Expo - Day 1

The main reason that Oma wanted to come and visit Kazakhstan was to visit the Expo.  She had never been to a world's fair before, and since this one was located right across the street from us, she really wanted to see it.  We had arrived back in Kazakhstan late Saturday evening, gone to church on Sunday, and had bought tickets to attend the Expo on Tuesday- August 8.

The Expo had been completely built in the three years that we were living in Astana.  It had been one of our favorite activities to watch the construction across the street and to see the way things had changed.  Everything in Kazakhstan is done at the last minute, and the Expo was not an exception.  They were finishing construction the day before it opened for the public on June 10.  

We walked to the Expo (about a mile from our house, past the new mall, and into the Expo site.  We had a bit of trouble getting in - our tickets weren't read by the machine, so we had to go to an office to get things straightened out.  We first went to the Russian pavilion - which had gotten good reviews in the articles we'd read.  The pavilion was quite interesting - focusing on Russian Arctic exploration and with a big chunk of ice.

We then visited the giant sphere - the Nur Alem - which was the Kazakhstan pavilion.  It was seven stories tall and was very impressive.  Each level of the sphere was dedicated to a different type of energy - wind, solar, water, bio, etc. and the bottom floor was about Kazakhstan's history.  The sphere was our favorite pavilion. [After the Expo they turned the sphere into a museum.  The rest of the buildings they are working to convert into different business buildings.]

The pavilions were a mix of information about future and clean energy and information about the countries themselves.  Many countries mostly had information about tourism to their countries. 

The rest of the day we visited other pavilions in the Asian pavilion building.  We ate a nice lunch at a little Thai restaurant that was near the Thai pavilion, and spent the day until about 6:00 p.m.  It was a long day of walking and looking at things, but we really enjoyed the sites. 

Right inside the Expo site with the Nur Alem in the background.

Inside the Russian pavilion - Russian icebreaker model.

Arctic ice.

Top floor of the pavilion looking out across the city.  The glass floor was very interesting... and a bit scary! 

Looking up at the glass pathway from the second floor from the top.

Art and other installations.

Yulia photographing the mirrored ceiling.

The elevator bank with futuristic elevator cars.

Space!  One of the exhibits in Nur Alem.

Oma in space!

Yulia, Babushka, and Nina taking a break.

The twins holding up the sun (solar energy floor).

Oma and Babushka holding up the sun!

Wind energy - wind patterns.

In the wind tunnel!

Looking at biomass fuels under the glass floor.

More information about biofuels.

Kids playing an interactive game.

Energy created by two teams on cycles!

Oma and Babushka relaxing and waiting for the show.

We were able to catch the show - it was very interesting and we saw another version at Cirque du soleil a few days later.

On the first floor of the sphere.

Action shot - walking at the Expo.

More of the buildings.

Taking a break for some water.

Inside the Algerian pavilion.

Chinese pavilion -  a 3-d movie experience.

Pavilions - Jordan, Thailand, Turkey, and more!

Azerbaijan pavilion - cotton bols.

Exhibit showing different heat waste from lamps.  Hot to cold.  In the Turkish Pavilion

Inside the Thai pavilion

More Thailand pavilion.

A concert outside the Thai pavilion!

A history of the Expos through the ages.

Inside the history of the expo - This was a ride from six years ago in Shanghai

The Pacific Islands Pavilion

Sisters supporting each other after a long day at the Expo.

Trip to Utah - Part 2

On one of the days during our Utah trip we went to the Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Temple Square is beautiful all year around but we especially love to visit it during Christmas season because of all of the Christmas lights and in the summers because of all of the flowers. Generally, we try to stop by whenever we are in Utah, and this time we had a special reason. There is a wonderful sister-missionary serving on Temple Square right now. She is from Ukraine but last year she was working in Kazakhstan (she is a professional gymnast), and so we got to know her very well. When she was leaving on her mission, we promised her that we would come see her one day and bring some Ukrainian candy, a little piece of home to her. And so we did!

Svetlana, when she finally realized who is behind the camera. 

Yep, we came to see you from all the way across the world!

Oma posing with our kids under the tower of the Salt Lake Temple where she and Opa got married.

While at the Temple Square we stopped by a new exhibit at the Church History Museum.

Nativity sets from around the world

One of the days Oma took us to UVU to see a stained glass window at their library. It was very impressive! It showed a history knowledge in the world from the beginning of times to now. The window was made of several sections that went in a semi-circle and that were covered by a bullet-proof glass on the outside.

I couldn't even get the whole view. It is huge!

One of the sections

Our niece and nephews came over to spend a week at Oma’s house with us while their parents went on a mini work/vacation type of a trip. The cousins had so much fun together playing games, watching movies, annoying each other and … just being cousins!

Playing an old Russian game called "rezinochka" 

Girls' sleeping quarters. The boys were sleeping in the "basement".

One night we took the older four kids to the temple. It was Nika's first time to go inside.

Almost every summer when we are in the US, depending on our trip schedule, we sign our girls up for swimming lessons. All four of them are pretty good swimmers but we want them to develop good swimming and diving techniques and besides that it keeps them busy and they are having fun at the same time. A win-win situation for me!

Sophie is diving in.

And at the end I’d like to share some of my favorite moments from our trip.

That's how our mornings would often start.

That's how our afternoons often went... Oma was reading a book called The War That Saved My Life to the girls and got me hooked on it too.

We went to Payson Grotto in our last week. I love that hike!

We went to visit Mike and Suzette, their boys, and their dog in Brigham City. Here are the kids trying to decide what to do with themselves. Jade the dog is the only one with a clear idea!

"Would you like to play with me, Human?"

We loved spending time with family and friends and going on adventures this summer. But there's an end to every fun adventure and we had to once again come back to our ordinary lives in Kazakhstan. Oh wait, not this time. This time we were bringing Oma with us. Stay tuned for her adventures with crazy kids of hers in a far, far away land.

Trip to Utah - Part 1

We had a fun summer but then life happened - a very busy life - and we got out of the habit writing about our experiences. We’ll try to catch up quickly.

After we got back from our trip to Eastern Europe we had about 10 days to catch up on things at home and then we took a 3-week trip to Utah to visit our family there. This was probably the first time when we had so many adventures getting there. Chicago experienced a huge rain storm right before we got there and was so backed up that they canceled most of the flights out including the flight to Salt Lake City that we were supposed to take. They rerouted us trough San Francisco but the flight wasn’t until the next morning, so we had to spend the night in Chicago. When we got to San Francisco, the jet-way wouldn’t connect to our plane for a long time so we missed out flight to Salt Lake City. United didn’t have any flights out for the same day which all six of us could be on, so they bought us tickets on Delta. Finally 30 hours later than expected we made it to Utah!

Gingerbread cookie gift from Lufthansa, which was celebrating 25 years of service to Astana.

Waiting for our flight to Frankfurt in Astana's new airport terminal

Chicago - waiting for our flight after spending the night in a hotel after our flight was cancelled the day before.

We had a lot of fun with our family and friends there. This time around we decided not to take any additional trips anywhere else but just stay in Utah. I think by July we were already tired of all of the traveling we’d done so far and just wanted to stay in one place for a change.

I think the first outing we did was to the convention center in Sandy to see the floats that were going to be participating in the 24^th of July Parade in Salt Lake City. There were so many fun floats but most of us voted for one particular one that ended up winning the first place!

Looking at floats with Oma.

The varieties of floats were very interesting.

This was the winning float.  It had a working flour mill and sawmill on it.

One of the most fun things we did while in Utah was getting together with our long-time friends Nicole and Steve and their family that we haven’t seen in 5 years. We lived in Iowa City together and became fast friends! Our kids went to the same school, even the same class. Then life took them to Texas and us to Las Vegas first and then to Kazakhstan. This was the first time when at least for one day we ended up at the same place at the same time! We decided to get together at one of the parks up the Provo Canyon, and it was like those five years never happened! We love you, guys!

Kids doing kid stuff together.

Having fun hiking on the trail together....it's a very developed trail.

The adults being grown up.

Great picture of the crew together.

The kids sat at their own table when we went to eat.

Nicole and me - five years and we haven't missed a beat.

The same day we met with Steve and Nicole, we went to the Spanish Fork Rodeo and we brought Oma and Burl, Shellee, and Brennen with us. We went to this rodeo 2 years ago and really enjoyed it, and this time around was no different.

Waiting for the action to begin.

Bronco busting!

Barrel racing was awesome.

Bull riding never disappoints.  The bulls were very aggressive.

The next few days was the Willardson Family Reunion most of which we spent at various places in Ephraim. Cousins had fun swimming at the Palisade Park, and fishing at the Community Canyon Reservoir as well as well as playing games at the hotel, eating at the Fat Jack's Pizza (now Roy's Pizza) and the next day having a lunch and a talent show at Ben’s house in Springville.

Boy cousins - our girls not pictured :) - at Palisade Reservoir

Girl cousins minus Tess (working cherries) and Aubree (on her mission in Peru).

Ephraim canyon on the way to the community reservoir.

At the skyline - we missed the turnoff, and hit the peak of the mountain where there was still snow in July!

Fishing at Community (Spring Hill)

Picnic lunch at the Ephraim Park - playing pioneer bingo with Oma.

To be continued...