Sunday morning

Gino Paradise

In an attempt to beat the late winter blues, we tried out the newly opened waterpark just outside Tbilisi, Gino Paradise. The facility is top-rate. The indoor portion is now open, but come summer there will be an outdoor area and a lakeside beach attraction (on the Tbilisi Sea).

Since we were there in their first week of operation, they had a photographer taking promotional shots and the kids managed to capture a few frames. Nice day off for me.

Birthday boy

We rounded up the usual suspects in celebration of two wonderful years with our sweet little one. He is first and foremost a source of great joy to every member of the family; but with that said, Trouble is his middle name.

We are racing into the terrible twos: it's a roller coaster of laughter, power struggles, shattered ceramicware, impish grins, spilled everything, sticky fingerstains, midnight escapes, newfound bravado, inside jokes, cuddling games, sweet dreams, exploding vocabulary, truck fetishes, and so so much more. He's growing up so fast we can hardly believe our eyes, but we are ever grateful for the precious gift of his membership in our family.

International Women's Day

Exactly 100 years ago International Women's Day was held on March 8, and it has been observed on that day ever since. It is a notable official holiday in much of Europe and Russia that acts something like a hybrid of Mother's Day and Valentine's day--although for some reason it never really caught on in the US (maybe because we already have two similar days). Our Tbilisi Branch of church held a special tribute to the women, and we were there. With flair.

A very sweet spread.

Helpers.

A full house.

Live music.

Two pieces of cake are clearly not enough.

Bakuriani

With an eclectic combination of modern guesthouses, crumbling Soviet-era resorts, and humble failing village construction that predates them both, Bakuriani is a family-friendly ski town, Georgian style. If you don't expect to be impressed, you might just get lucky. 

It has it's fair share of what has become a ubiquitous sight around Georgia: partially deconstructed shells of old cement buildings--somewhere along the way the funding ran out and the disassembly was abandoned. Literal skeletons of the Soviet past.

We were surprised to see men on horses galloping (!) through the streets of town. The children were, in fact, impressed. We think perhaps they were advertising?

But Bakuriani is nothing if not affordable, and we came to SKI. We found a nice old van parked at a muddy intersection, and they rented skiing/snowboarding implements to the entire family for the entire day for 45 GEL (that's a whopping $26), complete with mismatched ski poles (of which I was rather embarrassed until I remarked that I was not the only one). The lift tickets were literally pocket change, so you see we were able to accomplish what I thought was an impossible dream (of hubby's) on a serious budget. "Yay Georgia" moment.

The Veteran

The Freewheeler

The Trooper

The Comeback Kid

And the moral support.

Our little guy waited for us at the guest house with the nanny. He spent the day playing in the snow, watching horses run by, and napping. Not bad.

Dream big

On an unexpected stop at a petrol station, this little guy found his bliss.

The truck driver was very accommodating.

"Wawa! Beh wawa!"

(translation: Truck! Big truck!)

Everything was going fine until it was time to go. Nobody wants to get between a boy and his wawa.