Odnoklassniki и примкнувшие

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Martha's Vineyard Vacation

Perfect summer vacation - we swam, kayaked, boogie boarded (mostly on sand), went fishing (no luck) and crabbing (big success), flew kite, watched countless hours of Olympics, biked around the island (Leon did), saw our friends, braved rain and high seas (Grandpa and Grandma did), ...

Here is a link to some pictures... and more pictures to come...

Evidently, the video above was inspired by this:

Happy Birthday, Max!

Max's birthday bash this year was attended by the record 24 people! And it was just on a weekday Thursday...

Grand Opening of Dr. Lakowsky Office!!!

www.drlakowsky.com

Lego Army Gone Mad

Another short film by Max

Happy Birthday, Mom / Grandma / Lita !

from Bella

Kayaking

There is a new kayak rental place by the old bridge over Saugatuck River. Vitaly F. who works there told us about it. Max and I gave it a try on Tuesday and today we came back with Leon, Alex and Dennis. It was like an instant vacation in the middle of workday. The part of the river that connects with Long Island Sound is quite wide. While it's close to home we never went there, because there is no public access from the shore pass the point when we took off. But on the river in the kayak, we were on our own, free to explore whatever we wanted. We are definitely coming back!

Pictures are here

Nerf War

See pictures from the Nerf War organized by Max for his friends here

Grand Day Out

Max, Leon and I spent Monday shamelessly enjoying the tourist traps of San Francisco.

Weekend at Alik's

Last weekend, Max, Leon and I were visiting with Alik. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Father's Day

Leon continues the fine tradition of forgery and fakery with this handmade gift certificate

Bella's Sweet 16

Bella looked awesome and it was also wonderful to see how much she is loved and respected by her friends.

See pictures from the party here.

Mia's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Mia!

See more pictures from the party here.

Max got this "пилотка" from Misha and Ira who are visiting with us this week.

Blue Man Group

Last night, we went to see Blue Man Group performance at the Palace Theater in Waterbury, CT.
Maryasha M., who is on the show crew, gave us the backstage tour and presented Max with the drumsticks used during the show. The show was a flawlessly choreographed and performed eccentric fun.

We are very proud of the grace and professionalism with which Maryasha manages her formidable duties back stage. The troupe moves to a new location every two-three days, as the show criss-crosses the country in the six(!) huge eighteen-wheelers full of equipment.

See more pictures from the show

Max won two awards today - the Best Comedy Performer (for his performance in Spring One Acts last week) and the Thespian Award (for his performance over the past three quarters).

Spring One Acts

Max in St.Luke's Middle School Production of "Spring One Acts".
Click here for more pictures.

Fish

Yesterday, after months of planning and coordination of schedules, we met with Andrey and Eva in the city, where we polished off this four-pounder.

Vegas

Last Saturday, we met our friends Piskunovs in Vegas.

What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas. Except for this photos from the Hoover Dam.

Vampire Deer

Last year, the deer ate all the greenery around the house. This time, we bought some magic potion - check out the ingredients (dried blood, garlic, cloves...). It will keep the vampires away for sure, but what about deer? Will see about that...

Irene with Sheldon Fetissov

Best in Show

While at the New York Autoshow few weeks ago, Leon took part in the competition on the race simulator. Turns out, his time was best in show. He is now expecting a windfall of promotional goodies from Ford.

Cinematography

Max's rendition of Aunt Rhody Boogie

P.S. Дрожащая в середине клипа камера, это, по всей видимости, кинематографические эксперименты насмотревшейся Виктории Гай Германики Иры.

Photography

Due to weird temperature fluctuations - a week of a very warm weather followed by weeks of cold nights, the blooming this year is especially long... The flowers stay on the branches like being refrigerated.

Here is the photo gallery link. 

All shots are from local streets.

Осторожно Тигры

Here are some pictures that Max took on his school visit to the Bronx Zoo about a month ago. Interestingly, the sign "Осторожно Тигры Рядом" was only in Russian...

Rip Current

After an uneventful day at the beach, kids went to cool off at the pool with a waterslide. Leon got a bit too enthusiastic going down the concrete chute one too many times, ending up with an epic and embarrassing rip on the back of his trunks. His "back" is ok, though this pretty much concludes the watersports part of the trip for him.

Before...

... After

Few more pictures from Irene's phone added to the album here.

Discovering San Juan

Blue stones of Old San Juan

In the morning (our morning here starts at noon), we went for a swim, reinforced ourselves with a fresh coconut hacked by an enterprising local right from the tree above, and headed for San Juan.

Finally! After four days in the banana republic of the East, we discovered modern, clean and fast-paced city. We spend rest of the day walking the streets of Old San Juan, which is so beautiful, we couldn't get enough pictures of it.

Fort San Cristobal

See more San Juan pictures in the updated photo album here.

We liked San Juan so much, we went there again on Thursday.

Walk in the Park

On Tuesday, we got adventurous and headed for the much hyped, "one-and-only" rainforest. What we found at the end of the serpentine road looked more like a run-down Disney park then a wild nature preserve. The waterfalls were small, their basin filled with murky water crowded with wet, semi-naked (and mostly ugly) tourists posing for pictures. The forest was no more dense or challenging then our local Cranbury park. And of the animal species, we saw only one stray cat (the home kind).

We had an authentic lunch of some fried crap on the side of the road in a shack that looked like a post-war Sarajevo.

Roadside lunch

By the evening, we were done with exotics and went for a proper dinner in a standard American resort not far from home.

At the resort's convention center

More pictures added here

Going Local

On Monday, we drove to the beach, advertised as secluded and pristine. Well, it wasn't neither, but not too bad. The water was not as warm and clear as it was same time of the year in the neighboring Dominican Republic. More like at home in August. The beach facilities, which charged a dollar per person, were of a third world quality. We wanted "local" - we got plenty of it.

Somewhere on the Internet, Max picked up that a toy store at the nearby mall sells a rare edition of some Lego thing. It became his raison d'etre for the whole P.R. trip, so after the beach, craving a bit of civilization, without much fight, we gave in and drove to the mall. When after sitting in traffic for an hour we got there, we didn't find any toy stores. So, we drove around for another hour (including a horrifying "shortcut" through a one-lane mountain road). Then we came back to the same mall - you know, to make sure that the toy store didn't somehow came into being while we were balancing our car on a cliff. The toy store was still not there.

Because going to the same mall twice was not embarrassing enough, on the way home, we stopped by a Wallmart, where we bought some crappy tea and a loaf of Wonderbread. Let's see if we can get any lower.