We were hanging out with Vladik, as usual, in the large open room on the 2nd floor when we saw the director going up the stairs to the third floor. We smiled at her and it turns out she was actually coming to invite us up to the 3rd floor too. She told Vladik to bring his mom and pop :) upstairs to the gym so we could watch the competition. It is not a gym as we would think of one but really just a very large classroom (high ceilings as are most in these older buildings) with gym equipment, like mats, balance beams, pull up bars, basketball net, and some other gymnastics equipment to which I do not know the name. The older kids were separated by class and wearing mostly matching shirts so it kind of looked like our version of field day. Except for not all the competitions were silly, there were also competitions of doing the most pull-ups, balance beam routines, boys doing gymnastics routines on that big padded beam thing with the 2 handles on it and the parallel bars (I think that is what they are called and I got a geometry reference in so I am happy), and building these awesome human pyramids with like 8 or 10 kids. And the scores were tallied and awards were handed out at the end. It was really long. Lasted until 6:30 so Vladik got a little antsy like the last 30 mins but I didn't want to leave because we felt really privileged that the director invited us in. We had been told that we would be allowed to hang out with our kid but were to kinda stay away from the other kids, but that is not what happened tonight. It really was an honor to be invited in to watch and we made sure to say "spe-see-ba" quite a few times (means thank you in Russian). Vladik will have a similar competition tomorrow but we are told the younger kids will have a shorter competition. So hopefully we will get to see that as well. Without having our translator around today we weren't able to ask what time Vladik will be in the competition tomorrow and Vladik didn't seem to know so hopefully we will be there when it happens.
On another note, as excited as I am to be here spending all this amazing time with Vladik and with Keith, I am really missing the other part of this wonderful family of mine... Jackson! He is such an awesome kid and my parents say he is doing really well at home with them. I am so proud of how much he has matured and what a responsible and cool kid he is. I just miss him like crazy! So if you see my kid, tell him his mom and dad love him and miss him. He is certainly hearing it enough from us on the phone/skype all the time!
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