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...

Trip to France - Day 4 - Versailes and Paris

We ate at McDonald's near the metro station every morning in Paris.  They had special French breakfasts (with yummy hot chocolate and little pastries) that was cheaper than the other options around. On our last full day in France, we loaded up on a big breakfast because we had a big day ahead of us.  We were going to Versailles.

To get to Versailles we took the train.  We figured out the tickets and the trains without too much trouble and had a nice ride out through the city to Versailles.  We arrived there at about 10:00 in the morning when things were opening and there was already a huge line.  We had decided not to go in since we had been in lots of palaces in Russia and had seen some of the remnants in the Louvre.  We came for the gardens.  

Riding the train (notice the ceiling!)

The front side of the palace. 

The gardens were huge. We really enjoyed them and walked a few miles on the paths there (all for free).  We were a bit sad that the flowers hadn't been planted yet, so it was still quite barren, but it was peaceful and beautiful and historic.

Looking down from the palace at the gardens and the lake.

Looking down toward the garden and the lake. Men cleaning the fountains to prepare them for the summer.

Walking in the gardens and forests.

Looking back up toward the palace.

Ducks swimming in the fountains/pond nearest the lake.

Selfie at Versailles!

Foxy  lady at the upper fountain.

We realized that the Paris Temple was close, so we looked up how to get there and walked about a  mile from Versailles and found the temple.  It is built to blend in with the landscape a bit, but was still beautiful.  The best part was that it has a large garden inside the compound (there is patron housing, some missionary housing, and a visitor center as part of the compound) that was very beautiful.  The flowers at the temple were growing and the garden was peaceful and beautiful.  We went in to the visitor center and learned about the challenges that had to be overcome to build the temple in France. 

We hadn't come prepared to do a session so we didn't go inside, but we were very glad that we made the stop.  It was a highlight of the trip.

Front entrance to temple complex.

Christus statue inside the garden.

Enjoying the garden and the flowers.

Returning to the train station after our Versailles adventure.

We stopped for lunch at a little tourist place, and Yulia bought a few souvenirs and then we got back on the train to head into the city.  We got off at a different station where we caught a train to go to the Paris Catacombs.

The Catacombs ended up being one of our favorite attractions. The bones of millions of people were moved from the cemeteries of Paris during a period of time.  The bones were placed in old limestone mines underneath the city.  The bones were stacked very carefully and the overall tone and experience was one of respect and peace.  It was interesting being so far beneath the city in the mines.

We waited in line for about thirty minutes before we got in, and spent about an hour walking through the Catacombs.  We exited in a different part of the city and had to walk for a ways to get to the metro system.  We caught the metro to our station.  We stopped by a little pastry place and bought some treats before heading to our hotel where we rested for awhile before going out to our last meal in Paris.

We ate at a little restaurant about 2 blocks from the hotel.  It was modern cuisine focusing on roasted meats of various kinds.  It was a yummy meal.  We were the first ones in the place again (we got there at 7:00) but it was filling up when we were leaving.

These metro trains rain above ground (elevated trains) and were on regular tires.  It was interesting.

Inside the corridors of the old mine going toward the ossuaries.

Stacked bones. Hundreds of piles like this filled up rooms and rooms under the city.

Information about source of the bones.

Pastries in Paris!

Some treats for now and some for later to bring home to the kids.

At the train station waiting to board our train to the Airport.

The train station had scientific equations written all over.

Friday morning we woke up, packed, and headed to the metro.  We stopped for breakfast at our little McDonald's as usual.  We made our way to the main station, transferred to the airport line, and made our way back.  Our flights back to Kazakhstan on Belavia were pleasant and uneventful.  We had a quick layover (about 90 minutes) in Minsk and made it back to Kazakhstan at about 3:30 in the morning and back to our apartment at about 4:30.

We had left Astana and returned to a newly-renamed capitol - Nur-Sultan - and a new "acting president." Interesting things happen in Kazakhstan while we are away. A few summers ago they renamed the airport after President Nazarbayev while we were traveling.

We had a wonderful time in France. It was a nice anniversary trip and we were both very happy that we had the opportunity to go together.  The kids would have loved it, but it was nice to have a couples trip, too.