Tanya and the queso

The queso dip at Laredo Cantina Tuesday, May 19.

Tanya invented her own way of using the tortilla chips to keep the dripping queso at bay. She said she'd prefer to just scoop up the dip in a spoon. Well, duh!

The obligatory chain-restaurant brownie concoction. This one has cinnamon ice cream a la mode and a ceremonial pouring of the "brandy butter" onto a searing-hot cast-iron fajita plate. I'm not a sweets person, but did have a bite and found it was very fresh and tasty.

It gets real caramel-esque. I detected neither cinnamon or brandy taste in this thing, but the brownie itself was nice.

The group minus me: Tanya, Volodya, Alex.

Valiya's 40th birthday

Valiya celebrated her 40th birthday Sunday, May 17, with dinner at her beautiful house. Here she poses with Sasha in a photo taken by Alejandra.

Friend Marina and Valiya & Sasha's oldest son, Yan.

Yan serves up the katorshka (potatoes) to Ale, Victor, Tanya and Volodya.

Our little family: Tanya, Laura and Volodya. Ale took this photo also. Here's more of her photos on Facebook.

Liliya trying to fit Marina into her hair styling schedule at the Galleria. It takes two phones to do it, but she's a master.

Bistro night

Dinner at Cafe Express

Sisters

Tanya loooooovved this fountain.

Anna gets engaged

Anna got engaged to Sasha while Tanya's been visiting. Here they are on vacation in Crimea. Sasha is a musician.

These photos I'm guessing were taken in Kiev.

Easter, Russian Orthodox style

Dying the 6 dozen eggs with dyes bought at the Russian General Store in Houston.


Packing up the pascha cakes and dyed eggs to take to church for the priest to bless.

Marquise pretends he's an American Easter egg no one found on Easter Sunday.

Before going to church. She went with our Houston friend Marina, also an Odessa native.

We took the pascha cake and eggs to our friends, the Nezhinskys, for an orthodox dinner.