The boys are using the blackboard now to leave us some hints. The chocolate, ice cream, Wii games and money are expected but "Patches for Tiss' pants"?? Why is it that every pair of pants he has have rips in the right knee, is his right knee sharper than the lef...

Tiss goes to volleyball training twice a week at the Riga Volleyball School.  He didn't want to go today, had a tanty before getting in the car.  I ask you:  who wouldn't want to go to volleyball when they were greeted with this lovely mural everytime they entered the building? (that's only a detail above... you should see the whole thing).&nb...

It's all misty and muddy in the country at the moment.  We were there on the weekend and went for a long ramble through the fog.  Hid our first geocache, amongst the oaks, looking over the water.  See who else is brave enough to trudge through the mud, and find it under a mossy rock...

About ten years ago I bought an old album at the local pawn shop.  I normally stay away from the old black-and-white photos on sale at antique stores – because although the images are often fascinating, they are also totally removed from the context of family ancestry or historical setting, and I find the ethics of ripping apart old family albums to make a few dollars totally odious.  But I couldn’t stop myself from paying 4 lats ($8) for this album.  It was an instinctual thing...

It's spring break this week. We can't go to the country because there is no one to heat it before we arrive, and the water pump is broken. So we are at home in Riga. I can't get the boys out of the house no matter how hard I try. They are totally enamoured with hanging out in their pyjamas, playing Star Wars Lego and Star Wars on the Wii, pushing each other over, tickling each other and laughing hysterically.  Gotta love those dudes. They have recently discovered Weird Al Yancovic and...

Latvia's got a bit of a "contemporary image crisis" happening at the moment.  Our international image is somewhat formless, and our "branding" specialists don't seem to know how to market our talents.  Are we scandinavian, stylish, cold, eco-friendly, or what? How much traditional Latvian culture should we bring into the mix? How do we preserve aspects of traditional Latvian culture in a world which is getting smaller by the minute, and more homogenous in terms of culture, language...