Our "lovely" backyard.

Russia is really pretty during the winter and when the snow is fresh. Right now we are going through what I like to call the big meltdown. This winter we experienced record snowfall so as you can imagine the meltdown has been taking quite a bit of time. The last two winters it took about 1 week for everything to melt but this winter it has been slowly happening for 3 weeks already. Not only is everything dirty from being so muddy but unfortunately here in Samara people don't have any concern for keeping their city litter free. Even though there are trash cans around in a few places, people do not use them. They throw everything on the street, sidewalks, etc. It makes me sad to take the kids outside sometimes because it is all so dirty. One of my goals this spring is to clean up our backyard......well it really isn't "our" backyard but it is the area outside of our apartment building that I plan to beautify. Josiah is always commenting "EEEWWWW, dirty momma" when we are outside.