Sliding and Celebrating

     Leif had a birthday last week, and we-his lucky family- got to celebrate with him!!  It was a long day for Anneka, as she had both Russian and English lessons that day, but we decided to risk going downtown.  Thankfully she fell asleep in the van on the way and woke up refreshed and ready to have fun!  We stopped at a new game store first and Leif picked out a new game for our family to play.  This is pretty new here- to be able to buy good games.  So we were pretty excited.  Then we headed to the main square to slide on the ice slides.

     It was really cold- I think it was -35 that day.  But we were bundled and everyone enjoyed it.  Here are Leif and Ella (she wanted us to be with her when she went down).

I took pictures for awhile while I held Ike.  He went down the slide with us, too. 

 

Then Leif took a turn taking pictures (both of us took self-shots with Ike).  =)  He's pretty irresistible!

Such fun!

 

     

     These girls are hard-core.  Even after being outside for a long time, they wanted to keep going.  I love watching them hold their papa's hand!

 Here's the top of one of the bigger slides.  Ella got braver and let Leif push her down.

There she goes!

Ahhh... so happy!

     The girls sat on little hard plastic sleds that enabled them to go really fast!  Anneka keeps one of these sleds in her cubby at school for when the kids play outside (they play outside if it's -20C/-4F or warmer)... those days, we hope, will be coming soon!

     After a very yummy dinner at Subway (yes, you read that right! Subway is here!  There a few changes, like cabbage instead of lettuce... but mostly they are the same!) we headed back to the square to see the pretty lights in the sculptures.  Leif and the girls found another slide that was faster and slided some more.  I was frozen by then and cuddled with Ike.

     Then we came home for some German chocolate cake.  Ike konked out in the car, so we put him in his crib with all of his outdoor clothes on and opened up the balcony door.

The girls picked out face paints as a present for Leif. So after the cake, they had fun decorating him!

 

He was a VERY good sport!

a very, very good sport

     We love you so much, Leif!  Happy birthday!  We feel so blessed that out of all of the people in the world we get YOU in our family as such a wonderful husband and father.  You're the best!