December 16th
was Kazakhstan's Independence Day. It was 25 years since the collapse
of Soviet Union when Kazakhstan gained its independence status. There
were a lot of celebrations in the city but we decided that we would
take the kids skating to the Ice Arena (like they don't get enough of
skating every week with their figure skating lessons! :)
Unfortunately, Veronika and Polina managed to get into a big trouble
the night before and were grounded for the day. I left them with
babushka to work on their homework and to clean our apartment to earn
a trip to the movies to watch Moana that afternoon, and took the
twins for a fun morning at the skating rink. Last year when I skated
with them, they couldn't keep up with me. This year I couldn't keep
up with them. Either I got older or they got much better (I prefer
the later one!). They did make an amazing progress over the last
year. They do spins and little jumps and a lot of other little tricks
and were happy to show them off to me.
Twins on the speed skating rink (there are also two hockey rinks in the middle)
Enjoying themselves!
Lexa getting ready to do a jump
Sophie is doing the same
You get to see all kinds of people on the rink! Love it!
Because of
Independence Day, there was a little program at the Ice Arena. Elsa
from Frozen was showing tricks with bubbles and fire. They also had a
little speed skating competition for kids. Sophie and Lexa wanted to
participate, so I signed them up. The kids raced in pairs, and the
twins ended up racing against each other. They were the fastest
skaters, and of the two Sophie won because Lexa started slowing down
upon seeing what she thought was the finish line but it wasn't, and
Sophie just couldn't stop because I sharpened her skates half an hour
earlier (their description of what happened at the finish line!). All of the participants (they only allowed 8 kids to compete) received a little gift, a stuffed toy Alau, the symbol of the Ice Arena.
Elsa making bubbles dance
And here Elsa is setting a poor kid on fire! The audience was very excited!
Twins racing against each other.
Racers!
Winners!
Skating is fun!
Happy kid!
Satisfied!
Happy and a little tired, ready to go to the movies!
Happy New Year, everyone!!!
All in all we had a
lot of fun that day, and I am so happy that the girls take after me
in loving all the winter sports, especially ice skating!
This school year we
decided to enroll kids into extra curricular activities of their
choice. We didn't do it last year because everything was new to them:
new country, new home, new school, new friends, new language. It was
already hard enough. But then the girls really took off and did a
great job with everything we asked of them, so we decided to give it
a try. Nika and Lina both are taking guitar lessons, Nika is also
doing track and field (that is a story for another post), and all four
of the girls are in figure skating.
Today I want to tell
about their figure skating. The girls love it. They go twice a week
for an hour and a half each time. Here it is ridiculously cheap. We
are paying 7000 tenge/month which is about $22/month for each kid.
They have a really good coach who is also a hockey player,
snowboarder, and into many other different sports. He is a no-nonsense guy who is at the same time very respectful to kids: a great
combination in my opinion. Our girls took figure skating when we
lived in Iowa but here they are really making big progress.
On Christmas Day
they had a big Ice Show which they were preparing for a whole month.
It was a musical fairytale about a witch trying to stop Ded Moroz
(cousin of Santa Claus) from delivering presents to the kids but at
the end she could not succeed. Our coach trains a lot of kids in many
different classes and levels, and all of them were participating in
the show. Our twins got to play bandits who were lead by Baba Yaga
(the witch) in kidnapping Ded Moroz and his friend the Snowman. Nika
and Lina were playing blizzard that froze the bandits and freed Ded
Moroz and his friend. We had to come up with our own costumes. My mom
was coming right before the show to stay with us for a couple of
months, so I asked her to sew Nika's and Lina's blizzard costumes. I
just described to her my vision, and she made it happen! She is just
awesome! We ordered bandit costumes for the twins in America, and our
friend brought them to us when he came here to Astana on a business
trip. The girls were so excited!
Getting ready for the show.
Twins are ready to roll!
On the morning of
the show we took the kids to the Children's Palace (it is like a HUGE
rec center) where the show was talking place. There were lots of
other performances going on at the same time so the place was packed.
The parents and guests could watch from the upper level of ice arena.
All kids did a great job, and should be proud of their
accomplishments! The show was really fun!
This was a practice run. Ded Moroz is the coach.
Coach is giving the last instructions before the show.
Village kids are bringing Christmas tree
A snowball fight
Snowman is bringing a bag with letters to Ded Moroz
Village kids are sending letters to Ded Moroz
A snowflake dance
The wind
The wind is blowing the bag with the letters away, and it gets lost
Bunnies
Polar bears find the bag
...and returned it to Ded Moroz and Snowman
Dance of Ded Moroz and Snowman
Elves are filling up a bag with toys
Ded Moroz and Snowman are living in their reindeer sleigh
Baba Yaga, the wicked witch
Baba Yaga calls the bandits
The bandits kidnapped Ded Moroz
...and Snowman
their victory dance
Try to find twins here!
but the blizzard comes to help
Blizzard Dance
Lina
Blizzard
Blizzard freezes the bandits and saves Ded Moroz and Snowman
Snegurochka's Dance
At the end everyone got a present (a bag with candy) from Ded Moroz
Lina was swinging her bag, and it broke spraying candy everywhere around her. Most kids thought it was like a pinata game, so Lina ended up with just half of her candy back.
Our cutie pies!
After the show we
went to Keruen Mall for lunch at KFC (I have to say that KFC is much
better here than in America and is one of our favorite places to go
out to).
At the Keruen Mall waiting for the order. This tree with the muhomor (fly-agaric, a very poisonous mushroom) on top is very... interesting
