Our new digs

As promised, here are some pictures of our new house, new family and the new view we have when we wake up each morning. Overall, it's been a very pretty fall, aside from a 2-week spell of very cold, rainy, gross weather at the start of October. Lately we've been having great weather; it's been pretty cold overnight and into the morning, but we've had warm days and lots of sunshine. Perfect weather for the changing leaves!

I still need to get some pictures of our new host dad and host grandmother, but since we've got shots of the kids (and that's mostly what our mothers want to see), I'll post these for now, with more to come later. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Our new house is across this bridge from the main part of town. It is situated right outside the old Russian army base, which is called the gorodok (little city, in Russian) by everyone here in town. This is the view from our back porch, with the bridge and my school in view.


This is the view from out the front door of our house. The wall marks off the start of the gorodok . Inside this wall there are a lot of apartment buildings, which were formerly inhabited by Russian soliders and their families, but are now lived in by other residents of Akhalkalaki. The base itself has just been abandoned, and there are lots of empty buildings, slowly crumbling away. Their windows seem to be favorites for target practice by young boys throwing rocks. Georgian police officers patrol the area to make sure people don't wander into the abandoned Russian military buildings and structures. The road seen in front of the wall is a new highway being under construction that will stretch to the Turkish border (about 30 kilometers away, apparently) and funded largely by U.S. foreign aid.


This is our new room. We have lots of space and it's a really nice, comfortable place to be staying!


Our new host sister, Lilit, is 15 months old and absolutely loves Sam. She loves playing with his glasses and his watch, but most of all, she loves listening to him play his guitar. Whenever he starts to play, she comes a-flying up, as fast as her fastest crawl allows, and either sits and watches him play, "helps" him play or sits and dances.


Here she is "helping" Sam play.


And a video of Sam and Lilit rocking out together.


Our new host mom, Armine, and host sister, Lilit, went out for an evening walk to look at the changing leaves and show me around our new neighborhood. They always really bundle up the little kids whenever they go outside, regardless of the temperature.


Our host brother, Shayan, dressed as his favorite superhero after school the other day to celebrate his receiving a 10 (like an A+ 100% grade) in school on Thursday. As a reward for the perfect grade, he was given a new pair of Spiderman socks, being shown off here.


After relaxing and showing off the socks, though, it was time for Spiderman to get back into action.


Later that day, Spiderman went to the chapel down the hill to light some candles.