Tuesday after lunch we left Kolya in charge and the entire staff left for a staff retreat. I had been busy planning meals, Victor found speakers, Garry and Victor had checked out the hotel complex a couple weeks ago.
We had the Crawfords, Nelly and all my bags of food supplies in the van, then stopped at Yana's where we picked up her and Vova, who had been making last minute arrangements for their animal care (somehow Yana didn't realize we were leaving at 12:30). Max drove his family, Yulia and the kids, and Victor drove the speakers out from Dnepro.
We arrived a little later than we had hoped, so the afternoon session started an hour later than planned but we discovered that the speakers were great, and I had dinner prepped so we could eat as soon as the meeting ended. Sloppy Joe's and potato salad with a chocolate cherry dessert.
It was the only sunny warm day of the retreat. We had met on a floating covered platform and ate dinner there and some of the group played games until the mosquitoes chased them in. Garry learned a new game called Fermer (Farmer) that I had brought but we've never played.
It rained overnight (and a couple times during the day Wednesday) but Garry and Victor had booked a cabin for the two meetings that day. We headed there after breakfast at the cafe (breakfast was included with the price of the rooms).
The decor was interesting and so were the sessions, we learned a lot about child development and how living in the orphanage system affects development. We had some interesting exercises to do, not just lectures. Jenya and Ira would take turns presenting the material in English, but write in Russian and the other one translating the material for our non English speakers. The first day Victor did some translating, but it worked better when they did it because they know the material. They had never done it in English before, but did an excellent job.
Lunch was ready to dish up quickly again, back on the tables on the platform on the water. We had ham from the crockpot and salads I had mixed up in the morning. Because the rooms had a fridge and a sink, but no way to cook, I had precooked some stuff and chopped and mixed. After lunch there was a two hour break, some people enjoyed a walk, since the rain had stopped, while I did some dinner prep, and a little crocheting.
We met back in the room of stuffed animals for two more hours from four to six. Then we headed back to where we had lunch, Garry and the guys cooked shaslik on a grill while I finished up the coleslaw and macaroni salads.
There were another couple rounds of Fermer while I was washing up the dishes. I had brought silverware and plastic plates and cups, and really enjoyed washing them myself. The girls at our house are so helpful that it was nice not to have any one underfoot for a couple of days! I went out with my crocheting but the mosquitoes were pretty bad after dark. Only Garry, Max and Yana were still playing Fermer, and they came in pretty fast after that last game.
Thursday morning Max's five year old daughter Vika wanted a photo with the taxidermy wolf upstairs where we ate breakfast, so I took one, she did the pose herself. When Max had told her that we were going to the forest, she had said it was not a good idea, there could be wolves. He told her there wouldn't be any, but...
there was this one.
Thursday morning it started to rain while we were at breakfast, and it was really coming down by the time Victor arrived from Dnepro (he drove in both mornings while everyone else stayed. We ran back to our rooms. Because of the rain we decided to meet in the Crawfords main room while ours was set up for lunch, just make your own subs with chips and brownies this time.
By the time the meeting wound up, it was twenty to twelve, checkout time, so everyone either came to eat and packed up or packed up and then came to eat. The guys started taking stuff out to the cars in the bikes with baskets and it was raining a bit yet. Our presenters wanted a group photo so the manager took some for us. You can see everyone but Nelly well.
When we got to the parking lot, we discovered that the mission car was parked in a big puddle so Victor used one of the bikes to keep his feet dry, and backed up so that Jenya and Ira could load their stuff up.
Garry was disappointed that the road was dry when we got to Dnepro on the way home to the village. However when we were almost back, it started to rain, and we got a good soaking after we got the van unloaded, so he was happy.
Our turkey eggs in the incubator were due to start hatching on Thursday, our son Luke's 28th birthday, and the day we were getting back. A couple had peep holes starting and one hatched overnight.
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