Dandelions everywhere

While the Embassy BBQs were great, we still had a lot of Covid vacation hours to fill. It was spring and starting to get warm so we started spending more and more time outside. First up, we needed some haircuts and with Covid numbers on the rise in Ukraine we decided to go to daddy barber shop. There were some tears and complaints, but the haircuts looked great and the boys were ready to go into spring with a new look!

Pre-haircut

During

Post

No haircuts but here for moral support!

We spent a lot of time scootering and roller skating outside after our zoom school calls.

Dandelion picking is s a big part of spring in Kyiv. There are dandelions everywhere in spring. More dandelions than I have ever seen! There was even dandelion fuzz all over the streets at one point!

One of the best spring days we had was a day that we decided to play hooky from home school and work and headed to a park. Everyone needs a field trip every once in a while. We headed to a large park, took a long walk in the forest and then had a picnic. I remember this day so vividly even thought it was last year. It was when all of Ukraine was still locked down and it was one of the first times we ventured out to do something new. We were nervous but it was the safest activity we could do. We were outside and there was no one around. We walked for hours in the park and loved it!

Sometimes a change of scenery is all you need before you go back to this…

But it wasn’t all work. We kept finding fun things to do at home.

For posterity sake, this is the day I finished my first EER as a Foreign Service Officer! An employee review that people in the State Department take very seriously. A year on the job….what a crazy year!

We kept making pizzas on Fridays, sometimes in costume!

And baking all the time of course!

But the weather started to get warmer and we were able to get outside to parks more and more.

In case you can’t tell Randy’s face here is saying- yes Fo, I loooooove when you take photos of me sitting on a log 🙂

I was able to work outside in the sun.

Miral started her accounting job

And as the weather got warmer all the restaurants started opening up and even set up summer terraces, which meant we could go out to eat!

And go to outdoor birthday parties (small Covid friendly ones).

Is there anything better than getting paid for work but only having to go to the office part time!? I switched roles from issuing visas (which was closed during Covid and meant no office time at all for months and months) to helping Americans which meant going into the office every other week. It was nice to have more time to spend at home with the kids but also nice to go back to work semi regularly, see people and interact with friends. It was also awesome to be able to put on work clothes again 🙂

These two were pretty excited to start eating outside!

Still looking cute in a mask!

We decided to start this puzzle as a family (spoiler alert, I finally finished it 6 months later by myself…)

We got some new sneakers because the boys keep growing like crazy!

We celebrated Maria’s birthday with dinner outside at Chichikos, our favorite Georgian restaurant.

Hair kept growing and soon it was that dreaded time again….(no child was injured during this haircut)

We discovered the best croissant place and became regulars!

We got to walk around and see more of Kyiv.

We got to go out by ourselves without kids! No negronies were harmed in the taking of this photo.

And we had lots of lazy mornings with snuggles and coffees in bed- by far my favorite things during Covid, lazy mornings with extra time for coffee and snuggles.

Before we knew it was Mothers Day! I woke up to loads of treats. First off a beautiful plant. Hydrangeas are by far my favorite flower. It was the flower I used on the tables at our wedding and I love them in every color! When I am old and retired and have my own house with a garden, I am going to learn how to grow hydrangeas!

I had beautiful handmade cards galore!

And then because it was Mother’s Day, the sun was out and no one can say no to me on Mother’s Day I asked everyone to dress up and take some pictures in a park. Which I have decided is what I want every Mother’s Day! The boys are in this great stage where they don’t mind dressing up and wearing nice shirts and they even like it and this one LOVES dressing up. She insists on picking her own clothes every day and always wants to wear a party dress.