Uncategorized – Mom's Travel Blog

Biglion is Russian Groupon

Posted on June 14, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

Biglion is Russian Groupon? Not so much!!

So I found a very nice website that I use to buy different services. I really love it. I bought several things for Mila for 50% off and for myself. But its so hard to pay for it. Why? Because I can’t pay for anything online with my american credit/debit card! I have no idea why and I did call to customer service to unblock my Russian transactions… Go figure! I also can’t pay with paypal… But I found the way. Its hard but doable. And I do want a discount, so I have to do this…

First, when you need to pay for Biglion you choose option to pay at the store. After that, you do the following:

-go to atm and get cash

-go to the store and pay for it

-get receipt from them and go home

-login to the website from home

-choose print the coupon and copy it to your flashcard

-go print it (in my case I actually have to go somewhere and print it)

ARGH!!!

And there you have it. Enjoy your 50% off

Dacha…

Posted on May 29, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

Dacha is simply a garden, usually with a little house that almost every Russian family have. When summer starts, family members go to dacha to plant vegetables. During 90s Russia had a horrible economic crisis and the dacha was the only means of surviving for some, and a lot of help for most. Now its used more for growing fresh vegetables and for grilling shish kebabs Russian version (gatherings with friend drinking alcohol is a favorite activity among many). Usually, older people like gardening, so many are at dacha during late spring and summer taking care of the garden. Depending on how rich the family is their dacha will look better or worse. Well, our dacha looks something like below average… My grandma still takes a very good care of the garden though. She is not that strong this year, so I had to go and help her out. So I did.

First, we woke up at 7, ate close to nothing and went to take a train (subway) to Novosibirsk main railway station. There, we took a big train to station Kochenevo. The train took us one hour and 10 minutes. After that we walked about 30 minutes to our dacha from station. Of course wealthier families have theirs dacha closer to town and use cars, but those are not us. I remember when I was a kid we had dacha in different place. Back then we had to walk 50 minutes to the dacha!

One other attribute of coming to the dacha worth mentioning is that when you there, you must change to old clothes and some old boots, so your clothes won’t get dirty and you can make home civil. It’s like a dress up for adults. lol. Look at me on the picture! 🙂

When we finally made to the dacha, we started with watering strawberry, apple trees and flowers. After that, we made 3 long garden beds. We planted carrots, beets, and onions.

Then grandma came up with the idea to plant potatoes. And we did. I was the only one with a shovel!! At the end, I was very proud of myself and asked my grandma to make a picture of me. After making a picture she asked me if I am proud to plant it. And so I said of course I am. She said that when she was younger her family planted 6 or 8 times of that. But hey!!

After all watering and planting we went home the same way we came. It took us about another 2 hours to make it home…

Matches are not for fire!

Posted on May 29, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

Matches are so cool to play with! And no, we are not going to make a fire! We threw away the box almost right away and used a cup instead. Count, sort, put in the box and out of the box. Make shapes! Jump over them. Throw them.

Trace anything!

Some other ideas:

The following 5 pictures comes from the social group on vk.com called “РАЗВИВАЙКА ♥ РОДИТЕЛИ И ДЕТИ В ИНТЕРНЕТЕ ♥”. The link to the group is: https://vk.com/club_razvivajka

Next picture comes from the book “Олеся Жукова.Ловкие пальчики. Книжка первых занятий.Москваб 2014г”

Colored Sand Art

Posted on May 29, 2015 by milajoy - 15,095 Comments

What a fun project to do with my 3 year old!! Mila loved it! We spent about 3 hours playing with it! And most of the time she was occupied and didn’t need my attention. And we have a beautiful piece of artwork to hang on the wall!

Other ideas: counting containers, making shapes, drumming on containers, name colors, “pushing buttons”, shaking the tray, stacking them. Mila’s ideas were “pushing buttons”, making shapes (she called it “puzzles”) and drumming. We also played with scotch and painted ith sand on the tray.

If you are interested to try those, here is several links to similar ones!

Simple sorting activity

Posted on May 18, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

You need containers of all kinds and lego. Egg container was nice to have. She sorted lego by color in egg container.

Hand shadows for fun!

Posted on May 18, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

All pictures copied from vk.com. There is n way to insert link to that page on vk.com

Dandelions, a scooter, pigeons, a sandbox…What else your 3 year old needs?

Posted on May 18, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

Dental cleaning in Russia

Posted on May 15, 2015 by milajoy - No Comments

Today I went to do my dental cleaning. And since I am currently in Russia I had to do it here.

The office and the personal looked quite nice. The price was ok- 1750 rubles which is 35 dollars. is My hopes were high when the person who was going to do my cleaning turned out to be the actual doctor, dentist! Surprise! Apparently in Russia dentists do cleaning.

I seat and waited. The doctor came and started with the exam free of charge. She told me how all my teeth are doing. She said that I have one defect filling and one filing is missing. Interesting! I remembered how in USA doctors can’t tell you what is going on with your teeth before they x ray. You also pay extra for the exam.

Than the procedure started. Doctor gave me glasses and shower cap. 🙂 I thought the glasses will protect eyes from the lamp, but what is the shower cap for?

Holly Cow! Right away, my face was splashed with who knows what. It felt like I am showering my face. Literally.T han the doctor rinsed it all with very intense gash of water. My tongue didn’t like it a single bit. It seemed like the doctor didn’t care what she was rinsing teeth or tongue. After that there was a pretty standard procedure except that she used floss that looked like a blue ribbon. It was very wide. Maybe she did use a ribbon 🙂 That won’t surprise me.By the end of the cleaning I’ve heard her ask her assistant to “bring her hedrogine peroxide”.”Again”. Hmm! She put it on a cotton ball and wiped my teeth with it. Is it even ok to swallow?? After that she said we are all done.

The final shock was when I looked at my face in the mirror. My face was covered with white powder like I did a mask or something. I looked terrifying! But my teeth were clean! The result was actually very good.

We found money!

Posted on May 14, 2015 by milajoy - 1 Comment

Today we had unexpected money lesson! 🙂 We went to the playground and Mila found money.O_O

We were very exited! We counted how much she has and I said she can buy anything she wants for it. It was 26 rub

She said that she wants ice cream. We went to the little kiosk close by and she pointed out to the ice cream she wanted, but it cost more than she had. Than she choose the ice cream that she would want for the money she has. She gave money to the cashier and got her ice cream!:)