It's the end of this blog as we know it

and I feel fine!

We've moved. Literally. And a new country deserves a new blog. Join me over at Muscat Love. Update your bookmarks, ladies and gents, as I will no longer be posting on The Other Georgia.

Love,

Jen

Happy Birthday Blaine!

Today Blaine is 5 years old. He woke up this morning and held out his arms and said "look mom! My arms and my skeleton are SO.MUCH.BIGGER!"

He is awesome. He is 5.

Happy Birthday Blaine. I love you!

And so it's done

The moving company arrived on Monday. By the end of the day, our entire house was packed in white boxes. Tuesday they arrived with the sea freight containers and loaded all the boxes in. Wednesday we cleaned and unpacked the "welcome kit" from the Embassy that we will live off of for the next week.

It's done. Our time here in Georgia is finished. We have a going-away bar-b-q this weekend with our close friends (thank you Juan Carlos and Stan for organizing and hosting.) We are in the process of saying our good-byes, preparing for our vacation in the US and looking forward to our new post.

Oh, and another thing that is done is my computer. Again. Less than 4 months after I got the damn thing back from the repair shop, the hard drive died again. Luckily this time I didn't lose any pictures or important documents, but I did, once again, lose email addresses. So, if you have written me recently and have not received a reply (Lynn, if you are reading this, please email me again) that would be why. Words of wisdom from me to all of you reading this: never, ever buy a Toshiba laptop. Once I have the thing repaired again (thank goodness we bought the extended warrenty on the craptop), I am going to sell it and buy a new laptop. A non-Toshiba laptop. Hopefully a laptop that won't need the LCD screen replaced 2x, the hard drive replaced 2x and the battery replaced once all in the first 3 years I own it.

Princessa Hooliganka

Also known as Dancing Queen. Check her out on YouTube.

Once again, in the category of "you can't make this stuff up"

Did you think the Smoking Genie was good? It was a little slice of how life in Tbilisi is different.

Well, I've got an even better one for you.

This is a Lada

These are cows

These are cows in a Lada.

This was filmed just a few blocks from where I live in the Sabartelo district of Tbilisi. The video quality isn't that great, but c'mon, it's cows in a Lada, filmed on a cell phone. You can't make this stuff up.

Strawberry season

Finally. Strawberry season is upon us. And just in time, too, since we will be leaving Georgia in about 4 weeks. The strawberries here are remarkable. So sweet and delicious. I buy a half-kilo at a time, and I tend to eat about half of that just while I'm washing and hulling them.

Kyra has been introduced to strawberries now. Last year, she was still far to young for them, but this year, I let her try one and she loved it. She and I have strawberries for snacks almost every day. Blaine used to love strawberries as well, until I made the mistake of telling him that the little specks on the outside of the strawberries were seeds. Now Mr. Picky won't touch them (even though he had just consumed 5 or 6 strawberries when I told him this. Note to self: don't mention seeds ever again).

In a few weeks, the strawberries will be gone and cherries will be abundant. I was never a huge fan of cherries until we moved to Georgia. Now, I'm am anxiously awaiting the cherry harvest. Hopefully it will be in full swing before we leave.

This is one of the things I will miss most about Georgia. When fruits and veggies are in season they are the best I have ever had. The tomatoes, cucumbers, the melons and the strawberries. They are fantastic. I am gorging myself on them now because I don't know when I will ever taste such delicious fresh produce again. I can't begin to describe the difference between the produce here and the produce that you get in the US. You would just have to take a trip to Georgia and see (and taste) for yourself. Come during strawberry season, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Kyra, the spider monkey

Don't let the sweet face fool you. Kyra's new nickname is Princessa Hooliganka, which, roughly translated from Russian means Princess troublemaker. She is a sweet, lovely child, but she is a climber. Blaine was not. Don't get me wrong, Blaine kept me on my toes - he was a full-speed ahead BOY from the moment he could move. I spent many, many hours chasing him from one place to another. But he did not climb. He did not seek out things to get into. He never looked for that next desk, table, or stair to conquer. Thank goodness, because he was not a careful boy. He was always going at top speed, so whenever he took a spill, it was usually accompanied by injury. He had road rash on his face more times than I can count, and that was all from falls on a even surface. I can't imagine what kind of damage he would have done to himself if he had been into scaling things.

Kyra is completely different. She is careful. Very, very careful. She watches where to step. She finds a good strong hand holds. She rarely falls when she walks and can easily navigate short series of steps by herself with no problem. So, she has decided to take it up a notch:

As you can see, she is quite pleased with the results. Me, not so much. Princessa Hooliganka.