First Month of Quarantine (COVID-19)

One of the last normal things that we did before the world exploded with coronavirus was Nika's birthday. She turned 15 this February and as usually we celebrated in our little family circle. She wanted to have tacos for dinner and tacos she got!

Tacos with homemade flour tortillas! Yum!

Her sisters got her this shirt for her birthday and we got her a FitBit. She also got some money from us and from her Babushka. All of the gifts made her happy. She's been talking about FitBit for a couple of years now and was trying to convince us that she absolutely needed it to motivate her to exercise more and to show us that she walks a lot more steps a day than either Spencer or I. Well, three months later she is consistently in 3rd place (I guess FitBit is not a good motivation after all). 

Nika picked pumpkin pie to have for breakfast (yes, we are that crazy family that eats pies and cakes for breakfast!) and brownies for her birthday cake (pictured here). Yep, she's got a sweet tooth. No, actually she has something like 28 sweet teeth!

And the very last normal thing that we did was celebrating 8th of March (Women's Day here in this part of the world). It was also the last day we gathered together as a branch of our church. Just four days later Kazakhstan had its first official case of COVID-19, and two days later they shut down all of the schools in the country as well as all of the extracurricular activities for the kids (a sad day for our kids as they loved doing their sports and music). A few days later the government put the two major cities, Nur-Sultan (where we live) and Almaty on a complete lock-down with other cities to follow. The students at the universities had to leave campus and move to online learning. Our campus became like a ghost town in a matter of a few days. Spencer joined the rest of us at home and finished teaching the rest of his school year from our bedroom. For many weeks we were not allowed to leave home except for grocery shopping or pharmacy or to take our dog on a short walk. We took our dog on many short walks throughout the day so we could also take one of the kids out along with the dog (kids under 18 could not be out without parents). 

Celebrating 8th of March and not knowing what chaos that week is going to bring.

When they first announced that our city will be on lock-down, the very next day grocery stores saw crowds like never before. People were stocking up on grains, flower, shelf-stable milk, toilet paper and other necessities. The craziness lasted only for a couple of days. Amazingly, the stores stayed well-stocked during the entire quarantine unlike the stores in America.

On Sundays we held (and are still doing it) our home church meetings with just our family since we couldn't gather together with other church members. We improvised  by using medicine measuring cups (I am not sure why I was saving those over the years but they came in handy at the time of crisis) for our sacrament.

Ready for home church.

Nika and Lina both finished their Personal Progress Program in Young Women (usually girls would finish this program in their junior or senior year of high school but when Nika and Lina learned that the program will be discontinued, they worked especially hard to finish it much earlier)  and received their Woman in Excellence Awards. Lina got hers back in January but Nika received hers on March 8th (the last day of our official church meetings).  Here they are both sporting their medallions.

We've played a lot of these and other games together in quarantine.

The very first week they still allowed kids to be on campus without parents supervision, and since the girls could not do their track and figure skating any longer, they exercised outside. 

That first week we also took walks together with the girls once a day. The spring came to Kazakhstan very early this year (usually we still have freezing day temperatures at the beginning of April) but this year snow started to melt by the middle of March. This is what was left of NU Winter Park that they built this year for the first time.

Outdoor skating rink. You can't see it in the picture, but there is a big puddle in the middle of it.

Yuki likes this kind of weather!

She could totally be NU mascot!

Our crew.

We had to adjust our lives while in quarantine and one of those things is that we had to do a lot more cooking. But everyone pitched in and we learned to cook a lot of new dishes. The kids are turning into amazing little chefs, and Spencer and I ... well, we are turning into very creative big chefs! :) 

Here is Sophie and Lexa working on their dessert which is in the picture bellow...

Baklava!

Nika continues to perfect her baking skills and now she is a pro at making the best cookies ever that just melt in your mouth...

... Brownie Cookies

Lina continues to specialize in Asian cooking and during quarantine she tried and successfully created a few Asian dishes. Our absolute favorite are these ...

Chicken (and later she did spinach and mushroom) filled Chinese dumplings. 

I do not have a picture of Spencer and I in the kitchen but here is Spencer's new dish that we often have on Sundays - Moroccan Stew!!!

And as for me, in the last few weeks I learned to make a lot of new salads and breads, one of our favorite being these pretzel rolls.

Our life in quarantine was different, but good.  We were healthy and happy and still had a job and access to food, clean water, and communication.  We were not planning on spending the spring this way, but we were making the best of it.

To be continued...

Crazy Winter in Astana

We had a pretty crazy winter over here this year. It had been unusually warm for Kazakhstan (only about -4 F) but very snowy and blizzardy. They would shut down public schools including the first year of college (2-year colleges, not 4-year ones) every time there was a blizzard which came down to about 2 weeks of missed school total. Then there were lots of heavy-fog days and icy-road days during which elementary schools were canceled as well. Now the schools are shut down due to coronavirus. More than ever I am happy with our decision to homeschool though we will be going back to public school system once we are back in America this summer (hopefully!).

Anyway, I thought I would show you some Astana winter scenery from this season, so you can see for yourself what we've been dealing with! Here we go...

Here are our twins with their best friend, April. My mom knitted matching hat/scarf combos for all of my kids, and April fell in love with them. So, naturally my mom made a set for her too. The pom-poms are made from my old hat (a hare fur hat) that I wore when I was 4 years old! Sophie is not wearing her scarf here because ... well, because it was a warm winter. :) 

Going to the mall across the street in their heavy winter coats.

My favorite scenery is when the trees are all dressed in white after a foggy morning, just like here!

On our evening walks on campus with Yuki, our own little "fox".

Look at all that snow!

This is what happens to sidewalks after a blizzard the day before. It takes the city a few days to clear them all (this particular one stayed like this for about 2 weeks). This is on our way home from church one Sunday.

And this is our window on the morning after a blizzard. Side note: we live on the 7th floor!

Lina by the Children's Palace where kids go to all of their extracurricular activities. After every snowstorm the snow is plowed into these big mounds and left like that for weeks until the trucks become available to take it outside of the city. 

Here is Lina by one of these mounds.

And here are the mounds by our apartment on campus. On February 1st we went to a hockey game between our National team Barys and a Russian team Avangard that was played in a big hockey arena about 2 bus stops away from our campus. We usually walk there because it only takes about 20 minutes to walk. It took us a bit longer this time because we had to do it through high snow.

Walking to the hockey arena. The snow on these sidewalks was about 2 feet high.

Nika and Lina goofing around.

We are big fans of our Barys team (the name of the team means "snow leopard")

Us, the old folks.

Every time Barys scored, the fan section would unroll that huge blue jersey. It was a tough game but we won!

Here is the walkway in front of the university. It is a giant skating rink!

And here what the roads turn to after warmer temperatures and a blizzard. Ice!

Going to church on Sundays.

Going from church on Sundays (twins being twins).

Snow drifts on campus after a blizzard.

During one of the blizzards we went to take our dog out. She did not want to be out and neither did we! We are so grateful for that skywalk you see connecting our apartment building with the university. It makes winters bearable here.

The snow and ice on the sidewalk is so high that it makes this normal bench "ground level".

Love those pine trees!

Snow level in one of our outdoor basketball courts. Now even a 5-year old can make an easy basket (if he can make it to the hoop)!

Lina and snow on campus

Lina wanted me to take a lot of pictures of the snow this winter since we are moving to Texas this summer and the only snow we will see there will be when we look at our pictures from here!

Winter Wonderland!