2010-2011 Class Photos

I thought I would do something a little different this year, rather then just puting the kid's school pictures, I would show you their class pictures. We are very thankful for this school, the teachers and all the friends our children have there.

Karina (2nd from left front row)

Timothy (Right end of front row)

Daniel (2nd from left middle row)

Sonja (middle front row)

Yakutsk

20 Oct -10c

1st Snow:(

Moscow Zoopark

Last weekend Daniel and Sonja were away so we took Timothy and Karina to the Zoo. All our kids and Gudrun have been to the Zoo before on school trip, but this was the first time I was there and i have to say i was pretty impressed, it's a nice zoo.

Autumn is Here

This is the tree right outside our window, (behind the tree) in the fall it turns redish. That Gudrun standing behind the car she has just returned from the supermarket and is waiting for me to help her carry the bags inside.

Rollerblading in Victory Park

A few week back, on one of the last nice, sunny and warm weekends we went to Victory Park. The kids wanted to go as we had not been this summer, and as every other time we had been there, people were on rollerblades and skateboards, our kids want to bring their rollerblades. So they all scooted around on their rollerblades for a while.

Our Karina is 9 today

(sorry for fuzzy photo, blame the phone)

Tombstone & Boothill

I was in the US a few week back and got a chance to go visit some friends in Arizona. They live near the town of Tombstone and it's graveyard Boothill made famous in many old western movies but mostly because of Wyatt Earp and the gun fight at the OK corral. I love westerns growing up so it was fun for me to be in Tombstone.

Travelling

I had to do a lot of travelling this summer and thought I would show you a few photos from my travels

In June while in Ulan Ude I got to travel with some friends to a village about 160kms to the east.

This was taken in the city of Kyzyl in southern Siberia as you will see from the sign they consider this to be the "Centre of Asia". I was out there visiting some friends in June. To get there we had to drive over a mountian pass in the Sayan Mountians and according to what I can make out the pass reached almost 1800m above sea level. I also made one other trip but have no photos from it.

Rain:)

The heat wave has finally broken, this morning we woke up to rain and 10c, feel nice to be cool again. Wednesday it was 33c and they were saying on the news "this is the very last hot day of the year" maybe there were right, but we will have to wait and see!

Clear skys!

Wind has changed direction and cleared smog!

Smog is back!

Smog clearing 4pm

40c

Smog

You may or may not have heard of the forest and peat fires that are burning all across Russia. All thought not threatened by the fire, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, or in this case the wrong direction, the city gets blanketed with the smoke or smog form these fires. So we are forced to stay indoors and keep our windows closed. This wouldn't seem too bad if it wasn't the fact that we are also in the middle of a prolonged heat wave with record temperatures. (It hasn't rained in almost 2 months) Today we are expecting it to be 39 or 40c and without an air conditioner it gets quite warm inside. But there is a little glimmer of hope on the horizon as we expect temperatures to drop back to around 30c in a few days. The photos were taken from our windows around 11am today.

Ireland Wettest July

Wettest July since 1950:

Twice the average amount of rain fell last month, with parts of the country having the wettest July in 60 years, it has been revealed.

.Meteorologists revealed that, while it was warm and mild during the month, it was also the fourth successive July in which rainfall was above normal.

However, dry and sunny weather earlier in the season prevented the flash flooding which devastated parts of the country in previous years.

Met Eireann's monthly weather report showed between 15 and 21 wet days were recorded nationwide, with residents in Claremorris suffering their wettest July since records began there in 1950. Thunderstorms were also associated with heavy rain around the middle of the month.

Elsewhere, the report revealed that wind speeds were also above normal, peaking at Belmullet on July 4 when 115kph (71.5mph) was recorded - its monthly highest since 1988.

While maximum temperatures were close to normal, sunshine totals were below normal everywhere.

Met Eireann said Valentia Observatory's sunshine total of only 85 hours was among the five lowest for July in more than a century and was also its lowest of any month so far in 2010

Tempertures for the next 5 days

You may need to click on the picture and zoom in to read it, but this is the forecast weather for the 5th Aug to 8th Aug.

Year of Records.

July Hottest on Record
03 August 2010
The Moscow Times

Last month was the hottest July in Moscow since meteorological records began 130 years ago, with the average temperature exceeding the norm by 7.8 degrees Celsius, the weather web site Meteonovosti.ru reported Monday.

The previous July record was set in 1938, when the average temperature exceeded the norm by 5.3 C. Last month also saw the all-time record for Moscow beaten on July 29, when the temperature reached 38.2 C.

Summer Splash

We been having a long hot spell with temperature shooting up over 30c so this weekend we decided to go look for a place we were told we could swim. Well as it turns out it is just outside the city close to where we live. So Saturday we went out and swam for a while and today we went back and met us with some friends and spent the morning swimming. Unfortunately as it was very hot we stayed a little too long and now a few of us are a lot redder then we would like. We are planning a few more days out here as the forcast for later in the wekk is tempertures up to 35c