Our First Day at the Dacha

Max and Anya worked with John and have now taken over the leadership of New Hope Center. We have gotten to know them over the last year through all sorts of different things - church, being involved at the center and Max was our main translator with our first landlady. They invited us out to their dacha today - a dacha is basically a garden - some will have a house and some do not - but either way they are usually somewhere outside of the city. It was a beautiful sunny day - the perfect dacha day so we headed out there after church. Their dacha is only about five minutes outside of the city and it is so beautiful! 

The garden: 

They have potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, gooseberries as well as various fruit trees, flowers and grapevines.

Dez digging in the dirt:

Max and Steve chopping wood for a fire to make shashlik for supper:

After lunch they brought out two hammocks for afternoon naps in the shade. August in the hammock with Katya (Max and Anya's daughter):

My view of the covered eating area from the hammock:

Building the fire for the pork shashlik:

Suddenly just as we were getting supper ready it started to rain! Fortunately it only lasted five or so minutes but the fire needed some protection in the meantime and Steve volunteered:

There were thunderstorms going by all late afternoon/evening but we just had the one short shower and then just watched the lightning and listened to the thunder while enjoying the sunset.

Steve and the boys in a field (with Jessie the dog):

To end the evening the boys got wheel barrow rides which they thought were just awesome.

It was so hard to leave! It was so peaceful as well as being an awesome place for the boys to run around and play without having to worry about broken glass or garbage everywhere - such a change to the parks and places we usually frequent.