Freedom! Getting out of lockdown!

It has been many months since I last posted and almost a year since these pictures have been taken. A lot has changed in that year including our location (we are no longer in Kazakhstan), and I think I was avoiding to write about it because that would mean that one of the biggest chapters in our life came to an end. But it did come to an end (though we started another exciting chapter), and so I need to write about our last couple of months in Kazakhstan, a country that we called home for six years.

Twins on a walk with Yuki. During the lock down we took every opportunity to walk our dog because that is the only time we were allowed to be outside besides grocery shopping. Later our campus allowed families to be outside for 30 minutes at a time.

On May 11th Kazakhstan ended its first lockdown due to the pandemic. The lockdown had lasted for nearly 2 months. Now people were allowed to be outside and restaurants, stores, malls were opened though at 50% capacity. People took it to heart and it felt like the entire city was out that day. It was also a very warm and beautiful day outside, so we decided to visit the Botanical Gardens that were walking distance from our campus. We'd been inside for too long! This was the first day our kids got to leave campus in two months! 

Walking to the Botanical Gardens through Expo Plaza.

At the Botanical Gardens we rented bikes and spent an hour riding around. It was a beautiful day and it felt nice to be outside all together doing something that we loved!

 

Afterwards we went back to the Expo Plaza, to the Mall that just reopened and had a lunch at one of the cafes there. All the things we took for granted before!

The following pictures show some other things we did in May and June of 2020.

Over the course of 6 years I have taken a lot of pictures of Astana night skies, mostly sunsets (they are just gorgeous!). And here is another one: night sky after a storm. Love the light reflections off the wet roads and the separation of the sky! There is light after each storm, and that doesn't change!

In June we started playing basketball outside as a family and were grateful that our campus had some outdoor basketball courts! The kids got to be pretty good shots and even took their Papa out a couple of times!

On June 28th we had our last branch party because all three expat families (us, the Thomas family, and the Calder family) were leaving Kazakhstan in July. We gathered at the Thomas's home and had a little picnic as well as a Court of Honor for Ben Calder who was receiving his Eagle Scout Award. It was nice to see everyone one last time (we were leaving for Texas,  the Thomas family was moving to Washington D.C. area for their next assignment, and the Calder family was going back to Utah though Steve Calder was staying in Astana for another year).

Eagle Scout Award Ceremony for Ben Calder.

Our little branch: the three expat families plus our two of the local members, Kamshat and Zhana.

We decided to eat at our favorite Georgian Restaurant one last time. The food was delicious as always but now I have to learn to cook it myself to get my Georgian "fix"!

 

Steppe grasses on our way to the SMART Supermarket. I admired them every time we went grocery shopping to that store and wanted to take a picture before city mowed them down. Kazakhstan is a beautiful country!

Our Christmas Trip to Utah - Part 2: Outdoor Fun!

We had a lot of fun outside while we were on our visit to Utah this winter.  The valley didn't get too much snow, but the day that it did snow, the twins went outside and took full advantage.

Sophie and Lexa playing in the snow.

Sisters!

Our big outdoor adventure was taking the girls skiing at Sundance on Wednesday, December 18 - the day after our Utah Jazz adventure.  It was the second part of Christmas adventures for the girls.  Yulia found good deals on the tickets and equipment.  We thought a lot about my Dad since it was his favorite place to ski.  Our girls never got the chance to ski with him, which is one of our regrets.

I don't ski - I missed it as a teenager and just don't have a love of fast things (unlike my speed demon wife).  The girls all got their gear and we got them on the slopes and I spent a lovely day reading and typing at the lodge.

The girls took to skiing like ducks to water.  They had been night skiing two years earlier when we visited and they picked right up.  They spent two hours skiing, took a short break to eat lunch, and then skied until 3:30 when it was time to come off the slopes and turn in the gear.  It was a really perfect day - not too cold, a small cloud cover so it wasn't too bright, and snow that was wet, cold, and groomed.

Getting skied up and heading to the lift.

Mama and the twins heading up for a run.

Riding the lift.

The view from the lift toward Timpanogas mountain.

Cool customers!

Mama is a happy skier!

Twins going down the slope.

Beautiful mountains!

Mama and Nika

Mama and Lina

Lina coming down the mountain.

Nika coming in fast!

Nika and Lina spent a lot of time on their own!!! Ladies love skiing.

Sophie, Lina, and Nika going up on the chairlift.

We really had a nice time.  We didn't give a lot of presents for Christmas, but we had some wonderful experiences and adventures.  

Trip to Uzbekistan Part 3 - Samarkand

Our train didn't leave Bukhara until late afternoon on Tuesday.  In the morning after breakfast we went one last time to the market.  This is where Nika helped Sophia buy her outfit. See below. Sophie got the floor model of an outfit and really bartered her way to a price that was more affordable. Nika bought a similar outfit when we were in Samarkand.

The outfits are quite striking on both girls.

Sophie with her prize!

Sophie and Nika in their outfits.

After visiting the bazaar, we hung out on the plaza for awhile, got some lunch, and then got picked up by our cab driver from the day before and got taken to the train station.  The train station was full of foreign tourists getting ready to get on the fancy train to Tashkent.  

Our train was a slightly less fancy train.  When we were getting ready to get on the train we saw a group of returning sportsmen who were met with a band (horns and drums) and great fanfare.  The sports group had loaded up with bread in Samarkand, which is famous for its bread.  It was quite a sight.

Waiting with a bunch of tourists. There was a big group of American tourists who were going through Central Asia with their last stop in Kazakhstan.

On the train to Samarkand

In Samarkand we got two taxis to our hotel.  They got split up, but we managed to meet at our hotel which was centrally located in town.  The hotel itself was interesting.  The floors were covered in rugs and the clientele mostly seemed to be religious folks from various areas of the world.  We had a room on the first floor and the girls had a room on the second floor.  It was about 8:00 p.m. and dark when we arrived.  We checked in and then walked out and found a restaurant to eat in - a little Italian cafe a few blocks from the hotel.

Upstairs where girls had their room (lots of nice rugs on the floor).

We had nice breakfasts at all of our hotels.  Lots of good fresh fruit.

After we woke up, we ate breakfast at our hotel and then went out walking to explore.  We had mapped out our day, planning on having a relatively light day of walking and seeing since we had gone quite hard in Bukhara for three days.

Our hotel was in the center of the city and so walking to the main sites was very convenient.  Our first stop was at the statue of Timurlan (Tamerlane), who was a warrior who became the most powerful Muslim Leader of the 14th century.  His statue was in a traffic circle near our hotel and his mausoleum complex was just a few blocks away.

The Mausoleum was very commercialized - a number of tour buses pulled up at the time we were there, so it didn't have the same feel as some of the complexes we saw in Bukhara, which were quieter and more reverent.  Temirlane was a pretty horrible human being, so maybe reverence was the right feeling anyway....

At the mosque/mausoleum complex.

After visiting the mausoleum, we walked to "registan", the old center of the city which was the area of the kings.  The whole complex included a number of mosques and Madrasahs as well. We were really impressed with the parks and walkways throughout the center of the city.

Walking to registan.

Looking out at Samarkand.

Approaching Registan.

Amazing inlay work on the restored buildings.

Registan from the front entrance.

Mosque.

Lexa and Papa resting on a bench.

More amazing tile inlay work inside a mosque.

Nice inner courtyard in the rear mosque complex.

Furniture and other crafts.

Mama and Polina posing.

Veronika posing (one of just a handful pictures of her since she was our main photographer for the trip).

We really enjoyed the registan complex. We learned that one of the leaders, Ulugh Beg, had built an observatory in the 15th century. His work was the basis for a lot of later astronomical work by astronomers in Europe, including Copernicus. There was a really neat museum with displays about the science and about his life.

We saw a bunch of weddings while we were there. In fine Soviet tradition, the wedding party goes and gets photographs at all the landmarks.  If I was getting married in Samarkand, I'd go get my picture taken at Registan as well.  I got my picture taken with my wife, but it was 17.5 years too late!

After walking through the complex, we stopped at a little outdoor cafe and bought ice cream and water to eat.  Everyone was very happy about that.

Ice cream break. Notice the nice park behind us.

After our ice cream break, we took a walk to the main bazaar in town: the Siyob Bazaar.  It was down a nice road.  It had everything that we wanted and needed and we loaded up on treats (nuts, fruits, and local candy) for us and for others.

The bazaar with a selection of nuts and fruits.

We ate lunch with the locals at a local shwarma place and walked back to the hotel.  After resting for a few hours, we went out for dinner.  Yulia had looked up a restaurant, but we couldn't find it, so we went back to where we had eaten the night before.  We saw a sign for "KFC" and were curious.  A woman came out of the cafe and told us that they had KFC there.  We took a chance.  We were the only customers and it was a bit dark.  We were not sure because the prices seemed high (they were for massive portions it turns out).  We ordered KFC (which was just fried chicken) and some other dishes.  We ended up with a nice meal for a good price and a very interesting experience.  We have real KFC in Kazakhstan and I'm not sure that they want their name appropriated this way in Uzbekistan!

"KFC"

Our "KFC meal"

Famous Samarkand bread.

After dinner we returned to our hotel.  We had an early start scheduled for the next morning.  Our whirlwind stop in Samarkand was over.  We really enjoyed the sites there, but felt that one day was enough to see them.  We  were glad to have the more authentic experience for longer in Bukhara, but Registan and the parks in Samarkand were truly beautiful and impressive.