Karen's Blog: New Blog

I've finally decided to start a blog. I've wanted to start one for a while now but kept thinking I would wait until I came up with a clever blog title and a great web page design. Even though I don't have either, I've decided to just go for it and hopefully I'll get creative as I go along.

With this blog I hope to share my experiences, adventures and even just daily life here on Sakhalin Island with family and friends. When I first got here in October last year I was writing individual emails to everyone sharing my experiences. I've since gotten involved in quite a lot of activities and volunteer work and don't have as much time as I did at first. This blog will hopefully be a great way to let you know what's going on and I'll try to post regularly.

We arrived back on Sakhalin Island January 7 after a wonderful three week Christmas holiday in Houston. It was really great to see family and friends. It snowed quite a lot while we were away, but up until this morning it hadn't snowed at all in the week since we've been back. I'm told that normally at this time of year there is a lot more snow on the ground. Here's a picture of our back porch taken out of the patio door yesterday afternoon. Seems like a lot of snow to me.

Last Saturday we went into town to do a bit of shopping and Max took me to see the ice sculptures on display in Lenin Square. He saw them when he was here before and I think they have them every year at this time. They are really beautiful and quite detailed. Max posted a couple of photos on Facebook but I thought I would share a few more photos of the sculptures here. The sun was really not in the best spot for the photos, but I think you can still see them pretty well.