Our Christmas Trip to Utah - Part 3: Christmas with the family

Our last major adventure in Utah was the main one - our family Christmas Eve party.  Mom had the girls make cookies for the party.  Each girl made a big batch of cookies in a marathon of cooking on Monday (December 23).  They made gingersnaps, molasses crinkles, snickerdoodles, and chocolate chip cookies.  It was a cookie fest.  

Oma felt ill when she woke up, so she put Yulia and me in charge of making sloppy joe filling for the party. I took on that responsibility and accomplished the task.  Mican and Roger's family came in the early afternoon and we visited before going over to the church that Mom had reserved so that we could set up and have the party.

Lexa during her cookie shift.

Eating our Christmas meal.  Grown up table and kids table in attendance.

Burl and Shellee and Brennan came and Aubree and Jessen came a bit later.  Mican and Roger and their kids came. Yulia and I and our four girls were there. Oma rounded out the crowd for dinner.  Ben came over in time for the program.  Suzette and her family were in Boise and didn't make it down this year.

Sixty percent of the kids with spouses.

Ben conducted the program and we had some sharing of our blessings for the year, Nika and Lina played a few songs on the guitar, and Ben, Burl, and I sang "We Three Kings" accompanied by Jessen.  Lina was  finishing up all her requirements for the Young Women in Excellence Award that is being discontinued and playing for the family passed her last requirement.  We are very proud of her achievement and the fact that she buckled down and did most of it in four months.

Guitar sisters!

Uncle Ben conducting.

We Three Brothers

It was raining so we didn't stop and look at all the lit graves in the cemetery.  Apparently that is a new tradition.  We did drive by and look at all the pretty lights.

Lights in the cemetery.

Mican and Roger stayed over for Christmas eve and the next morning our stockings were filled and left on the kitchen table.   We opened our presents from Oma and each other.  After Mican and her family left to visit their in-laws, the girls opened up presents that they had gotten for each other. They all gave each other thoughtful gifts. The rain had turned to snow overnight and so we had a white Christmas after all!

Christmas snow!

Sisters!

Mayos and Sophie!

Christmas morning presents.

Yulia and Mican model the aprons that Oma brought them from Italy!

Pancake breakfast!

The girls give their presents.

We had a nice Christmas with the family!

Sunday morning, December 29, we flew home.  Ben came and helped drive us to the airport.  It was nice to spend some time with him in the car since we hadn't seen too much of him during the visit.  We got to the airport early and checked in.  After hanging out for awhile, we ate lunch at Qordoba and then went and boarded our plane.  We flew to Houston, which was fun since we followed a similar route that we'll take when we move to Texas this summer.  In fact Yulia took a picture of the pine forest area that we will be living in as we were descending into Houston.

We had a quick layover in Houston, a long flight to Frankfurt, a short layover there, and then a six hour flight to Nur-Sultan.  We arrived and got taxis and got home safely early in the morning of December 31st.  It was a quick visit to Utah, but a nice one.  We were happy to be here for New Years with Babushka.

Waiting for our flight in SLC.

Lexa and Mama in their Jazz gear!

Lina is super excited to travel!

Lunch!

Looking at our future home.

Some happy campers on the last flight home to Kazakhstan from Utah.

Utah Trip Part 4 - Christmas 2017

Somehow Santa Claus figured out that we were not in the far away land this holiday season and fit a stop at Oma’s house into his very busy schedule, or maybe it was because Mican’s family was there, and her kids were definitely on the “Nice List”. Either way we woke up to filled stockings that we found by the only Christmas tree in the house!

Morning discovery

Christmas morning with the cousins.

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The moment the kids discovered the "wad of money" from Oma!

Emma and Lexa

Oma

Rocky and Mican

 After breakfast, the Mayos left to celebrate Christmas with Roger’s family, and we continued with our family presents. This year the girls decided to do something like a “Secret Santa”. They each draw a name of one sibling for whom they were to get a present. They did it all on their own and they really put a lot of thought into picking the presents. And then we witnessed the most beautiful moments: the joy on the girls’ faces when they opened each other presents, was priceless! Each of them later said that they were most excited to see a happy smile on their sister’s face when she opened their present. I was a proud mama!

Sophie 

Sophie is opening her present from Lina

Lexa is opening her present from Nika.

Lina's excited face when she realized  she just got headphones from Papa (she was always complaining that the earphones on the planes fall out of her ears)!

Nika

Nika gets her pedometer from Papa. 

They all opened their presents from us at the same time. They all got Instax Cameras for Christmas, something they dreamed of but did not expect to ever get.

The rest of the day we spent watching Christmas movies and visiting with family that stopped by to wish us all a Merry Christmas. And the girls spent the day catching the memories on their new cameras.

To be continued...

Winter Holidays 2016

New Year has come and gone, and January is almost over! Where does the time go? Please, let me know if you find the answer! Time. Time is an interesting concept. I hope one day I can have some understanding of it, for now I am just grateful we have time together as a family wherever we are, wherever we live. And now we live in Kazakhstan!

Our winter holidays were calm and crazy at the same time. Most importantly we had time together as a family. Christmas was crazy because of all of the concerts and shows kids had to participate in on that day, so we decided to have our Christmas Eve tradition on Monday, December 26. Spencer stayed home from work, and we all spent the day together relaxing and playing Monopoly. We usually have Russian pelmeni (meat filled dumplings) for our Christmas Eve dinner, and then we talk about the birth of Christ and sing Christmas songs. This year we added a music talent show since we love music so much in our family and all four girls play some music instruments. We had a lot of fun!

Decorating our apartment for Christmas

Making paper snowflakes to hang on our ceiling.

Sophie and Lexa are playing duet during our Christmas Eve music show.

Nika and Lina are performing a song

We do all of the presents on New Year because it is when Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) delivers presents to the kids in this part of the world and because in the past couple of years our kids always had to go to school on Christmas anyway. It actually works out quite nicely. We usually spend the day playing games, cooking, making cookies for Ded Moroz (just like Santa, he also has a sweet tooth!), have our big feast and then have a “moviethon” when we watch Christmas movies both in Russian and English as long as we can stay up with a little break at midnight when we go outside and light sparkles to meet the New Year. This year the New Year Day was on Sunday and so we didn't stay up too late because we had to go to church the very next morning.  The time we spend together is precious and I hope the kids will remember it when they are out of our nest and on their own.

This year we had turkey for New Year's dinner. Turkeys are very hard to find here and when you do find one, it usually costs a fortune! We never had a full roasted turkey even on Thanksgiving here but I was able to find one right before New Years. This baby cost us $50 but it was totally worth it!

Our little Christmas tree after the kids have gone to bed.

New Years morning - always a happy time!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And may thins year you will have a gift of time, time with your loved ones, time with your family!
These candles were a present to Nika.  She made them out of a kit.

Ice Show - December 25, 2016

We got back from our trip to Tbilisi on the morning of Christmas Eve and were planning to have a nice evening with the family but instead we got a message from the girls' figure skating coach that they were needed for the last practice before the show that was taking place the next day. Our life got busy once again. Since we moved here two and a half years ago we became quite flexible in our expectations! :) So, on Christmas Eve we had to go to the figure skating practice, on Christmas Day we went to church in the morning, and then I dropped Nika and Lina off at a place where they had their guitar recital. Then as soon as they came home from that we all got dressed and went to the Children's Palace where our girls were participating in the big Ice Show.

Last year it was a fairy tale. This year the kids were divided into groups, and each group prepared a synchronized dance. Even the little kids who could barely stand on the ice, got a part, and it was fun watching them! All of the kids did great and even though I might be slightly biased (may be just a little bit), I think our group was the best. The common theme for the show was the fairytale of the Snow Queen. Our group played special forces, AKA the Snow Queen's guards. Nika and Lina had the leading parts. It was fun watching them! Afterward, all kids got a bag of candy, which is a standard present for kids during the winter holidays.

Snow Queen

I think they were playing flowers in the winter garden.

Raven

I think they were supposed to be crows but they look more like magpies.

Snow Queen's guards (special forces) are getting ready to perform.

I don't know who is who, I just know the one with the glasses is Lina!

I unfortunately pushed the wrong button while filming their performance and only recorded the second half of it (the second video). One of the other moms recorded the first part but not the second (the first video), so you would need to watch both videos to see the whole dance. Nika and Lina are the ones who are doing "swallows" (skate on one foot while the other one is extended in the air) at the very beginning

Gangsters

Kay and Gerda

Little mice

Trees

Snowflakes

Shamans (medicine men)

I am not sure who they were playing but they did the best jumps.

Blizzard

Special Forces all together after they got their presents

They can take on any task!

Going home. This is right outside of the Children's Palace.

A train with presents!

I love this time of the year! Everything is so festive! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!