To Minsk (Минск) and Beyond!

Week in Review

Last Sunday was of course Mother's Day.  We let Jacque sleep in and the girls helped me make her French toast and an omelet for breakfast (the girls were very cute and very excited to make Mommy breakfast!).  Then it was off to church.  It was branch conference and the Moscow West mission president and his wife (President and Sister Woolley) attended and even taught a combined Priesthood/Relief Society lesson on strengthening families.  It was really nice to have a lesson in English!  It was also nice to meet them and get a chance to chat with them a bit (I had exchanged emails with President Woolley previously, so it was nice to put a face with the name).  After church we came home and had a quiet afternoon together and enjoyed the rest of the day.

Monday was a very casual day.  Since I was gone all day Saturday at the BSU MBA faculty retreat, we didn’t plan anything.  The girls got up extra early, so I was up with them at 6 am, but it was nice to just sit around and read and cuddle with them for most of the morning.  Then during rest time, after lunch, I rested with Lia and then Sara, eventually falling asleep myself and having a short nap.  We had an early dinner and then went to the park to play after a short Family Home Evening lesson.  The kids then came back and went to bed and Jacque and I had a pleasant evening together.  It was a nice, relaxing day!

Tuesday was another early start with the kids and then some work until I had to leave for BSU at 9:30, at which point Jacque took over with the kids.  I got lots of writing done on my Belarus research project and then I met with a potential BSU MBA student that I met at an orientation meeting last week.  He wanted to take me to lunch and talk about his business and see if I might be willing to come and visit the facilities, talk to management, and learn more about their business and the IT industry here in Minsk.  It was a very good meeting and I am looking forward to visiting his business here in the next few weeks.  After that, I came home and worked a bit more until going to the park with the kids later in the afternoon.  Jacque had a class at the language institute in the evening, so I stayed here with the kids.  It was a good day!

Wednesday was been a quiet day.  I set up an internet VPN service so we can have secure data (and more importantly access Hulu and Netflix videos… Jacque is super excited to have American TV, beyond the few channels we get here…!).  Jacque took Sara to the store with her to get noodles for lunch and then we had rest time.  The afternoon was quiet as the kids and Jacque napped/rested and we had a lot of rain outside (I think it sounds really cool on the many skylights throughout the apartment!).  I have been worked a bit more throughout the afternoon and then had a BSU MBA PR event canceled in the evening so we had a quiet evening at home instead.

Thursday was a fairly typical day with the normal morning routine.  Late morning Jacque took a trip to the store and I watched the kids and got them lunch.  As soon as she got back I left for work.  I had a pretty boring afternoon at work, just focusing on research stuff and then I was home by dinner time.  The kids had their evening routine and went to bed, and then Jacque went to teach at the language institute while I stayed home with the kids.  The weather all day was very rainy and I couldn’t help but notice the generally terrible road drainage around the city, which made for lots of huge puddles and lots of wet feet! 

Friday was the first sunny day of the week and we took advantage of it.  We took off around 9:30 in the morning for Victory Square and the nearby parks.  It felt great to get out and walk around in the sunshine!  When we got to Victory Square, there was some kind of military/political event going on, so we weren’t able to get to the actual square.  So instead we were across the street watching everything from the sidewalk, taking pictures (that is, until a plain-clothes officer of some sort came over to us and made us stop taking pictures).  It was fun to see the official military marching and everything.  There were apparently some very important political figures there doing something, but we couldn’t tell who or what, and there was nothing in the internet news about it when I looked later.  After that, we walked around a beautiful park for a while and then made our way to McDonald’s for lunch (this time we ate inside).  After our morning out, we got the kids back to the apartment for rest time and I took off for my afternoon class at BSU (which went really well).  We had a yummy dinner and then walked down to the neighborhood grocery store to pick out ice-cream for ice-cream Friday!  Then we got the kids to bed and Jacque and I watched a movie (on Netflix!) before we went to bed.  It was a great day.

Saturday morning I was up early with the kids and got them all ready before leaving to teach my morning MBA class.  The focus of the class was labor/employment law in the U.S., as compared with Belarus.  It was a rather interesting session for me (I am not sure how interesting it was for the students).  After class, I had lunch with a student and then came home.  The kids were having rest time, so after doing a little cleaning/picking up around the apartment, I then joined them and we had a pretty casual afternoon.  I then took the kids to the park and then we had dinner and our normal bedtime routine.  Jacque and I watched another movie before bed.

Today the weather is gorgeous! We had a typical morning and then headed off to church, which was great as normal.  Now we are back at the apartment and enjoying a general conference talk and rest time. That's all for this week.