June continued with COVID craziness. Kids are still remote learning and its getting more and more frustrating. We are all anxiously looking forward to summer. The entire world is COVID crazy and we have been working hard to keep our business running without the ability to run our business through our normal channels. As mentioned before a large portion of our business is run with international rotators that come in to Sakhalin every 28 days - work for 28 days and then go home. We have rotators here for now 90+ days and patience are getting thin. We FINALLY this month received the Russian Federation support to bring into our first flight since March. This took so much work but we finally succeed and we were thrilled to bring in fresh able body workers to come in and give some folks here a break. They made them fly into Sakhalin with the below space suits (we still do not know why). The picture below is the team in Narita, Japan - before they departed for Sakhalin. When they arrived in Sakhalin they would not let them even enter the airport - and they sprayed their bags with some type of gel substance... but whatever they made it! First step post this pandemic in getting back to some type of normal operating practices.
The Sakhalin 1 team - on its way to save the day - I cannot imagine how freaking hot it was to fly in those unbreathable outfits
Due to the collapsing oil prices we are having to say goodbye to so many of our friends and neighbors here in Sakhalin. The kids are losing may of their friends and so are Justin and I. Its sad to send people home in the middle of this chaos but unfortunately we do not have much choice. One positive that has come out of it is that we are able to buy some new things - you can see below we were able to buy the kids a new trampoline from the Paces before they left. The kids left their trampoline at home so its nice to have one here in Sakhalin.
One of the best blessings this month is the birth of sweet Miles. He is perfect in every way and he is so precious I just cannot wait to squeeze him!
Homeschooling is continuing to be so challenging. The teachers send a bunch of work and think that our kids are capable of pulling their own work off the internet and just completing it and uploading. Well that does not happen in this house. Carter has been better at working independently than Riley. The kids are struggling to get our attention and really Justin and I are struggling to keep our heads above water at work. I must say I am pleased with how Justin and I have been able to keep up with the home learning. We are some days doing day school, many days doing night school and plenty of time extending the school into the weekend but hey, we are making it work. Someone in my house is crying most days... sometimes a kid and many times a mom but we are making it. We are healthy and have each other!
Carter home learning!
Riley set up her own desk - with a picture of mom and nanny for decoration
Riley in her virtual learning classroom
This is just what everyday feels like around here
We invited some friends over for some art classes
We are stranded on the compound so part of me feels like I am living back in time. We cannot drive or even get a haircut at this point. To grocery shop Justin and I take a wagon up the street and stock up on any of the limited goods they bring in. We are really lucky as our RPSG team (the ones that run the restaurant and the store) have really done a great job trying to make things better for us during this time. We have the most amazing team from India that rotate here (they too are stuck here) and spend their days trying to make things easier for us. Since the pandemic they have learned how to make homemade donuts, fresh pita bread, and even started buying many US stapes the expats miss!
Justin doing our weekly grocery shopping
They tried with the Cheetos - hot dog flavor was not an expat favorite
I have not had a Dorito since I left! Its the little things that make us excited at this point - the kids were thrilled!
The school really has tried to do their best with home learning and overall they have done well. There are a lot of family tasks that I could have done without - we really have such limited time these days but hey we will survive. This month we had a task to make Russian marshmellos. The entire school had to make them. It was messy and they didn't taste too good but we did enjoy making them.
My mixer
Riley and dad heating the ingredients
The kids making sure they are well mixed
Riley are you piping or eating?
There they are!
Riley in the middle of all this was running down the stairs and hit her head. Nothing like a shiner in the midst of all the rest of this craziness!
We are lucky we can still have delivery - and in Russia we can get fresh HUGE boiled crabs delivered to our door! This crab that is bigger than Carter was $30! We all ate on it for 2 full days!
No comments:
Post a Comment