet classes taught by Russian ballerinas!
swim lessons at Maya's preschool
We are settling in quite well and have been able to get out and about Moscow a little.  We've gone to the popular areas near our house and I'm slowly learning how things work here.  Embry just turned 7 months old and she is just about to start crawling.


Embry's 7 month portrait

 On September 8th, I got the news that my dear friend, Allison, was not doing well.  Allison is one of my oldest friends from the church I grew up in.  We had lunch together every day in high school and she's always been a special friend.  We've kept in touch through the years, and have always fallen back into our friendship like a well loved glove.  We would often call each other to compare notes about our children.  My Maya and Sagan are almost the exact age of her boys, Grant Mathew and Connor.  We would share stories and always laugh at our own silliness.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer 7 years ago, and after a full year of battling it she was (what they thought) cancer free.  Unfortunately about a year and a half ago she found out it was just remission and the cancer came back.  She fought a long hard battle, enduring multiple surgeries, countless rounds of chemo and radiation, but my sweet Pink Princess lost her battle with cancer the early evening of the 8th.  She was only 37 years old.
God bless you, Allison.  I miss you already. 
Allison and I the last time I saw her
I was able to listen to a GLORIOUS concert held in Allison's honor back in Texas via my mom's cell phone titled The Gospel According to Allison.  The concert was originally planned to be a way to lift up Allison, show her our love and support, but it turned out to be a beautiful memorial concert.  As my friend Raymond Boney, the concert's planner and dear friend of Allison, said "I think Allison and God planned it that way, to spare Allison the embarrassment".  My mother attended the concert and I was able to hear the love in the room from our phone call.


We had a rough few days after Allison's passing and the commemoration of the 9-11 tragedy.  Thankfully our children keep us on our toes and distracted from life's woes.  Enjoy some photos of what we've been up to the past few weeks. 
My beautiful Maya
Sagan fell on one of his toys... Got a great shiner and another trip to the doc.  Note the scar from the ER visit this summer is  still gleaming!  Excuse the PB&J face!
Preschool Family Weekend at the Embassy Dacha
Mr. Lightning Mc Queen
Embry wearing a dress given to Maya by Allison Sitton - makes me smile to see her in it.
I joined the IWC - International Women's Club.  This is the US Ambassador to Russia's Wife.  Ms. Jocelyn Green
Embry is almost crawling!
New Moscow Circus - it's been a permanent structure in Moscow since 1971!
The kid's new favorite toy - an air freight box
Sweet Em in the box house.
Maya Skyping with Gran in the box house
We've still not recived our surface freight or our car.  Hopefully that will come sometime in October.  I look forward to having all of my arts and crafts stuff back so I can start working on some fall projects.  I think the kids don't miss their toys much, but life will be soooo good when they arrive.

That's all for now in the crazy Davis family's life.