Eventful week

Hello This week was an eventful one, especially for Sophia. This past Saturday, Sasha, Sophia and I went to see Giselle at the Lincoln Center. We had seats in the Grand Tier Box, which was a very nice place to be with Sophia, since we almost had the box to ourselves. The first Act was a little trying - the story was developing, and there appeared to be too many characters that were not wearing "tu-tus", which seemed to present a problem for Sophia. In fact, when she saw Albrecht wearing a sword at his hip, she demanded to leave immediately. Sasha spent the whole first act in the hallways of the theater, which, while beautiful no doubt, wasn't exactly what he had in mind. Bribed by a box of sour patch candy ("леденцы") in the intermission, though, Sophia has decided to be more amendable and allowed herself to be persuaded to watch the rest of the performance. We were actually quite impressed with her patience and interest, Sophia indeed was very well behaved. So, overall, I'd say that this ballet experience was a success. Today we had another special event - it was the "graduation" ceremony for Sophia's class. We had a picnic in the park, and the kids showed off some of the interesting songs and dances that they learned while in school this year. I managed to record a few minutes of this performance with my camera, and I'll download it to the blog for your viewing pleasure. I have pictures, too, which I'll upload to the site, so check back in a few days for those. We had a great time, and every kid even got a diploma (почетная грамота) for their accomplishments this year. The are significant, I have to admin, as Sophia is now able to read and can even write her name. Emilka also has accomplishments - he's almost walking (not quite, but makes a few steps already), and while he doesn't say much, he definitely has an opinion about most things. He and Sophia play really well, it's a lot of fun to watch them together. Sasha was taking pictures this weekend - I'll upload them too when he has a chance to sort them.