Category: Updates

It is a big deal here! It is a National holiday in Ukraine and everyone makes sure to treat women especially well on this day. My morning began with Ben taking care of the kids so that I could sleep in, a cup of coffee brought to me in bed when I woke up, and then a yummy pancake breakfast that he cooked (he even shared the last of his Canadian Maple syrup with me)! Wow! Thanks Ben, you are an amazing husband!

Maybe you have asked yourself why Ben and Ang bought a new car, emphasis on new. We’ve asked ourselves that same question a few times too, but after a whole bunch of research we’ve settled the matter for ourselves. We thought you might be interested to know why.

Options:
a) bring in a car from a foreign country,
b) buy a used car here, or
c) buy a new car here.

a) We looked at bringing in a car from Canada. After all, shipping is only around $1,000. We also looked at buying a used car in Germany and driving it over. Both seemed like great options until we found out about registering it here. We could bring it in as visitors but we’d have to leave the country every 2 months. Not practical because the nearest non-visa border is no less than 6 hours away. What about registering it here? We only have a visa to stay here 1 year. So we’d actually have to register it every year at the price of around $1500. Ouch!

b) Well if we can’t bring in a vehicle, why not get a friend to help look for a used vehicle? Great question. We talked to many friends about buying a car here. They all gave us many warnings. Car prices are high because there are so few used ones. Ukraine became independant only 20 years ago and since about 1995 there has been an increasing middle class population, many buying vehicles for the first time. There isn’t enough supply and they go light hotcakes at dealerships. Of course, we’ve driven on the roads here and the potholes are big (Winnipeg roads don’t even compare). Lastly, people warned us about the drivers. You know how people drive when they’re in a rental car? Well imagine the whole city was driving rentals… kind of gives you the picture. So when you buy used here, you really don’t know what you’re getting! As well, in the first few years, while we are still learning Russian, we won’t have to worry about learning auto mechanics terms like carbeurator and brake fluid while we sit on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck.

c) So after listening to lots of people who live here, both foreigners and locals, we felt it was worth a look at a new car dealer. After looking at over 5 different car types, we came to one conclusion – we can only really afford a compact car. So we checked out 2 Renaults (the Logan and the Symbol), the Skoda Fabia, the Hyundai Getz and its cousin the I20, as well as a VW golf and our final pick, the Nissan Note. The cheapest car came in at a little over 13,000. All the other cars, including the our Nissan Note came in around 15,000 (except the VW).

All told, a lot went into this decision. We moved into a cheaper apartment, saving about $300/month so that we could afford a car on the same budget. The apartment is a little farther from work but in the long term having a car will create opportunities otherwise unavailable to us.

Hopefully, seeing some of the information that went into this decision has helped you to see why we chose a new car. If you have some questions, we’d love to hear from you. Just send us a quick email and we’ll get back to you.

We don’t usually blog about our kids except on their own personal pages, but today I feel that Cassie deserves the spotlight (or maybe Mommy does). Today we started with Potty training. You may be thinking, ‘What?! She is almost 3 (in May) and she isn’t potty trained yet?’ It is true! Not because she hasn’t wanted to but we have been in the midst of so much change over the past year that it just hasn’t been the right time. Now that we are in our own place with no plans of moving we figured it was the right time. Cassie is currently having her afternoon nap and this morning we have had 2 accidents and three successful trips to the Potty. We made a big deal of it, with balloons, candy, a doll who is also going to the potty etc. Of course today Jay also decided to get a little sick, clingy and get into the paints (see pictures) so it made it a little more challenging, but we won’t give up! Thank you for celebrating with all of us!

Ben always says I like to nest. It is true, being comfortable in my home is important to me. So this past week we have been unpacking, hanging up art etc.
But we had a problem. The door to our room used to have a big piece of glass in it, now it just has a big hole. So cardboard and measuring tape in hand I managed to fill in the hole. Now we had privacy- but it was ugly!
Well, idea of all ideas, I decided to cover it with all the pictures that we have with us. Now it looks awesome!
BUT the problem is that many of our pictures are out of date- we are missing spouses, children, pictures of some of our close friends. So your homework of the day is to go to our contacts page, click on the link and email us a new updated photo :) Thanks!!! (Let’s see how many of you actually do this…I’m curious). By the way, if you click on pics you will see lots of the door including a few good oldies!