The photos are thumbnails, so click them to see them full sized!

The weather didn't quite cooperate in May, which was unusually cold (we had a significant snowfall on May 20!).  So Cameron's birthday was celebrated at home.

Here we are with the Hills in our apartment.

In Russia, as in the rest of Europe, you are expected to throw your own birthday party and invite all of your friends.  Since both of our birthdays fall during times of the year when there is usually glorious weather in this part of the world, this tradition coincides nicely with another Russian tradition -- going to the country to make shashlik, which is a serious picnic, often fairly vodka-soaked, with meat roasted over a fire.

This year in June there was not a single day with temperatures less than about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and we don't remember that there was a single day of rain.  Glorious!  We went, as we often do, to the bank of the Moscow River at Fili.  Those of you who attended our wedding might remember this place as the last point reached on our river cruise, before we turned around to head back into the city.

Elvis enjoys these as much as we do.

Natasha's friend Irina (from law school) tends the sashlik.

We have had a few martinis by this time.

Our friend Yegor (and Sawyer & Co.'s staff attorney) got married this summer.  The reception was held at the MiG fighter jet factory, where Yegor's aunt works.  Cameron had to keep his mouth closed, as foreigners are strictly prohibited from entering the territory!  For some reason, Cameron spent much of the evening arm-wrestling (winning every time, by the way) and arguing with a monarchist named Zhuk, the son of a noted historian who, among other things, keeps at home all of the relics from the Tsar's family's last days in the basement of Ipatev's house in Yekaterinburg.  In the end he was invited to join the monarchist party (as a token foreigner?), but didn't feel the next day like going to their rally (he was nursing a headache, wonder why?).

The summer was especially glorious.  On weekends we often went for long walks in our neighborhood with Elvis.  A new Mexican restaurant opened on Arbat, with food quite up to what we were used to in Atlanta and nice atmosphere.  We often came here with Elvis, who was allowed to come in with us and lie under our table, where the waiters brought him scraps from the kitchen.  This place -- called Pancho Villa's -- is near the far end of Arbat just across the street from the house where Pushkin lived with Natalya after their wedding.

Here we are on one of our walks on the Old Arbat, which has been remarkably cleaned up, and is now wall-to-wall sidewalk cafes.  How Moscow has changed.  Well, not everything of course.  You still have to watch out for pickpockets and, especially dangerous, bands of Gypsy urchins.

Since we don't have a country house (unlike almost all other Muscovites), we have the chance to choose where we go on weekends.  Here we are on the bank of the Moscow River, where we made shashlik with Natasha's friend Irina and Cameron's friend Viktor (who had a brief and disastrous romance -- no more matchmaking for us!).  

Cameron was chopping wood for the fire, and the hatchet slipped and slashed his foot to the bone!  Viktor took him to the hospital, where he was given stitches and a tetanus injection in short order.  Speed is one of the few achievements of Soviet medicine.  Not wanting to spoil the party, he made Victor take him right back to the river.  Here he is just after getting his stitches, taking intensive martini therapy in lieu of other painkillers.  Shortly after this photo was made, the skies opened up with a terrific downpour, ending the festivities.

Natasha couldn't stand to spend her whole summer vacation waiting for her workaholic husband to come home from the office, so she went off to Turkey with her mother for a week of vacation at the seaside.  That is Natasha reclining at the top of the salt waterfall.

A very beautiful place indeed, near Antalya on the Mediterranean coast.  This place is near the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean; Lebanon and Israel are just down around the coast from here.

Natasha and her classmates rented a riverboat (just like the one on which we celebrated our wedding) to celebrate the end of another hard semester at law school.  The roller coaster at Gorky Park is visible in the window.

Natasha and her friend Irina.

Natasha at the Golf Ball, Moscow Country Club.

Jim Hill and I.

This year was terrific.  Not quite like being home with your real family, but close.  We were invited to our friends Jim & Pamela Hill, both Texans, who really spared no trouble in doing a real American Thanksgiving.  It was 20 below zero Celsius and we built a bonfire in the yard. They invited students from the Conservatory who gave a concert of violin duets.

Jim & I.

Natasha basking in the glow of the fire.

A break between courses.

Natasha & I. 

It was 20 below!  (Celius)

Mixing the martinis.