Leila's birthday party

Leila, one of our first year students, turned 21 on Saturday. She was friends with our second year students, Yulia and Karina before they came here, so she lives with them at the girls house on the far side of the village.

Leila was deported this spring from Russia, where she had been living with her sister, who is a legal resident and works there. Leila is always early for work and class.  She has a great deep laugh, too.

 Luda and her daughter  Suesha, the group home family there, ma her party special, everyone was invited, and had to write a wish for Leila on a paper leaf, and read it to her before we went into the kitchen for open faced sandwiches and blini with meat or mushrooms, as you can see everything was lovely looking, and tasty, too. 

After eating (with so many people, some ate at the table and some in the living room)  we were invited to the living room for a special treat- the birthday girl sang some songs for us. She is a very good singer.

After three songs, we enjoyed playing a charade game. It was fun with some people guessing correctly often. If you guessed correctly then the previous actor told you what to do, so there was a lot of laughing.  Garry guessed correctly and did one, too.

Karina's turn 

I think Kolya's a mouse this time

Garry had returned from checking out the attic, and the answer was, yes, we need to insulate the attic at this house. With the rising price of gas for heating, we are checking into saving money, and Garry hopes to finish this and build two small bedrooms onto the front of the house for Luda's family this fall, so we will have two bedrooms to use for our girls there. Unlike the other houses, this one does not have a separate family area, just a bedroom for Luda, which will become a private sitting room that will be how they access the new bedrooms. The room that Suesha uses now will become a bedroom for the girls, so two bedrooms for girls will be off the living room in the photos.

After the charades, we were invited back to the kitchen for desserts, there were some delicious cakes, with hot tea and soda pop to drink.