All about Alex!

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time! It's about time to update on what Alex has been up to in the last 3 months!

First, Alex's mama graduated from the U once again with her Master's.

And we celebrated by going to Bangkok Thai with some friends (they had 2 for $20 at a time, 3 course meal, a great deal!)
Then we had a picnic in the Cottonwood Canyon with our good friends and Alex got to play with his friend Ava.

Alex's friend Alina came from Russia to visit for a few weeks.
They had a great time, as you can tell :)
Shortly after, Alex graduated from his preschool! It was such a great day! Papa took us all to McDonald's (Alex's choice) to celebrate :)


Alex even got his graduation certificate from his teacher Miss Angie.
Alex, Mama, Papa, Miss Angie, and Miss Stephanie.
One day we realized that Alex can read "Green Eggs and Ham" all by himself!
Then he had to pose in Mama's graduating gown :)
Isn't he so cute? :)))
We completed our backyard (nearly) and bought a stand-alone fire pit. We've been using it a couple times a week ever since (when it's not too hot)!
Mama got herself some really high healed shoes and Alex had to try them on. I'm surprised he was able to keep his balance... I sure struggle with it :)
The month of June we were living in "Seattle", well, not really, but it sure felt like it with all the rain we got! Alex helped Papa to pump the water out of our garage...

Then the sunny days came and... we had more water in front of our garage, but this time it was thanks to Alex :)
Papa ran his first ever 5K and did very well. Mama and Alex went there to support him (despite the early hour it was held on a Saturday).
It was actually a very fun morning and Alex even got a cool balloon from the Santa Claus (I wish I had a picture of him..)
Then it was Alex's BIRTHDAY and he turned 5 years old!!! Toys R Us helped us celebrate :)

Alex got a cool Jeep for his birthday that he now rides almost every day.
He got really good at riding it, now I'm not even afraid of him turning 16 any more (well, almost..)
Papa enrolled Alex in T-ball this summer.


I'm proud to say that Alex was one of the best on his team (genes must have played a role in that) :)))
Then the birthday PARTY day came!!!
The kids had a lot of fun. There were presents.
Nana and Pa's present- a cool soccer outfit that says Hungary on the back. Alex LOVES this outfit!

There was a slip-n-slide where most of the kids had a lot of fun.
And, of course, there was a cake! The theme of the party was "firemen".
This is 4 months of our lives in a nut shell. Alex has had a busy summer so far. He also takes swimming lessons and will start soccer in August. Another big event coming up is Alex starting kindergarten this year! I can't believe how grown up my little boy is now!

Keep tuned in, more fun and excitement coming up from the Gudgell household very soon :)))

Earth day: living green.

Today is Earth Day. By the way, a little lesson in history for those who don't know, today is also Lenin's birthday. This day was celebrated in Russia (Soviet Union) every year and we, as school children, had to wear white aprons with our uniforms.
During breakfast I came across a section of the paper that talked about living green. In honor of today's holiday I started thinking: how can we improve our lives by living green? I started skimming through the articles looking for answers. After a few pages I realized that we already do, and have been for a long time, living green.
We are a shoe-free household. We recycle everything. We garden pretty much organically. We buy organic as much as we can. We bought a front-loading washer last year that saves a ton of water every time we do a load. We turn lights off when we don't need them. We use energy-saving light bulbs. We walk to Alex's school, local parks, and neighborhood cafe. In the winter months we lowered our thermostat by 2 degrees and just used warmer clothes around the house. In the summer months we use our fans in the bedrooms. We have eliminated a lot of our plastic containers and bought glass instead. We've been cleaning our kitchen sink with baking soda instead of harsh chemicals (it really does work, try it!) and using environmentally-friendly cleaning products.
Granted, there are still many things we could improve on. There is that gas-guzzler Expedition (I love you, Expedition! I really do.). We can eat even less beef, although we have been improving on it. We could rip out all of our carpets (I can't even begin to write what's wrong with carpets!) and replace it with bamboo floor. We could even plant more trees, only if Dave would let me rip out that grass of his :) There are many more things I can think of that we could do to live a simpler, greener life. 
But for now, I think we're doing pretty great! And the funny thing is, this green movement of mine doesn't come from the "popular" notion in the US. It's built within me from birth. Living in Russia was always a simple life without excessive chemicals, appliances, and gadgets. My grandma collected cow poop and made her own compost for garden. We cleaned our dishes with water and a little "hozyaistvennoe" soap (a natural kind, but smells weird). We walked everywhere and my family didn't even own a car until I was 10 years old. We ate everything on our plates, grew our own food, turned the lights off (my grandma taught me that), took our shoes off in the house, and spend the majority of our summer outdoors in the nature.

Hey, the communists had it right, after all!

Ok... this one's weird :)

Ok, this may come as no surprise to some people.... but I like to grow plants. Actually, I should correct myself. I like to grow just about anything that will grow. Do you consider mushrooms to be plants???

Well, my adventurous being decided this year to order a "mushroom growing kit" from a reputable online gardening store where I usually get my organic fertilizers.. I had a perfectly good coupon "get $25 off any order". How could I NOT use it? No matter the financial situation in the country. Blah, blah, blah. So I did. I ordered 1 mushroom growing kit. Imagine my surprise when I got the package and there were actually TWO kits!!!

I followed the directions precisely and, just like stated on the package, in about 3 weeks I got.... mushrooms!

Ehh, WOW! MUSHROOMS!!! At first I thought "what the (blank) is this???" Each of the 4 of the mushrooms was about 4-5 inches across!!! Have you ever seen mushrooms THAT BIG!?? They were supposed to be "white button mushrooms"...
Well, if you know me at all, you won't be surprised to learn what I did with these GIGANTIC mushrooms... Fried them up! Dave was brave enough to try them with me for dinner even though I warned him that if I started to hallucinate after dinner to please call 911 immediately! Mushroom ingestion can be dangerous as I learned growing up in Russia and going on numerous "mushroom hunts" with my family.
I'm pleased to announce that the "mushroom ingestion" turned out a success. They were delicious and we didn't even get a stomach ache! YEAH!!!!

In the next few days we actually got some "normal" mushrooms growing in my magic kits! Can't wait to fry them up!
And to finish this weird post, this is a picture of my mom in Russia through skype. Alex misses her so much that he took a picture of her while we were talking on skype.

By the way, she says hi to everybody and their dog! (you know, she's VERY friendly)

Only in America...

Currently I'm doing a rotation with the trauma service at the IMC hospital. On my first day there on monday, which ended up being the President's day, I came at 0630 in the morning and parked without any problems right in front of the building. No problem! Little did I know that today I would come to a big fat STOP sign and a smile of a nice old man who informed me that I cannot park in the parking lot next to the building but I can go ahead and park across the street. From there, he informed me, a complimentary shuttle will take me back to the building. Ok, I thought, crap. Being 0630 in the morning and being in the lowest mood of the day, which is not unusual for me at 0630 am, I mumbled under my breath. I can't guarantee that there weren't any profanities said under my breath... It was a cold, dark, and humid winter morning after all...

I turned around and parked across the street, came out of my car and immediately got confused... I was still VERY close to the hospital, just a short walk from this new (but not favorite) parking lot. I pondered taking the shuttle but it made me almost laugh. Why in the world would I wait for 10 min for a shuttle when this walk couldn't take me more than 2 min? I bet I would walk there faster than a shuttle would drive to the same spot. I decided to test my theory. The shuttle was actually idling next to me and waiting for more passengers. I started walking and I saw the shuttle leave his parking spot. I didn't run but I wasn't slow either. I got there right before the shuttle doors opened up before the hospital door. I won!!!

Here comes my dilemma. I can see how beneficial the shuttle can be for people who can't walk far or who are disabled (but why would they park in that far parking lot anyway?). But I can also see how this shuttle service is evil and contributing to the high obesity epidemic that is growing out of proportion in the US. I've lived here long enough to just accept the way this culture is but it never fails to amuse me how Americans are single-handedly, and by choice, putting themselves in the hospitals with heart disease, out-of-control diabetes, and multiple complications of obesity. I don't try to say that people in other parts of the world are not getting sick but I do have something to compare to. My life in Russia as a teenager.  We ate white (yummy) bread, high fat dairy products, fried foods, full fat everything, lot of chocolates and desserts, but we walked EVERYWHERE. 

Wake up, America! Walk! DO NOT TAKE THE SHUTTLE! I urge everybody to get off their butts and start getting yourselves healthy. Do not become one of those patients that I take care of, who smoke their whole life, sit on the couch and drive cars and then are amused by why do they have diabetes? Why do they have high blood pressure? Why can't they lose weight even though they're drinking skim milk (what is it anyway??? colored water???), eat fat free chips, and low calorie cookies? Why? Why? Why?

I'll tell you why!!! It's all the shuttle's fault!

Get up and get moving!

Happy New Year 2009!

2008 has come and gone. We were all very happy to see year 2008 become a history. It brought us much grief and many tears so both Dave and I sighed with relief once the ball dropped in NY city. 2009 finally came and with it come hopes for a better year, better luck and hope for no more medical emergencies.
We spent New Year's Eve at our friends' house eating good food, opening white-elephant gifts, and watching Russian movies all night.
We also took some not-so-professional family photos.
The only member of the family missing is Bessie; she must have been hiding and we didn't have time to look for her, so she didn't make it to our annual Christmas tree photo session. O well. It's her loss...
We didn't make any New Year's resolutions this time. The only hope we have is that this year goes smoothly for all the members of the family and we don't have any more "excitement" in a bad sense of that word, if such exists.
We feel very lucky to have each other and we hope for good health this year!

Thanksgiving- turkey dinner

This was the first Thanksgiving in 10 years of our marriage that I cooked the whole (very traditional) Thanksgiving feast by myself, with the help of my family and friends, of course :))

We had a small but very fun group of friends over. Thanks, Kim and Eric for bringing delicious yams souffle and wild rice. And thanks, Zarochka and Nico for bringing the drinks.

To my great surprise, everything turned out pretty well, including the turkey. It actually wasn't dry at all!

After we stuffed ourselves, we spent some quality time downstairs playing Wii Fit and Sports.

Eric tried to break our records on Wii Fit but was only successful in breaking one of them! He promised to be back for some more challenge :) However, with me being the queen of Wii Fit it won't be an easy task for him :)

In the evening the Sullengers stopped by and guess what we did? Come on, take a wild guess??? Yeah, correct, we played Wii again.
Alex had a lot of fun visiting with his cousins.

The next day was Dave's birthday and we went out to Pei Wei for some casual dinner with the Sullengers and the other Gudgells. Then we all came to our house... Guess again what we did???

We ate pies! And yeah, of course, we played some more games downstairs, except this time it was rocking to the familiar music.

I thought Jeanette got pretty good at it. She looks like a Pro!
Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy Birthday Dave!!!