Sheep Guarding Llama

Friday.  Today I am in the office early and mostly working on Restoronix infrastructure stuff, like building out Jira servers and things like that.

Anton and I went out for lunch today at a really interesting seafood place with food shipping in from Odessa.  We got to see some Russian mafia eating at the table right beside us.  But our food and tea were really interesting and good.

By late in the day, we assessed Jira and decided that we all hated it.  So we moved to Asana instead.  Free and easy to use.  Everyone likes it and it is fully hosted so we don’t have to deal with it in any way.  Why didn’t we just start there?

I was in the office until late, so Max and I went out for falafel burgers downtown.

As you can guess, this was some seriously messy food.  Max got a “real” hamburger.

After dinner it was an Uber home.  Max had ridden his bicycle over.

I walked into the office this morning in Kiev.  Max ran out mid-morning for some errand but brought back croissants from Lviv Croissants, a local bakery chain.  It was smoked salmon, very good.

This afternoon, Dominica and the girls came into the office. Anton had gotten them presents for Ciana’s birthday, Lego sets! The girls were so excited. Anton’s wife came into the office, too.

Once everyone had arrived, we took an Uber to the local metro station and Dominica and the girls got to experience a lesser, but still really impressive deep Kiev metro station with the crazy escalators that go way, way down into it.

We went to a whiskey restaurant across town that was really good. While there the girls got more stuff and played all through dinner. We had a really nice time and Max arrived later on, as well. A fun way to celebrate Luciana’s birthday. Something very unique. She turned four in Spain, five in Kosovo and six in Ukraine! She will have such stories to tell.

The Whiskey Korner was great.  We all had a wonderful evening, and so much whiskey.

It was a great evening.  We were all tired when we got back home.  I found out tonight that my cousin Gwen and her husband Mike bought a home in New York and have moved there.  That was quite a surprise.  We just saw them, days before moving to Italy, and they were settling in nicely in Ohio.  Very surprised to find them in New York, of all places.

Today was a really busy work day for me. I got into the office, on foot as usual, early and worked heavily all day.  So much, in fact, that I had forgotten to eat before leaving the house this morning and did not eat all day in the office.

We had an AMA (Ask Me Anything) being run from the office today that I participated in and that took me late into the night.  So no dinner for me either.  Oh well, these things happen.

I got home and the girls wanted me to play Minecraft.  So I played with them before going to bed.

My baby girl Luciana turns six years old today!  She is growing up so quickly.  And she has already lived all over the world and she is still so little.

We made a run to the grocery store to get a birthday cake for Luciana.  Only Liesl and I went, while Luciana was still asleep.  We will surprise her with the cake later today.  We have a busy day planned, already.

In the office today for a few hours.  Then Anton, Max, and I went to Good Wine, the amazing grocery store that I mentioned a few weeks ago, to get drinks.  The bar had a waiting list so long that we decided to eat lunch in another restaurant that is also located inside of the grocery store.

Our lunch was amazing. By far the best food I have ever had or witnessed or heard rumour of from a grocery store restaurant.  Fantastic.

After we had finished eating, seating opened up for us in the wine bar in the back. This is where we had wanted to go all along.  The wine list is quite impressive.  Showcasing what a powerhouse, international city Kiev is.

Good Wine is really something to see.  People get all dressed up to shop here.  Women in dresses and heels, high end sports cars everywhere, men in suits, all just to go shopping for groceries!

After we got home, we broke up the surprise cake that Liesl and I had sneaked off to get this morning and had a little Ciana birthday party ourselves at the apartment.  So we had a little private party at the apartment.  Luciana has had such a wild and interesting array of birthdays over the years.

We are planning a bigger Ciana dinner birthday celebration in two nights.

Monday.  Very little to tell about today.  I walked into the office this morning and stayed very late, working till close to midnight again.  I find that I am super productive in the office here.  It is so quiet and the connection is so good and I have lots of space to myself to just focus and get things done.

Not much time left for us in Kiev.  Only about two more weeks and we will be on our way back to America.  This is our fastest turn around yet.  It is too bad, as we really like it here in Ukraine.  We all hope that we will be back here with great regularity.