After we came back from our trip to Utah, and before school started again we decided to explore our city again. They just barely opened this new playground and a Botanical Garden very close to campus where we live, so one hot day we decided to check them out. The playground is awesome and our kids are still at the age when they enjoy some good climbing! The Botanical Gardens were neat even though they are not completely finished, there is still construction going on but we had a nice walk. It is supposed to have many native plants as well as some exotic plants. The exotic plants were in these huge green houses that were not opened to public, and most native plants weren't in yet but I suppose in a few years it will look quite nice.
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| Girls' favorite part of the playground. |
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| Anything that can be climbed is good in our kids' book! |
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| At the parks here you can often find places with these outdoor exercise equipment. In general Kazakhs are very sport driven. This exercise set was at the south entrance to the Botanical Gardens. Of course, we checked it out. |
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| Walking around the gardens. There is still plenty work to be done. |
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| The green houses. |
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| The green houses are huge but unfortunately the entrance is restricted to public. |
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| At the main entrance they have this nice pond. |
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| In the background is the Alau Ice Rink (green roof) where we go skating in the winter. |
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| They are so happy I made them to be in my picture! |
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| I love these flower designs they have all over Astana. |
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| Happy Lexa. |
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| Sophie. |
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| Best friends for life! |
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| Nika. |
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| Lexa. |
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| I always have to sneak up on Lina to catch her with my camera. |
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| The Sphere (or the Death Star as foreigners named it) in the background which was the main site for the World's Expo last year. |
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| Lexa with Babushka! |
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| Yes, I go on these adventures too. I am usually the one behind the camera. |
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| This year they built these bike and running paths all throughout the city. This one goes all around the Botanical Gardens and connects with others. |
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| Sisters being sisters. |
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| Main Entrance to the Gardens. |
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| These little islands of floral arrangements are all over the city. |
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| Another one. |
There were many different events around the city of Astana this summer to celebrate its 25th anniversary as the capital. The National History Museum housed a few traveling exhibits from famous galleries around the world. One of them was from Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow which I always wanted to visit but never had time for it whenever we were in Moscow. I didn't want to miss this great opportunity either. So, one day we all went to the museum. It was very interesting and we saw many famous paintings.
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| Spencer and Nika admiring art. |
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| This one was one of my favorites; it is so real! |
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| This painting was not part of the exhibit from the Tretyakov Gallery but I like it because it is showing one of the Kazakh traditions which they still follow. When a baby turns one year old, the parents will tie his ankles with yarn, put the baby on the carpet and cut the yarn with scissors. They believe that doing this will help the baby learn how to walk faster. Family and friends gather together to be part of this big step in baby's life. |
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| It was a rainy day but a fun one. |
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| At the end I thought I would through in a random picture of a mushroom just for fun! Actually these mushrooms are edible and come up everywhere on campus in early August and September mornings. One day the girls picked a whole bunch of them and asked me to fry them but by the time I got around doing it, the mushrooms turned into black ink! |
