Endo

It's been eight days since the surgery, eight days that have reshaped my understanding of our future and whether living abroad again soon will play any role in it. Warning: this post is going to be absurdly melodramatic and contain lots of lady-health talk. [If you're not into that stuff, just skip all the text, watch the embedded videos, and call it a day.] I know my mom will scold me for putting all this online ("it's there forever, Katherine!") but many, many women have shared their experiences with this on the internet and it was SO HELPFUL this past week. Maybe today's post will help someone else going through a similar situation.

May

It's been a quiet May so far and poised to get even quieter. After getting back from our trip, we've been making a few quick visits to see friends and family because of a small procedure (this thing again) in a few days.... hello internet-browsing bed rest ; ) Last weekend we caught the bus up to Everett, Washington for a Mother's Day / birthday picnic at the beach with D's relatives.

A Ukrainian church group set up their own picnic about 20 feet away. D's brother-in-law was busy both making our shashlik for our group and watching the church group prepare theirs. "Какой позор", he said, shaking his head, What a shame. I looked... and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He pointed at the woman standing near the shish-kebab grill. "Don't you see that? A woman! Shashlik is a man's job!" ; ) To be fair, his shashlik was quite good.

D came down with the flu recently and spent lots of time napping, so Кит and I had to keep ourselves amused somehow. Although perhaps the amusement was one-sided...

D has since recovered and is back to protect Кит from nonsensical photo shoots.

A card arrived from Kharkiv!

Sightseeing in Las Vegas

Recently I read this idea from a Semester at Sea grad: never let your age get larger than the number of countries you've been to. Awesome, awesome idea. And I feel so behind :p

Still, there's something to be said for going back to a place you visited before. Years ago, my best friend celebrated her birthday in Vegas and let me tag along with her. It was an impressive city the first time around, doubly so this time!

We kept it super-classy by staying at Super 8-

... and, of course, behaving with decorum at all times-

My 2 favorite things about Las Vegas-

Dream vacation!

Back in a long and gray February, we were dreaming of the Lands of Sun... meaning pretty much anywhere south of here. I started to pay closer attention to those "act now- big savings!" emails that always get past the spam filters and this was the result- two perfect long weeks with my favorite guy on the planet : )