We went to Boston for the weekend to visit various friends and family; before going, we took a few pictures so we'd have something to show people.

Visiting at Aunt Janny's. It was great to see everyone!

Clara using Praxis Splasher.

We went in to Montpelier for some St. Patrick's festivities. Timothy got his face painted, then we went and heard some live Celtic music.

Clara's very pleased to try out Timothy's chair.

We've been reading Alice through the Looking Glass with Timothy. Today, a character challenged Alice to take 9 from 8; Alice replied that she couldn't. Timothy said, "that's because 9 is more than 8!" I asked, "Do you remember when we talked about negative numbers?" Timothy replied, without pausing, "Oh, yeah! It would be negative 1!"

As if to make up for last night's brilliance, Timothy this morning said, "There are two Montreals: one in New Hampshire, one in Vermont, and one in Canada." We'll have a little talk with him about geography. And counting. :-)

Today we went to Burlington to pick up our house guest, Oksana Yurevna Ilvicovna. She'll be staying with us for the next week as part of an exchange sponsored by Project Harmony, a group that "empowers individuals to create healthier communities through international exchange and training programs." This spring, they're hosting about a dozen youth advocates from Omsk -- a city of over 1,000,000 in Siberia, just north of Kazakhstan.

We saw a Project Harmony flyer a few days ago on a local community bulletin board saying they needed host families, and we thought, "That sounds like something we'd enjoy!" We called, and they still needed one more host family, so up we signed. Oksana doesn't speak English, only a little German, besides Russian, of course, so we're making do with our Russian/English dictionary and lots of pointing and drawing pictures, in addition to a smattering of German. She seems great with the kids, and has lots of energy. She's about our age, and has 2 kids herself, ages 8 and 11. This will be lots of fun!

Many Cabot School students went to Burlington today to compete in Destination Imagination. We took Oksana to see the competition.

Our friend (and wedding photographer) Elise Hansen visited yesterday and left today (just ahead of the snow); we've hardly seen her since our wedding. We had lots of fun!

We got about a foot here last night of very dense, wet snow. Nearby Morrisville received enough snow and sleet to equal 1.5" of rain. Montpelier got 1.15". Hooray! The drought isn't over, of course, but this will make a big difference.

Last week (week before?) we had many warm days and cold nights, so the sap ran splendidly. I think nearly as much sap was harvested during that run as all of last spring -- which was a particularly bad year. Once things warm up again here there should be a lot more. Farmers here are very happy about this!

Our Russian guest, Oksana, has been entertaining, helpful, enjoyable, challenging, and generally interesting. She knows about 15 words of English now, and we know about 8 of Russian, I'd guess. Coupled with her 40- or 50-word German vocabulary, we do pretty well.

She loves maple syrup and our mountains. She's stunned by the size of our house, the fact that I do any of the care for Clara at all -- or any of the cooking, -- and at the quantity of food in restaurants.

We fed her the quintessential American dish last night, (home-made) macaroni and cheese. She knew it instantly, and said they often have it at home. Somehow it's comforting to think of Russians at home eating macaroni and cheese! She was not familiar with broccoli, however. She had thirds, so I assume she liked it!

On this beautiful moonlit evening, Oksana made delicious pierogi for us. She said they're her family's favorite, which we can easily believe. Yum!

Sadly, Oksana leaves us tomorrow. She'll spend the weekend visiting New York with her compatriots here in Vermont, then she'll be staying with another host for a week. It's not quite good-bye yet, though: we'll see her at a farewell party next Friday.

Clara and Timothy had a blast hunting for eggs. There were plastic eggs hidden in the play room and the real dyed eggs in the living room. Timothy and Clara made these "egg-hunting hats" at story hour to help them find eggs.