Cooking class and Sasha

As you can see the other Sasha (in blue) returned last month after he turned 18. He has been living at our house, instead of the boys house, but I think he finds it a little boring, so he may move into the new house in September. He plans to go work in Odessa for the summer, staying with friends, and returning in the fall. Most of the students will work on the farm for the summer. They get paid extra for doing hard work like haying. Some of the boys got paid extra for digging holes for a cistern and septic system at the new house, too.

Garry is trying to get the new house livable on the group home parents side anyway, before he leaves on June 23rd, because we have found a family to live there. They have two daughters, 16 and 6 years old and are from eastern Ukraine. At the present time the family is staying in one room in a church attic in the city.

Here are some photos from my last week of English classes, where I decided to combine English and cooking and we talked about recipes and some days they came into the kitchen and cooked. Tuesday we made meatloaf patties (or cutleta in Russian)  in the microwave and thumbprint cookies. Sasha, Karina and Valera did most of the making, while everyone else wrote out the recipes in Russian from the English version. Even Maria came for this class. Normally she has a break with Garry while I teach English, because no one tries to figure out what I am saying if there is a translator in the room.

Wednesday we tried out an oven baked chicken breast and american-style cole slaw. Tasting is their favorite part, and after Garry's class finished that day they had a sampler plate to eat. On Thursday we did my pizza (dough and sauce) recipe. After the boys finished moving corn to the upstairs bin that afternoon, Valera, Julia and Karina (they had been painting the fence) helped make the pizza for everyone (Nastya was visiting her father.) The group home families came and we ate outside, the kitchen was pretty warm from cooking. Garry and the students got in a couple games of UNO outside on the table, except Kolya who had to milk that evening. He came in and got some leftover slices of pizza for the milker ladies to try.