Birthday Week

I had a wonderful birthday week!!!! My sister flew in Friday and we celebrated with a birthday dinner at Outback.

Yulia loves her Aunt "Debbies". In fact, she cried for 20 minutes after we put Debbie back on the plane to Texas.

Paul and Yulia made the homemade birthday cake. First cake Paul Barry's ever made in his long-legged life. It was most tasty.

A weekend of birthday cake, shopping and movies. All was well until the Longhorns went down in defeat Sunday afternoon :(

SPRING BREAK THAT ALMOST WASN'T

What flooding in Missouri???

So, I talk to my sister Wednesday morning and she tells me that Springfield, Missouri, the direction we're headed for spring break, is flooding. I call Paul Barry. No problem he says.

Three hours later we're sitting in traffic. About an hour from Springfield, I-44 is shut down heading Northeast. Heading the other direction, the left lane was open only to 18 wheelers because of high water. The right lane was open for those cars dumb enough to cross. We told Yulia to hold her nose and we drove across. About half way across we decided maybe this wasn't a good idea after all and couldn't believe the highway patrol was allowing any traffic through. Well, we made it and went to Silver Dollar City the next day.

Pop and Yulia boarding the log ride in the freezing cold! This was the first ride of the day and Yulia was ready to "go home" afterwards.

Yulia and me on "Fire in the Hole." Only Colyn and Jon would understand!

The day at Silver Dollar City, we celebrated Yulia being in the U.S. 6 months:

Yulia continues to be such as a blessing to our family and fits it so well. At Silver Dollar, she was a real trooper on all the rides, including the scariest roller coasters. We decided we wouldn't give her a choice. She would have to ride what we rode. She did. Poor thing, never knew what to expect. Would like white as a ghost while riding and at the end of the ride exclaim, "I win!" We tried to tell her she in fact didn't win anything, but it became funny by the end of the day. She was exhausted that "we spent all day outside." Guess our 6 hour visit was the longest she's ever been outside. The things you don't think about!!

The latest funny sayings:

1. She was worried that Pop might be lost. I told her, "Don't worry. Pop's a big boy." She said, "Mom, Pop's not a boy. He's Mr. Paul Barry."

2. We've been reading an Easter story everynight. When we put her to bed tonight we were talking about Jesus rising from the dead. She wanted to know if he was coming to our house tomorrow(Easter). Think she's got him mixed up with the Easter bunny.

The second part of our trip we went to Big Cedar Lodge, just south of Branson. It was beautiful and a blast.

Many firsts for Yulia:

1. First spring break.

2. First boat ride.

3. First canoe ride.

4. First paddleboat ride.(First pink hat lost in the lake)

5. First lazy river(in the freezing cold)

6. First fondue.

Have a great Easter! Love, the Barrys.

Luck 'O the Irish!

Believe it or not, I've found a photographer to meet my needs, and the initials don't start with JC. One of my bosses recommended Photography Innovations, and I was quite pleased. They spent a lot of time with us and even did Yulia's hair, which of course, I'm not able to do. I think they felt sorry for us. As soon as I can get Paul Barry on the job, we'll be scanning copies of our photos and share them with everyone.

In the mean time, turn your head sideways to enjoy the Karen Barry photog job:

This is the Easter dress that I thought I would want in the pictures. But, thanks to our new friends at Photography Innovations, we went with the second dress choice....a multi-colored pastel polka dot.

Details to follow.

Easter Egg Hunt

Even though it was butt cold, Wentzville had it's annual Easter egg hunt. There were hundreds of kids Yulia's age.

There was also a "bone" hunt for dogs that afternoon, but we decided to do our hunting on the warm couch and watch THE LONGHORNS DEFEAT OU SUX.

BASEMENT

Seems all the folks in these northern parts have their basements finished.





Our neighbor is in construction and is finishing our basement. Once done, we'll have a big game room, media room, two bedrooms and a bath.

Plenty of room for all our Texas friends to come visit!

We'd love to have some company,

Paul, Karen and Yulia

CHEAP BIKE????

Let's just get right to the point. Forget going the cheap route. Forget paying $10.00 for a used bike. Forget driving an hour round trip to get said, used bike. Forget spending more money on $10.00 bike to install training wheels. Forget spending hours trying to get rusted tire off of said, used bike. Forget hours of sweat and dirty fingernails.

Just go spend $50 and get a new bike!!!!!

So, we were trying to be smart. She just needs to learn how to ride a bike, right? Let's just go buy a cheap used one. Once she learns, we'll get her a brand spanking new bike!

I know Paul spent a lot of money making this "cheap" bike rideable today. In fact, he won't even tell me how much money he spent. In his words, "You don't want to know." "It'll just make you mad."

But, must say, Yulia was all smiles when she finally got to hop atop her "cheap" ride....



Did I mention one wheel is purple and the other black????? Did I mention the chain has to be replaced every 30 minutes or so????




Oh well, Yulia's happy with her "new" bike!! Or she was the last time we saw her.....riding into the sunset. We'll let you know when she returns!!!!

It's a Moving Picture, Martha!!!

I've never known much about our new camera, or the computer for that matter. Somehow, Yulia(our budding computer genius and Hannah Montana Wanna-Be) and I figured out how to put a video on the blog.

You can't see it very well, but you can see how much better her English is getting.
Next time I'll go for better picture quality. My broadcasting ways seem to have left me.

BIKE(S)????

When Yulia first came to the US, she told us that she could ride a bike. That was the first of many things she told us she could do when, in fact, she couldn't. It hasn't really been good weather for a bike, but this was a great weekend with temperatures in the 60s.

So, Paul Barry and I thought it would be a great idea to go buy a used bike on which she could learn how to ride. After that, we would buy her a good bike.

So, Pop and Yulia travel over 30 minutes one way to obtain this $10 Huffy. Yulia was thrilled with her pink and purple bike. Until she tried to ride it. She is not the most patient of children, so she became very upset. Well, Pop decides he'll spend $10 more on training wheels. That's when he found out that he couldn't get the screws off of one side of the back tires. They seemed to be rusted in place. But, he can get one training wheel on. Yulia takes off quite happily until the one training wheel crushes under her weight. She was not amused, nor was Pop who saw his $10 purchase quickly escalating. So, Pop and our kind neighbor spent most of the day Saturday trying to get the wheel off the bike. Now the chain is broken and the tire is permanently removed from the bike.

So, after church today, our kind neighbors went to her Mom's house and got her old bike. Problem is it is a large 10 speed. It would be perfect for Yulia heightwise and sizewise, but was just too much for her. (We can't attach the training wheels to this bike.) So, she became very upset and had to be sent to our room.

Think we're just going to go to Walmart and pay $40 for a fully functioning bike with training wheels. So much for saving money.

Below is Yulia flying a kite with our neighbors before she had to be sent inside.

Saturday night, we attended a concert at our church where proceeds go towards Haitian Island Ministries. Money raised will go towards a Christian school and at least one meal a day for the children who are sponsored. Yulia was very interested in the kids and asked, "Can we help her now.?" So, when we got in the car we talked about how lucky we are. How we can eat anytime we want. Go to school. Have clothes to wear. So, when we got home we were talking about how many stuffed animals she has. These are just a few of them. She sleeps with at least 5-6 a night. Poor neglected child! It's amazing how quickly she's forgotten from where she's come.



Glad we had some good weather because snow and ice is headed our way Monday night. Guess we won't have to buy that new bike for a couple of days!!!