Well another week under the keel.

The kids, as an average continue to improve. More English words slip into their usage. We have not been pushing them to speak English in our times together, leaving their classmates and teachers to do the heavy lifting. Friday was a day off for me and Heidi took a pass to run around town a little. Oil change for the car and we swung by school for the Asian Cultural awareness presentation. We watched two of the kids participate in class presentations in the cafeteria. We continued our parents play date by getting pedicures and meeting Masha and the kids at the Smithsonian Sculpture garden for the. Jazz in the park series.

The kids discovered the fountain in the center of the park. And about15 seconds to discover the copious quantity of tossed change on the bottom. My solution to the possible problem of them completly destroying the parrent child economic ballence was to tell them it was okay to scoop up the coins, as long as they toss them back out in the center of the huge fountain.

So at 1100am on Saturday, two hours into inflatable pool operations in the back yard. One mild touch of hypothermia (poor Sasha, he has about a half cup of fat in his whole body), one damp cast and three kids watching cartoons to warm up for a few. Now, hot dogs in the backyard with a afternoon trip to the "world" corn hole (bean bag toss) competition by our church on the national mall. Then we plan on going off to COSTCO to pick up Sasha's new glasses. Its been so cute, he has been asking for them every day since we learned he was blind as a bat past 5 feet (like Papa). Good times in the District. Love to all, the three Cossacks et al. Erik

Sent: Thu May 21 14:14:43 2009Subject: Fw: Tanya at doctor's office - check out her new friend!

So Tanya had a friend hang with her at the doctor's office today while we were determining if she has asthma. She is a real trooper at doctor's office and this is her fourth facility (including the civilian ER visit a week ago with her broken arm from the zoo).

- she gets to go get the arm looked at and casted finally at Andrews AFB next Tues (gotta love the hurry up and wait mentality of these places) - referrals, wait for referral to get reviewed,then wait for call or them to answer the call to get the appt, then get on the list for the next appt...

We are still figuring out what she has (with her congestion in her lungs) - but the initial x ray from a couple of months ago was looked at by the pulmonary doc at Walter Reed this AM and showed some concern, enough to go from the nebulizer to a steroid inhaler treatment for the next month.

Tanya definitely prefers the waiting rooms with the cartoons playing and truly enjoyed the last doc she saw this am as he had all kinds of fun light up and noisy toys to play with. He had a very positive and fun attitude just like the tech that ran her through the breathing through the tube machine which, thanks to Masha, she did better each time to get the reading and info for the doc to look at and evaluate. So back to work all and regards to you for a great rest of the week!

:) -Heidi