Getting ready for church and Kulig

The girls before church sporting their Sunday dresses they got for Christmas
Proud Papa

Count Emily! She is obsessed with numbers
Em's favorite book at the moment is Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox (great children's book). I put her to bed with some books, went back in a short while later to turn the light off and this is how I found her.

This past weekend Ben and I went on a "kulig" which is a Polish traditional sleigh ride in the forest. It was planned and arranged by CLO so we went with a bunch of folks from the embassy. It's one of those things that we're still trying to figure out if we had a good time or not. For one, it was REALLY cold.

This guy on the accordion was pretty good. I felt bad for him though playing with his bare fingers. He'd play, then run over to the fire to warm his hands and then keep on playing.

Enthusiastic suckers before the ride... it got VERY cold...
Top notch sleighs... used for canoes in the summer?

Our fearless kulig leader. He was kind of strange, if you can't tell by the pic. He would run from sleigh to sleigh, jump on, and sing traditional Polish songs at the top of his lungs... quality entertainment included in the price.
Our friends the Hrncirs. They are going on their fourth year in Poland. They're also military, have four kids, and have been stationed in Ghana, Syria, Germany, and now Poland!

It truly was a beautiful ride in the forest at dusk... fresh snow on the bountiful trees. It grew dark and the stars came out bright and beautiful. I was kind of freaked out we'd get attacked by wolves because I read some Russian novel about a marriage party traveling in a sleigh caravan that got attacked by a pack of wolves and like only one kid survived. I can't remember where I read it... does it sound familiar to anyone?

At this point my camera went dead, but we finally arrived at our campsite where they had prepared a pretty puny fire (we had been anticipating a bonfire). All 31 of us huddled around trying to unthaw. Most of the adults had alcohol to deaden the nerves... Ben and I got half a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate. We did roast kielbasa (Polish sausages) and enjoyed hot bigos (Polish stew) and good ole American smores. We really dreaded the sleigh ride back to the bus knowing how cold and long it was going to be. We all loaded on the sleighs, the horses took off at a gallop (Ben fell off his seat) and we were back to the bus in like 30 seconds. I guess we had done a huge loop. It was kind of funny because our horse and sleigh overshot the bus and he couldn't turn around, so we had to hike back to the bus. It would have been faster to just walk from the campsite. We all got a pretty good laugh out of that. Guess you had to be there.