Spring Break Trip to Sri Lanka Part IV - Colombo, Elephants, and Coming Home

Our last day in Unawatuna was on Sunday - Easter, and we spent the day mostly relaxing at the hotel pool.  There are a few LDS church branches in Sri Lanka, but none south of Colombo, so we just did Easter at the hotel.  I had brought some Peeps candy from the US so the girls were excited about that fun part of the holiday.  We also went to the beach one last time in the late afternoon.  The waves were really high.  I went swimming, but it was a bit too rough for the girls to even wade into.  They were happy finding a variety of cool seashells along the shore.

Showing their findings at the beach

Watching crazy papa swimming in crazy waves

Crazy papa swimming in crazy waves

Monday we checked out of our hotel and had a taxi drive us to Colombo.  We were awake for the ride and it was in the light, so we got to see the Sri Lankan countryside.  We passed rubber plantations, water buffalo, and lots of other fun things.  Colombo was crowded when we arrived. School was getting out so there were lots of school children in their white uniforms walking on the streets and riding in tuk-tuks.

Tea plantation on our way to Colombo

A view from the car on our way to Colombo

A huge statue of Buddha up on the hill

We arrived at the hotel and the girls were in heaven.  It was a five-star hotel and was very fancy.  We were given cold towels and a cold drink while we checked in.  Our baggage was brought up to our adjoining rooms on the sixth floor overlooking the pool on one side and the ocean across the street on the other.  It was nice.

Girls checking out their new room

A view from our room window

We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we went next door to the food court at a mall and tried authentic Sri Lankan food from a place called pot-o-clay.  The food was very good, but much too spicy (some of it) for the girls (and mostly for Yulia, too).  The girls were glad we had eaten at the other restaurant in Unawatuna since they loved that food so much.

Sophie and Lexa at the local supermarket happy to get some treats to bring home

Ordering food at pot-o-clay

Spicy!

In the evening we went swimming in the pool.  It was neat because huge bats were flying over the pool (coming in to roost, or going out to hunt, we weren't sure) along with a bunch of birds.

In the pool again

It was a really nice pool

Tuesday morning we got up early and got in an SUV that we had arranged.  We drove to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage to see the elephants there.  We got there after feeding, but right when they drove the elephants across the street to bathe in the river.  It was quite a sight to see more than 40 elephants of all ages out in the river bathing, playing, laying, and acting mischievous.  We watched them for over an hour before heading home. The orphanage was about a two hour drive into the mountains, and Sophie - our carsick kid - had a rough time.  We had to pull over a couple of times on the way up and once on the way down for her to throw up.  She made it into the bag or out of the car each time, so that was good.  We gave the driver an extra tip.

A big group of school kids going to a tour to the elephant orphanage

Elephants bathing in the river

Watching the elephants from the viewing area

They are really amazing creatures!

Add caption

Helpful sibling. May be a little too helpful!

These two baby elephants were playing with each other the entire time.

That group that is going away were trying to escape three times.

Here is one escapee

And two more

But they were intercepted each time and brought back

Here is one of the mahouts (elephant trainers) washing one of his elephants

Girls watching the elephants

Some views of Colombo city on our way back to the hotel

For the afternoon we just ate pizza and relaxed.  We put the kids to be at 8:00 since we had to be on the road by 1:30 to be at the airport by 2:30.  The drive to the airport was quiet and pretty quick.  We checked in without problem, but after waiting in a lot of lines and going through security three times.  We ate a snack at the burger king while we waited for our flight to board - $40.00 for four drinks, two sandwiches and four orders of fries - so that was our most expensive meal to food ratio of the whole trip. We traveled home without any problems and arrived in Astana about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

Waiting for the parents to check out at 1:30 in the morning

Ready (or not) to board the first plane.

Vacationing is a hard work! 

Flying home to Astana

Can't do without a selfie!

It was cold (about 1 degree Celsius) and raining when we arrived.  A far cry from the sun of Sri Lanka.  It was nice to be home, though.

Overall we had a very nice trip to Sri Lanka.  We didn't see whales, but we saw sea turtles AND elephants and had a nice time together.  We are blessed to be able to do so many fun things together as a family.

Track and Field

Nika has being doing track. At the beginning of the school year I asked the girls what they wanted to do for their extra curricular activities. They all wanted to try different things but since there are only 24 hours in a day, I told them that the oldest two can pick two activities, and the twins can pick one (and if they can keep up with their school work, then the next year they can pick a second activity). I wanted all girls to do some sort of sport, and they all picked figure skating. It has been really good for them. They have a great coach and they improved dramatically in their skating skills in the last few months.

Then Nika and Lina picked guitar classes as their second activity (the twins really wanted to do violin but we decided to wait until the next year). Those have been awesome! Again they ended up with a great teacher, and they love it!

All of the activities are done in the Children's Palace which is kind of like a huge rec center with all kinds of sports, art, science, music, linguistic, craft and many, many more activities. And here is how Nika ended up with the third one, absolutely by accident. She and Lina were at their figure skating class which consists of one hour on the ice and a half an hour in the gym every time they come to practice. During their first gym practice their coach had them run a couple of laps on the indoor track. Then all of a sudden Nika shows up in the waiting room and says that the coach wants to talk to me. It turns out that it was the track and field coach who wanted to talk to me. She saw Veronika running on the track and went to beg her figure skating coach to let her go, so she could come and do track with her team. She is a 7-time national champion for Kazakhstan in track and said that Nika was born to run. Nika decided to give it a try and after the first day she fell in love with it. But she didn't want to give up figure skating, so she is doing all three now. Her track coach is super excited to train her, which is nice.

Nika is a little too young to go to track meets, but her coach wanted her to get a feel for it, so she sent her to a couple of meets already. The second time Nika took 6^th place in a 300 meters event, which is great! She is really enjoying it, and we are proud of her for not being afraid of trying new things in a foreign country.

The following pictures are from the two track meets that Nika participated in.

Getting ready to run in her very first meet

Getting ready to start

Running 300 meters (Nika is on the left, in blue)

All the kids that participated in the meet

Summer Vacation in Utah - Water Fun Part II

During the first two weeks of our Utah vacation we put our kids into swimming lessons at the Payson outdoor pool. When we lived in Iowa our kids would always take swimming lessons throughout the year and especially in the summers but we didn't have an opportunity to do it when we lived in Las Vegas (though we did visit the pools there once in a while), and in Astana our first year was so busy that we didn't even find a pool to go to. The only exception was Thailand where we spend every day of our vacation in water. Needless to say the girls were very anxious to start swimming again. We arrived right before the new session started, so everything worked out great especially because it was around 104 F every day for those first couple of weeks or so. The girls loved it, and this time they actually made a huge improvement!

Nika and Lina practicing swimming using just their legs

Sun + water = happy kids

We also got together with Spencer's brother Ben's family a couple of times for an afternoon at the pool which is always a lot of fun!

At the Payson outdoor pool. I know our girls are somewhere in there.

Sophie is going down the slide

We had a great time swimming in the Payson pool while we were there.  The girls got good enough at swimming that we are comfortable with them in the water now.

The end of school year

Our girls finished their first year in a public school system here in Kazakhstan. It was a hard year but at the same time a very rewarding one. The girls have adapted to the new school system, language, and culture and absolutely exceeded our expectations. Three of them finished the year with straight As and one had just a couple of Bs and the rest were As. Some of the hard things that we encountered were going to school on Saturdays, having kids in the morning and afternoon shifts, constant change in schedules, dealing with bureaucracy, problems with transportation and others. To be honest once or twice I came very close to taking them out of school and just homeschooling. I am glad I didn’t though. For the girls the first 4 months were the hardest but then something clicked and all of them took off flying. They made new friends and they learned Russian while learning everything else in Russian. Going through these challenges and coming up on top of them gave them an incredible sense of accomplishment. We are very proud of them!

 

First Grade (Class 1"G")

Sophie and Lexa with their teacher. She was AWESOME!

School is over! Sophie, Lexa and James Peterson are on the front steps of the school

The school year ended on May 22 here. And on May 23^rd Veronika had her big graduation ball. She finished elementary school (here it is 1-4 grade) and is moving to the middle school. Here it is almost as big of a deal as graduating from high school. The last week of school they didn’t have any classes but were getting ready for the ball: learning dances, songs, practicing skits.

Generally parents are not invited to the school events but for the graduation an exception was made. Spencer was in Washington DC at the time, so he missed it. The kids did a great job! They put up quite a concert with some of amazing numbers. My favorite ones were Kazakh folk dances. Overall it was a really neat experience and I am glad that Veronika was a part of it!

Nika with her best friend Kate 

Fancy!

Waltz

Singing a good bye song to the teachers

Kazakh dance

I love Kazakh national costumes!

These girls were AMAZING! 

Nika singing "The Rainbow Connection". She sang that song for the contest in March and ever since she was asked to sing it again and again at different school parties.

Getting a certificate for Excellent School Work from assistant principal

Flash mob dance

Fourth grade class with some of the parents

Veronika with her teacher. All of our girls were lucky to get such good teachers.

Nika, Lina, and Kate Peterson in front of their school.