Dacha Day!

Today is City Day in Ivanovo. The city invites singers, performers and plans activities for the town. Sort of a celebration for the city. Most cities in Russia have a City Day. The city has done a wonderful job of getting the city cleaned up and ready for City Day. BUT, we had the choice of spending the day a the dacha with our great friends Mel and Nancy or plowing through the crowds of people a the City Day Celebration. . . . . It was not a hard decision -- we headed to the dacha to plant wild flowers and finish up the floor. The weather was PERFECT and there were even white puffy clouds in the sky. Chris and Mel borrowed the neighbor's smoker and we cooked ribs. They were not as good as Grandpa Butches, but they were mighty close. Next time we will do better!

This evening, if we can stay up late enough, we will go down town to watch the fire works. They are usually pretty impressive. We walked down town last evening and saw all of the people gathered around Pushkin Square -- just hanging out having fun -- eating icecream and drinking lots of alcholic beverages. The poor city workers will have a hard time cleaning up all of the trash in the next few days.

Nancy and I took a walk through the woods and down by the river. I am still totally amazed at all of the wild flowers that survive the cold temperatures here. With my new camera, I was able to get up really close to lots of the flowers. I had lots of fun.