Mushrooms

Hello!
This has been quite a lazy weekend for me.  I actually got up at around 9 both today and yesterday, so I feel special.  My host mom tells me she will teach me how to cook borshch!  Yesterday, my host sister Marina and her husband Lyosha went in the forest near the family's dacha and picked mushrooms.  Lots and lots of mushrooms.  There were some really gigantic ones, and so many different kinds I couldn't count.  Some orange ones were eventually deemed to be poisonous after much discussion and consultation of mushroom authority books.  Thank goodness for that!  Then they asked me what kinds of mushrooms we had in America.  I had to look through all the pictures of hundreds of kinds of mushrooms to find recognizable ones.  I saw the Champignon mushrooms, and morels.  The others I have no idea.  Yesterday we were eating prunes.  Lyosha told me what they are by saying that old people drink their juice a lot.  Got it: sliva= prune.  They are really tart!  I bought a phone yesterday too, a really cheap one for only 850 rubles.  Marina's brother Sasha had to bring my a sim card.  So now I can call people!  But only 50 rubles worth of calls.  Later they will tell me how to add money.  Sasha's little son doesn't quite know what to make of me.  He'll run into the room and then just stare at me with a little smile.  He's really cute, and can't pronounce tomato (pomidorka).  He calls them opidorka, which the whole family thinks is hilarious.  It was supposed to be sunny today, but there are still some clouds.  I don't think it has rained yet today, but it's still kind of cold.  The Dad and Lyosha went out hunting today.  I wonder if they will bring back a huge boar head to put in the shower room to match the one in the bathroom.  Lyosha says my host Dad is the best hunter in the country.
Well, I can't wait for school to start so I'll have stuff to do.  I'm over jet lag, I think, and ready to feel like I'm living here.