Well, we have been married, um, almost nine months now. (:

This past semester, I took RUSS 101 Elementary Russian I (4 credits at the local university) and I got an "A". I'm signed up for II in the fall. She took two courses, "Financial Institutions & Markets" and "Public Speaking" and ended up with a "B" in both. Not bad since the business class was 400-level. She is applying for a Master's degree program in the fall, we'll see how it goes.

This weekend, my wife completed the MSF Basic Rider's Course. Tomorrow she will go to the DMV and upgrade her driver's license to include the ability to ride a motorcycle legally. By taking the MSF course, she will not have to take any additional tests at the DMV - she can just pay the fee and get the upgraded license.

In two weeks we take our first vacation as a married couple (Hawaii honeymoon doesn't count since we were there before getting married anyway). We're going on a 7-day rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. We'll fly from Alaska to LAX and rent a car, drive it around a few days, make the raft trip, do some more driving (including a stop in Vegas), hit Disneyland, the beach, and then come home. Should be a good trip.

When we get back, Natalia has her PADI Open Water Diver class, also at the local university. It runs a few weeks but isn't very hard. The hardest part is going to be getting her in the cold Alaskan water for her certification dives. (:

We rented a funny movie this weekend, called "Mail Order Bride" (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808519269/info). I laughed my ### off. If your Russian wife has a sense of humour about things, it's worth watching it with her. If not, it's still worth watching by yourself. (:

Cheers!
akdiver

Welcome back AKDiver! I was worried Interpol still had your house on E-Bay.

Sounds like things are going great for you and the wife. Glad to hear that. Can't wait to see pictures of this awesome vacation. Have fun!

Good to see you around again! I guess I will be taking a Russian course this fall too at USF.

Don't know if you saw my post a few months back about learning Russian.

The Russian stuff at princeton ( http://www.princeton.edu/russian ). There are 3 semester classes online, in pdf and mp3.

We saw that movie on TV (forget what channel) last month.

Well, a voice from the "gods" no less nice to see you back, it's been a while and so glad to hear that everything is going so well for you both. You really are a busy couple, how do you find the time to do the laundry

Thanks....but....IMHO, on-line learning is not as useful as in-person learning, esp. when you're talking about learning a language. Besides, since my wife works at the university, I get free tuition (:

Our university offers three years of general Russian language, plus various special courses (for example, this past semester they had "Verbs of Motion"). If one wants, one can take several other classes, blah blah, and actually get a degree in Russian (:

Cheers!
akdiver




We hire illegal immigrants to do the housework and the yardwork.

Cheers!
akdiver

Supporting the local economy!