Our Christmas Trip to Utah - Part 3: Christmas with the family

Our last major adventure in Utah was the main one - our family Christmas Eve party.  Mom had the girls make cookies for the party.  Each girl made a big batch of cookies in a marathon of cooking on Monday (December 23).  They made gingersnaps, molasses crinkles, snickerdoodles, and chocolate chip cookies.  It was a cookie fest.  

Oma felt ill when she woke up, so she put Yulia and me in charge of making sloppy joe filling for the party. I took on that responsibility and accomplished the task.  Mican and Roger's family came in the early afternoon and we visited before going over to the church that Mom had reserved so that we could set up and have the party.

Lexa during her cookie shift.

Eating our Christmas meal.  Grown up table and kids table in attendance.

Burl and Shellee and Brennan came and Aubree and Jessen came a bit later.  Mican and Roger and their kids came. Yulia and I and our four girls were there. Oma rounded out the crowd for dinner.  Ben came over in time for the program.  Suzette and her family were in Boise and didn't make it down this year.

Sixty percent of the kids with spouses.

Ben conducted the program and we had some sharing of our blessings for the year, Nika and Lina played a few songs on the guitar, and Ben, Burl, and I sang "We Three Kings" accompanied by Jessen.  Lina was  finishing up all her requirements for the Young Women in Excellence Award that is being discontinued and playing for the family passed her last requirement.  We are very proud of her achievement and the fact that she buckled down and did most of it in four months.

Guitar sisters!

Uncle Ben conducting.

We Three Brothers

It was raining so we didn't stop and look at all the lit graves in the cemetery.  Apparently that is a new tradition.  We did drive by and look at all the pretty lights.

Lights in the cemetery.

Mican and Roger stayed over for Christmas eve and the next morning our stockings were filled and left on the kitchen table.   We opened our presents from Oma and each other.  After Mican and her family left to visit their in-laws, the girls opened up presents that they had gotten for each other. They all gave each other thoughtful gifts. The rain had turned to snow overnight and so we had a white Christmas after all!

Christmas snow!

Sisters!

Mayos and Sophie!

Christmas morning presents.

Yulia and Mican model the aprons that Oma brought them from Italy!

Pancake breakfast!

The girls give their presents.

We had a nice Christmas with the family!

Sunday morning, December 29, we flew home.  Ben came and helped drive us to the airport.  It was nice to spend some time with him in the car since we hadn't seen too much of him during the visit.  We got to the airport early and checked in.  After hanging out for awhile, we ate lunch at Qordoba and then went and boarded our plane.  We flew to Houston, which was fun since we followed a similar route that we'll take when we move to Texas this summer.  In fact Yulia took a picture of the pine forest area that we will be living in as we were descending into Houston.

We had a quick layover in Houston, a long flight to Frankfurt, a short layover there, and then a six hour flight to Nur-Sultan.  We arrived and got taxis and got home safely early in the morning of December 31st.  It was a quick visit to Utah, but a nice one.  We were happy to be here for New Years with Babushka.

Waiting for our flight in SLC.

Lexa and Mama in their Jazz gear!

Lina is super excited to travel!

Lunch!

Looking at our future home.

Some happy campers on the last flight home to Kazakhstan from Utah.

8 of March - International Women's Day

The girls' guitar teacher, Danira Amanbayevna, along with her husband who is also a guitar and a vocal teacher, organized another concert for the parents, this time for moms in  honor of International Women's Day that is widly celebrated here. Here are a few pictures from the concert: 

Lexa with her class of 1st year students. 

Our little lady!

Nika and Lina

Lexa, Sophie, and Dariya (who's also a guitar player like Lexa and she also has a twin sister who is sitting right behind her with a guitar).

On the morning of 8 of March we watched Utah Jazz win a game and then Spencer surprised us, the ladies of his household, with a beautiful bouquet of tulips, some candy and a cake, and also a delectable breakfast  of biscuits and eggs. Yumm! We love our man!

Spencer cooking breakfast

Yummy breakfast!

And then he really excited the kids (and mostly shocked me) with a classical video game system (the Super NES from Nintendo) that he found at our local bookstore a few months ago and had been eyeing it ever since.

The day couldn't have started any better!

Trying out the new video games.

Later in the afternoon we went to our favorite Uzbek restaurant (their dishes are very similar to the Kazakh ones) and then to the Opera and Ballet Theater to see the famous Swan Lake. Now the kids have seen all three ballets composed by Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake!
 

Enjoying the dinner

Our newly evolved teenager. She does look so grown up here.

Babushka is having fun

On our way to the Theater which is in the background.

Inside of the Astana Opera and Ballet Theater

We love to sit in these special balconies that usually have somewhere between 6 and 9 seats - perfect for our family!

Excited for the show? At least that is what I am telling myself.

It was a very memorable day brought to us by our true and only man in our family! We love you!

Utah Trip Part 4 - Christmas 2017

Somehow Santa Claus figured out that we were not in the far away land this holiday season and fit a stop at Oma’s house into his very busy schedule, or maybe it was because Mican’s family was there, and her kids were definitely on the “Nice List”. Either way we woke up to filled stockings that we found by the only Christmas tree in the house!

Morning discovery

Christmas morning with the cousins.

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The moment the kids discovered the "wad of money" from Oma!

Emma and Lexa

Oma

Rocky and Mican

 After breakfast, the Mayos left to celebrate Christmas with Roger’s family, and we continued with our family presents. This year the girls decided to do something like a “Secret Santa”. They each draw a name of one sibling for whom they were to get a present. They did it all on their own and they really put a lot of thought into picking the presents. And then we witnessed the most beautiful moments: the joy on the girls’ faces when they opened each other presents, was priceless! Each of them later said that they were most excited to see a happy smile on their sister’s face when she opened their present. I was a proud mama!

Sophie 

Sophie is opening her present from Lina

Lexa is opening her present from Nika.

Lina's excited face when she realized  she just got headphones from Papa (she was always complaining that the earphones on the planes fall out of her ears)!

Nika

Nika gets her pedometer from Papa. 

They all opened their presents from us at the same time. They all got Instax Cameras for Christmas, something they dreamed of but did not expect to ever get.

The rest of the day we spent watching Christmas movies and visiting with family that stopped by to wish us all a Merry Christmas. And the girls spent the day catching the memories on their new cameras.

To be continued...