Stratford Family

After touring Odessa’s City Center, we hopped in the tour van and headed down towards the water front area (probably still considered in the “City Center”). This is the place to take wedding photos, as there were ton’s of wedding party’s snapping photos all around.

It was a great walking tour, learning about the historical aspects of the city and how it was developed over the years. Here are some shots…..

Our Tour Van & Guide

Locks Of Love Sculpture, Mother-in-Law’s Bridge

Tons Of Weddings In Odessa On A Saturday

Alexey, Alexander And Jay, Looking At Catherine The Great Monument

Our Odessian Guide

Catherine The Great Monument

The Group

Rainwater Fountain

The Port

“A Composition” – Our Guide Talking About The City Architects

Original Odessian Steps

Current Steps

Another Great Patio

Mobile Coffee

Opera And Ballet Theater

Lanzheronivs’ka vulytsya Odessa‎ (opera house on right)

Greek Gods

Archeology Museum

Primorsky Boulevard of Odessa

Monument To Alexander Pushkin (2)

Center Of The World

End Of Tour

Side Of Opera House

Courtyard Near Philharmonic

Alexander

Monument To Alexander Pushkin

French Baroque Architecture

German Style Architecture Across The Street

Lets hear it for the weekend. We kicked fully into tourist mode on saturday, with a morning stroll around city and a official afternoon historical tour, where our very informative, self proclaimed Odessa-ite gave us the inside scoup on the city and its past. The city was buzzing with the Euro 2012 soccer championship under way, with Ukraine and Poland hosting the tournament. No games in Odessa, but televisions are being wheeled out onto the patio dinning areas to keep the futbol fans happy.

I’ll let the images due the talking today, sorry there are a ton, but I really did my best to edit them down…

Our tour was very informative, and finally I understand why Odessa feels more European than Russian in.

From Wikipedia…”Its historical architecture has a style more Mediterranean than Russian, having been heavily influenced by French and Italian styles. Some buildings are built in a mixture of different styles, including Art Nouveau, Renaissance and Classicist.”

Derybasivs’ka St & Central Park – fantastic area that is considered the heart of the city

Derybasivs’ka St

Outdoor Market On Derybasivs’ka St

Patio @ On Derybasivs’ka St

Outdoor Orchestra @ City Garden

Tree Of Love Sculpture

Here is our great tour guide, she is in love with her city…very cute

Passage of galleries

We returned here later in the trip for traditional Ukraining gifts

Some Ukrainian Chess In The City Center

Vorontsov Monument – Cathedral Square

That’s it for the first part of the tour. We can not thank Alexey and Irene enough!

Thursday we had a good day of meetings, getting together with a couple of teams here at the Sigma headquarters. Lots to review and wrap our head around, the jet lag was pretty rough late in the afternoon, but we powered through it. We are coming to realize, that we will not fully shift to this time zone, with dinner usually happening around 11pm, and lunch mid afternoon. The only problem with this for me is … I still wake up at 6am every day

Whiteboard session.

After work, we headed out to a Scottish pub type establishment named Corvin, good food, and some good conversations. I had a funny conversation trying to explain why all our kids in the US has such unique names, and here in Ukraine there are about 20 to choose from, but to make up for it, everyone here has nicknames.

Jay tried his very best to explain the concept of a knock knock joke, which was hilarious. Alexey and Alexandar spent an hour the next day googling for Panthers after Jay delivered this one : “(Say with lisp) Panther Panther who? (Say with lisp) Panther no pants I’m goin swimming”.

Off to Dinner … Left To Right, Jay, Sergei, Irene, Alexey, Sergei

Corvin

Pretty Adventurous Eating For Me

One Grainy photo….

Jay Video Calling Home on the Town

On our way to work Friday, the Euro 2012 football championship fever was in full gear.

Back to work friday, and another in a amazing run of food and outdoor dining. I can’t tell you how wrong my perceptions were about the food situation here in ukraine. When I was in Amsterdam, I had a smoothy because I was afraid things juice would be few and far between. Turns out, pretty much every restaurant serves fresh squeezed Orange, Grapefruit or Lemonade, and you can choose from store bought or “fresh” squeezed. The dinning has been nothing short of spectacular (many thanks to our gracious hosts (Alexey, Irene, Alexander, Boris, Sergei & Sergei for finding the best spots around)).

!MamaCasalla!

Ordering Up – Jay, Alexander, Alexey, Irene

The Golden bulldog

About 3pm, not exactly the rush.

The Piano

The Keys

Friday Night we went to a fabulous restaurant (Дача) a bit outside the city center. It was on maybe 5 acres of sprawling land, centered around a ruralish style house. There was a full playground for kids and some lovely guitarists playing traditional Odessean Folk Songs. We tried some Russian Bread Soda, with I was assured was not alcoholic, but my taste buds told me there was some fermentation going on there.

Дача – Dinner

Kompot (Дача) Official Stamp

Not that she needs any practice in drama, but I did want to capture of few of her different looks and threw out some different expressions I wanted her to make. Too bad I didn’t clean her face off from the earlier cookie making and decorating adventures as the little flour on her face bugs, me but c’est la vie…

We headed out to the Palm Springs area for a weekend of cloudless 80 degree weather, a visit with my cousin Mark, and some outdoor time. The Coachella Valley  Preserve was our Saturday morning destination, and the weather could not have been better. Not a cloud in the sky. On the ground we had a few run ins with the bikers  Tour de Palm Springs. Here are some photos from our adventures:

The always dicey timer shot:

Explorer Charlotte

The Little Pfieffer Lou

Miranda and Pfeiffer

The landscape:

Apparently we were on the San Andreas Fault:

I’ve got a lot of photos to sort through and share with you our over documented trip to the Northwest. We spent 3 days touring Seattle and we were tourists for sure, zooming around the city to lots of fun destinations. We LOVED Seattle! More to share on that in a couple of days.

For now I will simply share our view from Greg’s Grandma’s house on Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho:

So gorgeous to wake up and spend all day looking at the Lake – it was relaxing, peaceful, and restoring. Now I’m not one to get to super hokey about such things, but I do feel like this trip was good for my Soul. Living in the hustle and bustle is fun, but it sure felt good to take in some of nature’s beauty (with all the luxuries of home)! I am already planning to take the girls and spend a month there next summer.

and now for the LAUGH:

I asked Greg to take a cute pic of me and the girls, well – we got a cute one,  I just didn’t plan on getting peed on in the process! Ah the joys of motherhood! Thankfully we were inches from the lake for a good rinse.

Sometimes we get fixated on things without really understanding why. Recently I decided I wanted yellow shoes and went to the new Nordstroms shoe department with total confidence that I would find them. Well I was disappointed, the sales people looked at me like I was odd thinking that they simply must have a yellow pair for me. Something in me thought that yellow shoes would be the perfect summer shoe this season. So I went on upstairs and found a cute top to spend my gift card on that day. I was reminded of my obsession at a party recently when I saw a girl wearing a perfect yellow shoe, not a wedge like I was looking for, but cute nonetheless. The next morning I clicked on an email for those private sale websites and I found them on sale – Via Spiga which I know is comfy so I ordered them – it was meant to be. They arrived this week and I am excited to wear them, yes I will be over 6 feet in these shoes, but hey I like being tall.

In addition to the songs each class sang for the celebration last week all the Pre-K kids got together to sing a song for the beloved Hamo’ Robyn. C lucked out and got to rock out with one of the guitars. So fun!

Check out the fun video.

Hamo’ Robyn Tweet Tweet Tweet from Greg Stratford on Vimeo.

Okay so I teased about some exciting news and here it is I am starting a photography business! Please check out the site here: www.mshantiphoto.com

Going forward this site will go back to its original purpose of sharing the ins and outs of the family adventures and all my photography will be on its’ own site.

If you are interested in having me take some photos for you I’m offering some introductory rates if you schedule by the end of June.