New Year 2016

It is hard to believe that it is already 2016 and that it is our second winter here in Kazakhstan. Everything is so quiet here on campus: students are gone for the holidays, and most of the professors and their families are also gone home. We are just about the only ones left here.

We spent New Years at home celebrating it the Russian style: having a big feast, watching Russian classic New Year's movies and lighting up some sparklers at midnight. At midnight the whole city erupted in fireworks but this year we couldn't see much because the built two new buildings that obstruct our view of the city. We did have a very nice celebration with my mom, and we also called Spencer's mom to wish her a Happy New Year in America.

Girls are making peppermint sugar cookies for Ded Moroz on New Year's Eve

New Year's Feast

 In the morning the kids didn't get up until 7:30 am or so and were so polite that they patiently waited for another 30 minutes to come and wake us up. 

They found the presents!

Even the dogs got presents!

Lina was very excited to receive her own magic set

Nika is opening her presents

Lexa is trying to figure out what she is getting

Babushka is happy with her sweater

Spencer got a present from his mom.

Everybody was happy with the presents, and the day was spent playing with the new toys and watching more movies. It was nice to just stay home because outside was pretty cold!

Spencer is helping Sophie to put together her Lego race car

And now testing them out in the hallways right outside of our apartment.

Our First Hockey Game

One of the perks that I get from being the coach of the NU women's basketball team is that the university sports center sometimes gets free tickets to sporting events in town.  I've been to a couple of the basketball games this year with some of my basketball players, for example.

This week, I was asked if my family wanted tickets to the hockey game.  I was happy to say yes to the tickets.  The team here - Barys (or snow leopard) - plays in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League) with teams from Russia, other former Soviet States, and a couple of teams from Scandinavia. The team just moved (a few months ago) from their old arena on the other side of town to an arena near the other sports arenas - which is only about a mile from our apartment.  Last year we thought about going, but getting to and from the games was problematic.  Now that problem is solved.

I got the tickets on Monday afternoon for the game on Tuesday.  Tuesday the kids' school was cancelled (it was supposed to be the last day of the term) because of a blizzard that raged all day.  The wind and snow was still blowing when I came home from work in the late afternoon and we thought about not going, but decided that we would brave the weather instead.  I ordered two taxis to pick us up at 7:00.  We were taking three of the kids and Yulia's mom (so six of us) since Polina was sick with the flu.  When we went down, our taxi wasn't there.  It took until 7:30 for one of the taxis to show up.  By that time Babushka (Lyudmila, Yulia's mom) had given up on going, so the five of us piled into the taxi who drove us through the blizzard down the road a bit.

View of the blizzard from our window

We arrived at the game 10 minutes into the 1st period - and Baris was already up 2-0 over CSKA Moscow.  We had nice seats behind one of the goals high enough up that we could see the action on both sides.  There was also a very nice scoreboard and screen that showed replays, so we could get into the action.  The arena was only about 2/3 full - we think mostly because of the storm.

Our view of the rink from our seats

Selfie

The girls watching the game

I had never been to a live professional hockey game before (neither had anyone else in the family) and we really enjoyed it.  The game was intense - the final score was 4-3 for Astana.  We saw a fight right in front of where we were (in the game, on the ice) and quite a few power plays because of penalties.  The atmosphere was a lot of fun.

Barys is in blue, CSKA Moscow is in red

Fight

Another fight.

Fans would put up a giant banner every time after Barys scored

Standing ovation after a score

At the end of the game when the team won, lots of people through stuffed bears out onto the ice.  It was the first time that they had done something like that (the announcer said) and it was a lot of fun. Because of the traffic and storm, we decided to just walk home.  The wind had calmed down quite a bit, although it was still blowing.  The snow on the sidewalks had drifted up to four feet in some places.  Because of the way the weather had gone, though, much of the snow was crusted and we could walk along the top.  It took us about 35 minutes to walk home - and by the time we arrived we were plenty chilly.

Teddy bears on the ice and teams shaking hands

Cleaning up the bears after the game

The winners!

Snow Leopard Mascot 

We are really glad that we had the opportunity to go and watch the game.  We had so much fun that we are planning on making it a more regular part of our winter entertainment.

Kids' Ice Show

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