Cats Like to Swim

It's been a busy week for Yulia. We went to Pumpkin Prowl at the St. Louis Zoo Saturday. This picture is of Yulia and Mom in front of a waterfall at the zoo.(Wearing Halloween hats!) We're proud to say the Longhorns did pull out a win over Nebraska that day!(I'm throwing that in for our friend Merle)

We really enjoyed riding the merry-go round at Pumpkin Prowl. All proceeds from the ride go towards conservation of the animals featured on the carosel. ( Pop, our photographer, enjoyed the merry-go round because there was a Bud Light stand nearby. )

After Yulia jumped fully clothed into the Gulf of Mexico last month, we decided we'd better teach her how to swim! She had her first swimming lesson this week. Problem was the only other participant, a portly 14 year old boy who's deathly afraid of the water, wasn't moving quickly enough for her. Not the most patient of children. (Sounds like she has Mom's patience!) At the end of the class, the students were to jump in without any floats, feet first. Yulia chose to do a race-type dive. (Sounds like Paul Barry to me!) Of course, no diving is allowed in the beginners class, so we had to properly scold her although we were really proud! Where did this Russian child learn how to dive? Anyhoo, she loved swimming and is ready to go back. You may see her in the Olympics one day!

Halloween turned into the big sugar-overload day. Yulia bounced to the car Halloween afternoon, showing off her take from the school's fall party and toting more candy than the Hershey Factory. Since she'd already eaten most of it, Mom decided to let her continue eating it. Bad idea. First of all, the teacher had decided that Halloween wasn't a good excuse for getting out of homework, so getting Yulia to attend to her hour's worth of work was a challenge. After a grueling task of writing the months of the year, she decided to throw her candy at Mom. She was promptly sent to her room where she fell asleep. When she woke up, her mood wasn't much better. Seems the cat outfit she'd been wearing to bed, to the post office, attempting to wear to school and counting down the days until she could wear was suddenly NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You see, it was too tight, too itchy and she just wasn't going to wear it. Of course, Pop said she just wouldn't get to go out trick or treating. Mom said, "Yes she will. I paid 25 dollars for that outfit and she's going to wear it and she's going to have fun!" So, after much hissing, scratching and back arching, our little kitten who'd now turned in to a tiger prowled around the neighborhood with Pop and Kozmo. She was ready to return within 30 minutes and was just as happy passing out candy. We're still not sure if Yulia has ever been trick or treating before. She said she had, but we're still not sure how much she's understanding. What we do know for a fact is we've hidden all the candy and it will be given out in small doses!

Scary cat, hyped up on sugar!

Our sweet kitty! About 98% of the time ;)

Hope everyone has a good week!

Love The Barrys

Yulia's Orphanage

We were able to travel to Yulia's orphanage so she could tell her friends goodbye.

This is a picture of the girl's play area. As you can see, they are singing karoke. Maybe that's why Yulia loves to sing and dance. Note the aquarium in the bottom left. Not bad for an orphanage we thought!

Yulia's bedroom. She shared with five other girls!
Her best friend, Anna. Summer Mittig hasn't shown me how to turn the pictures right-ways yet!
Don't know how this picture got here. You'll just have to enjoy it again!
The orphanage director was very excited to treat us to lunch that day! She's on the right. Our driver "Jim" is to my left. I'm hiding him. Svetlana is the translator we've had on both trips. We love her. Lunch was okay. We started with borscht soup which was excellent. Then a mystery meat and potatoes. Drinks(a juice) were served last. The director told us the children eat 6 small meals a day! Maybe that's why Yulia is always hungry.

Time to say good-bye! The orphanage director to the left and the deputy director to the right. They were very loving people. We're keeping in touch through e mail.

Hope everyone has a good week,

Love, Karen, Paul and Yulia

Fall in Missouri(And Texas)

First of all, let me thank Summer Mittig, speech queen, for setting up my blog site. All I have to do is type in and insert pictures, so hopefully I can do that!

Things are going well with Yulia! She's started the 5th grade here in beautiful Wentzville, Missouri and is doing well. She is pulled out an hour a day for reading and an hour a day for English as a second language. Her classroom teacher has had all of the Russian adoptees in Wentzville and is well versed. In fact, she speaks a little bit of Russian! Yulia enjoys school. Her favorite part of the day is getting ready for school. She spends a lot of time on wardrobe selections and "makeup." Could have a little diva on our hands!

I'm not really sure how to do this blog thang, so I'm just going to stick some pictures in. You'll see Yulia on her first camping trip, camping under the Texas State Flag! She was very excited to sleep in a tent and enjoyed her first sleeping bag ever. There's also a picture of Yulia, Pops and Kozmo on a camping hike. Kozmo would like all of her friends in Texas to know she's very happy in Missouri. Really likes the wooded areas and cooler temperatures!

For my sister's birthday in October, Yulia and I traveled to Galveston for a family reunion. You'll see from the pictures how my nieces Julie and Courtney have grown. It was great to see my aunts, only two of five sisters living from my Mom's side.As you'll see from the picture, Yulia loved the ocean. Just walked right in the first day. Fully clothed and NO, she cannot swim! My sister and I had to buy her a swimming suit the next day. She'll be starting swimming lessons here in Missouri next week.

Yulia and I visited a pumpkin patch close to our house. This picture is of us going on a hayride. The pumpkin patch pictures just couldn't quite compare with the patches we were used to in Texas.

Hope everyone's doing well. We're(Paul says he's not getting involved) are going to try and update this blog site at least every other week.

Love to all!