Sledding!

After the New Year celebration and before the kids went back to school, we wanted to do a new winter activity with the girls.  We learned that there is a park in Astana that has cross-country skiing trails and a place where you can rent skis.  We decided to do that.

In the morning when we woke up, I made a big breakfast of biscuits and gravy.  I didn't do sausage gravy since we don't have pork sausage here, but I used hamburger and spiced it up a bit, and it turned out quite yummy.  I also used a bit different recipe for biscuits since I didn't have any shortening.

Once we were fed, we got dressed, got on the bus, and headed for the park.  From our stop we had to walk for awhile until we came to the hotel that rents the skis.  We passed several skiers on our way.  When we found the entrance to the building and the rental shop, it was closed.  We asked in the office across the way about renting skis and they said everyone was out doing training.  We went out and it looked like they were doing some races.  We were unsuccessful in renting skis.

Entering the river from the riverbank.

Walking up the river on the snow.

Undeterred, we decided to go for a walk on the river.  I was quite nervous about that - I am not someone who has ever spent any time on frozen water in general, and the thought of a river underneath me was disconcerting.  The fact that it was warm and the snow was quite slushy on top of the ice didn't assuage my fears!  We walked up the river for about half a mile and saw that there was sledding going on.

Sledding!

We came closer and saw that there were inner tubes for rent.  On both sides of the river landing where the tour boats embark from in the summer an ice path had been made down the bank to the river.  On both sides along the bank blocks of ice formed walls all the way down.

We rented four tubes at 500 tenge (about $2.80) each and the girls and us spent about an hour having fun.

We were glad that we found an exciting winter activity to do - even when our first plan fell through.

Climbing up the steps after a run down the hill

Sophie reaching the end of her run on the river ice.

Lexa on a run!

Sophie catching air off of a ramp!

Lina catching the ground after catching air.

Lexa climbing off the ice to climb back to the top of the hill.

Nika after a run.

Sophie Lexa, and Nika finishing a run together.

Yulia getting ready to take a turn - notice the ice wall to the left and right of the run.

 You can tell from Sophie's face that we had a lot of fun!

--Post written by Spencer--