Way-Back-Wednesday #17: Happy Birthday, Kym!

Today's Way-Back-Wednesday post doesn't go too far back because every picture available for today's post only comes from my time in Ukraine!  However, there are definitely some good pictures and stories to tell with the photo montage.

Meet Kym. 

also known as Kira, Ken, Kim, and a slew of other names. My fave: Kymmy Gibbler.

Kym Starno, one of my bestest friends in the PC, was in the training village next to mine.  I will never forget the first time my cluster group met her cluster group.  We had probably been in country a week and a half.  The Kozelets group (Kym's cluster) was coming to our village that day for a lesson.  As we sat in our teacher's apartment with the windows open, we heard a very strange noise slowly getting louder and louder.  Turns out the noise was coming from four incredibly loud and boisterous girls and their lone guy of the group, Matt.

The Kozelets group: Kym, Anne, Mary-Kathryn, Matt, and Maria in the front

I thought I wrote a blog entry about "how sweet the Kozelets group was" but I couldn't find it just now.  If I did in fact write one of those entries, at the time I was probably lying.  The first session that we were all together I didn't say one word the entire hour.  They were so overwhelming and so completely polar opposite my training cluster.  I can remember letting out my breath after they left that day wondering what the next few months would be like.  If someone had told me then that some of the Koz. group members would be some of my sweetest and closest friends, I would have laughed in their face.  But, I'm lucky to call them friends now :)  They are quite the bunch, that's for sure.

Back to Kym's birthday photo montage.  I have more awkward and embarrassing pictures of Kym and myself from ALL over Ukraine and Eastern Europe too.  I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  

First time in the Black Sea together--Odessa, summer 2011

Alien night at Camp Bereg, summer 2011

Kym, Lydia, Theo

Second time in the Black Sea together--Camp Bereg in Sergiivka, summer 2011

PEPFAR (HIV/AIDS) training w/some of our clustermates, September 2011

Kym, Jamie, Lydia, Mark, Maria

Sight-seeing in Kamyanets Podilsky, September 2011

EuroTrip with my work, Dresden, October 2011

Hello Kitty earmuffs.  Eurotrip, October 2011

Squash in Kym's apartment hallway, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!  There is so much that I love about this picture.  Words can't even explain it...Kym, Lydia, Matt, Mary-Kathryn

doing my "special" make-up on my birthday, December 2011

My New Years work party, December 2011

Olena, Lydia, Kym, Mary-Kathryn

Happy New Years!!! Celebrating in Kiev...2011/2012!

Matt, Kym, Lydia

Words can't describe the relationship I have with Kym.  She is the best travel buddy ever (she brings half the toiletries, and I bring the other half!), she has the most gung-ho attitude where nothing is impossible, and she can literally make me laugh uncontrollably just by being herself.  I feel like I've known her my entire life.  You are a blessing in my life and I hope you've had a happy, happy birthday :) love you Kymmy Gibbler!