Random pictures of our regular lives

In the attempt to catch up I am going to throw in here several pictures that highlight our life in the three months of fall. We had a couple of birthdays, that is mine and Spencer's. On the morning of my birthday which happened to fall on a Saturday the girls made us stay in bed while they cooked a delicious breakfast of coffee cake served with ice cream and homemade pecan candy. Any mom that gets a breakfast cooked by kids is a lucky one! I was twice as lucky because I got a cake, ice cream, and candy to begin my day!!! Then to top it off Spencer took me out for lunch! 

Spencer's birthday fell on a Thursday which is a busiest day for him. But the kids came to the rescue here as well: while I took Spencer out for dinner after his very tiring day, Lina cooked a delicious meal for her sisters all by herself. And when we came back, we had German Chocolate cake to finish our celebrations!

In October we had our annual fall breakfast with Spencer's basketball team. This year four more girls joined the team.  There are a total of 13 girls on the roster.

On Halloween, the girls totally made up their own costumes.  Lina was a robber, Nika was Baba Yaga (Russian fairy tale witch), Lexa was a devil, and Sophie was a special forces soldier.  They had a good time trick or treating in our apartment complex.

At the end of October and beginning of November the girls (Lexa, Lina, and Nika) had a few guitar concerts.  The first one was with their classmates at the Children's Palace.  Nika and Lina also had an additional concert at the Russian Culture Festival.  In November, the Children's Palace sponsored its first International Youth Talent Festival with teams from Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states.  Our girls played a guitar piece with their group.

Lexa is the only lefty in her group of first-year students.

The kids and their teacher posed for a group photo.

Also during November, Nika and Lina had their first track meet of the season.  Nika ran the 150 meter race, and Lina ran the 60 meter race.  They both did well, and Nika placed 4th in her age group for the entire city.

On their way to the track meet.

Nika warming up.

Lina after her run.

The kids that Nika's and Lina's coach coaches (the coach is in the middle in light blue sweater.

In November we almost got a cat.  When we returned to the university from the mall one evening, this kitten was at the entrance of the university meowing.  Our three youngest managed to get it to follow them (and carried it, too) all the way to our apartment.  After we fed it, we took it downstairs and put it outside while sending a message to everyone about the possibility to adopt the cat.  The girls almost talked us into keeping it, but not quite (both Spencer and Nika are allergic to cats).

Lexa using her "Pleeeeease, mom!" look.

Babushka came over from Russia a few days before Thanksgiving, and Spencer made it back from his conference in America soon after, so we had our whole family for Thanksgiving. We didn't have school that day, and so the girls were extra happy! I managed to find a big turkey (those are hard to find in Kazakhstan, and they are very expensive), so we had a nice traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

 One Sunday evening in November the girls had an impromptu concert. They dressed up, made a program, and performed all on their own!

This was our fall. December brought us new adventures but more about that later.

Track and field

This year all four of our girls have been going to track and Field at the Children's Palace. Usually only Nika is old enough to go to the city track meets but in April all kids had an opportunity to try themselves in a track meet. It wasn’t a big one, just for the kids from their track and field class but still probably about 30 kids participated. They ran in groups according to their age and pretty much everyone won something. All four of our girls placed. Nika took the first place in her age group. Lina ran in the same heat as Nika, and came in third but because she was the only one in her age group, they gave her first place. Sophie and Lexa ran against each other and took first and third respectively. They were all happy.

Stretching before the meet. As always things started 30 minutes late (In Kazakhstan there is no concept of time but it will be a whole other post sometime later)

Nika and Lina running in their heat. The twins ran so fast that I didn't have time to focus my camera on them (of course, they also ran a much shorter distance).

The funny part was during the awards ceremony. For whatever reason they had a television that day. In fact our kids have been on television a couple of times this year. So, they sat up the podium and put some presents on each place. One would think the presents would go to the kids winning the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd places. Nope! They took pictures of the podium with the presents and then promptly took the presents away before the winners stepped on the podium. It was just for the television. Oh well, the kids were happy anyway.

Here is the set up with the presents for the photo only!

Nika took first, and her best friend took second (notice the presents on the left side behind the poster board).

Like I said, Lina was the only one in her age group, so they stuck her with another heat's winner.

And the twins. Sophie was running head to head with the girl who took second place but she wasn't going to let anybody else win, so in the last 3 seconds she stretched her body forward and won by a head.

All the participants. Their coach, Magzhan, is on the left in a blue shirt.

Our crew.

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