Summer Vacation in Utah - Water Fun Part II

During the first two weeks of our Utah vacation we put our kids into swimming lessons at the Payson outdoor pool. When we lived in Iowa our kids would always take swimming lessons throughout the year and especially in the summers but we didn't have an opportunity to do it when we lived in Las Vegas (though we did visit the pools there once in a while), and in Astana our first year was so busy that we didn't even find a pool to go to. The only exception was Thailand where we spend every day of our vacation in water. Needless to say the girls were very anxious to start swimming again. We arrived right before the new session started, so everything worked out great especially because it was around 104 F every day for those first couple of weeks or so. The girls loved it, and this time they actually made a huge improvement!

Nika and Lina practicing swimming using just their legs

Sun + water = happy kids

We also got together with Spencer's brother Ben's family a couple of times for an afternoon at the pool which is always a lot of fun!

At the Payson outdoor pool. I know our girls are somewhere in there.

Sophie is going down the slide

We had a great time swimming in the Payson pool while we were there.  The girls got good enough at swimming that we are comfortable with them in the water now.

Summer Vacation in Utah - Water Fun Part I

At the end of June we went back to Utah for our summer vacation. We spent a little over a month hanging out with family and friends and also participating in some fun outdoor adventures. It was awesome! We feel like we totally recharged and are ready to spend another year here in Kazakhstan.

Our first few adventures involved water in one way or another! Our very first full day after arrival to Utah we went up to the Payson lake. It was literally a 10 minute drive from Spencer's mom's home up the Payson Canyon but in my 6 years of living in Utah I have never been there. In fact I have never been to any of the places we went on adventures this summer. I guess when you live in some place you always tend to explore things that are further away and totally overlook the amazing things that are right under your nose! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures from the Payson lake because I lost my old camera a week before we left Astana and hadn't yet bought my new fancy camera that I have now. But even though I do not have pictures to prove it, the lake was beautiful and peaceful even with a couple of YW camps around it.

A couple of days later we went to Bear Lake up in Idaho (we might have stayed on the Utah side of it) for a family reunion. That is another place I'd often driven past but hadn't visited it until this summer. The lake was gorgeous with its beautiful clear blue water (and this time I already had my camera with me), too cold for my liking but the kids had a lot of fun swimming with their second cousins. We had a lot of fun there!

Drive up to the Bear Lake. These mountains remind me so much of Altai, where my family is from.

Kids swimming in the Bear Lake. They didn't mind the cool water at all.

Playing with the second cousins

So tired after a whole day in the water and sun.

Our next adventure was up the Provo Canyon on the 4^th of July. We got together with Spencer's brother Burl and his family, his sister Suzette and her family and Spencer's mom and had a fun time visiting, playing games and even fishing on the Provo river.  

Playing games

Uncle Mike teaching the kids the art of fishing. He should be awarded a medal for being so patient!

Sophie turned out to be a good fisherman. She got a hang of it right away.

Lexa's line kept getting stuck in the rocks.

Nika is trying her hand in fishing

Lina is loving it!

We all had such a great time!

The end of school year

Our girls finished their first year in a public school system here in Kazakhstan. It was a hard year but at the same time a very rewarding one. The girls have adapted to the new school system, language, and culture and absolutely exceeded our expectations. Three of them finished the year with straight As and one had just a couple of Bs and the rest were As. Some of the hard things that we encountered were going to school on Saturdays, having kids in the morning and afternoon shifts, constant change in schedules, dealing with bureaucracy, problems with transportation and others. To be honest once or twice I came very close to taking them out of school and just homeschooling. I am glad I didn’t though. For the girls the first 4 months were the hardest but then something clicked and all of them took off flying. They made new friends and they learned Russian while learning everything else in Russian. Going through these challenges and coming up on top of them gave them an incredible sense of accomplishment. We are very proud of them!

 

First Grade (Class 1"G")

Sophie and Lexa with their teacher. She was AWESOME!

School is over! Sophie, Lexa and James Peterson are on the front steps of the school

The school year ended on May 22 here. And on May 23^rd Veronika had her big graduation ball. She finished elementary school (here it is 1-4 grade) and is moving to the middle school. Here it is almost as big of a deal as graduating from high school. The last week of school they didn’t have any classes but were getting ready for the ball: learning dances, songs, practicing skits.

Generally parents are not invited to the school events but for the graduation an exception was made. Spencer was in Washington DC at the time, so he missed it. The kids did a great job! They put up quite a concert with some of amazing numbers. My favorite ones were Kazakh folk dances. Overall it was a really neat experience and I am glad that Veronika was a part of it!

Nika with her best friend Kate 

Fancy!

Waltz

Singing a good bye song to the teachers

Kazakh dance

I love Kazakh national costumes!

These girls were AMAZING! 

Nika singing "The Rainbow Connection". She sang that song for the contest in March and ever since she was asked to sing it again and again at different school parties.

Getting a certificate for Excellent School Work from assistant principal

Flash mob dance

Fourth grade class with some of the parents

Veronika with her teacher. All of our girls were lucky to get such good teachers.

Nika, Lina, and Kate Peterson in front of their school. 

Basketball Part III: I'm the Head Coach Going Forward

I have written a few times about my involvement with the NU Women's basketball team.  The opportunity to work with the girls has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my involvement at the university.  In this post I will detail some of the exciting developments from the spring, including our results from the two tournaments we played in, as well as the future going forward.

3 on 3 Tournament

In early March there was an announcement that there would be a student/staff 3 on 3 tournament on a Saturday morning and afternoon.  Brett and I, along with one staff member from Brett's school and one of our players, Dinara, decided to enter.  Our goal was to win the whole tournament.   Each team could have 4 players, but play 3 at a time.  Dinara had to leave after we played our first two teams, so we were playing every game with just the three of us.  We won all of our games - five - and then played in the championship.  The team we played used five players and played all five at some point during the game against us.  It was a bit of cheating that we were upset about, but it happened.  One of their players got really hot from the three point line and all of their points came from long 3s.  We lost by 1 point when he hit his last long 3.  It was a bitter pill.  You can see from the photo of Brett and I playing how much fun we had together.  Getting to know and work with Brett has been awesome!

Commiserating with Brett during or after a game.  What a great friend.

League Season and Tournament

Brett, who has been the coach for the past three years organized a league with four other teams.  The league included 3 other universities and the "B" team from NU.  The "B" team is new this year.  We had so many girls who wanted to play, that when we selected the team in September, they decided they wanted to practice.  They spent their own money to pay for sports passes and practiced twice a week, often with the help of one of the girls from the main team.  When one of the teams dropped out of the tournament, we gave them an opportunity to play.  They didn't win any games, but they had a good experience, which will help for next year.

Action shot of our girls playing against the Agrarian University team - this team ended up in 4th place in the tournament.

The season was arranged so that each team played each other.  Each week for four weeks we had two games a night on Thursday evenings.  Our girls won all four of our games, and so we received the top seed in the tournament.  In the first round of the tournament the 1 seed played the 4, and the 2 and 3 seeds played each other.  We also won the first game of the semi-final.  In the final game we played our main rival in the city: for the second time in the tournament.  We won the championship game in a hard-fought victory - which meant that we went undefeated in the season and the tournament.

League and tournament champions!

Top 3 teams.  The team on the left is our main rival!

That was the culmination of the years efforts.  A few weeks later we were told at the last minute that the Ministry of Education and or Sport would be holding a tournament at the university.  This is the tournament that our girls took third place in last year - a vast improvement over their previous results.  This tournament was very poorly organized, but our girls took part.  Our first game was against the team we had beat for the championship in our tournament.  The game was hard-fought again, but we won.

Our second game was against the 3rd place team from the tournament we played in.  That game was one of the ugliest games we played in all year.  Nothing that we shot went in, but in the end, we held on and won.  We played in the championship against a team that didn't participate in the league and tournament that we put on.  By the end of the tournament we were the bad guys - all of the girls and fans from the other teams were cheering against us.  It was a very different feeling from that of being underdogs in the previous years.  The team we played was strong, but we held on and won.  They scored 13 of their 17 points on free throws - we scored four of ours on free throws.  We were up by two points with a few seconds left to go and one of our girls hit a long two point shot at the buzzer to seal the victory.

Qualifying game during Ministry Tournament.

Champions again! With medals and certificates to prove it.

It was a fine way to end the season.  7 of the 13 players on the team are seniors and will graduate in June.  They started the team with nothing and worked hard for three years and were able to attain a degree of excellence.  One of the biggest compliments that we received is from the father (and coach) of the star of our main rivals.  He said that we are now the example of what a team should be and that we are helping to bring respectability and professionalism to women's sports.  That is what we are trying to do for sure.

Social and other Activities

Yulia and I hosted the team at our house for an end of year banquet and awards ceremony in between the two tournaments. Our most valuable player was going to Milan for a work internship before the school year ended.  It was a very emotional ceremony as Brett said goodbye to the girls as well.  He accepted a job in the States beginning in August.  I became the head coach officially after our tournament.

Handing out awards at the end of the season.

Notice how dressed up the girls get - much different from boys basketball in this respect!

A fine group.  It is bittersweet to be a part of the changes in the next year.

Besides the end of the year banquet, we had a dinner at a restaurant after our second tournament win. The next week we had a dinner and get together at the house of one of our players who had a birthday during the tournament.  Being a part of the team means a lot of extra fun social interaction as well.

Going Forward

This year has been one of the most rewarding of my life.  The opportunity to be a part of the team has been one that has been very good for me in a number of ways.  I am a bit apprehensive about the prospect of being in charge of the team next year, but am also looking forward to the challenge of rebuilding the team after 4 of our starters and our two main bench players graduate, and of carrying on the legacy of success that the team has built in a few short years.  I am also excited for my girls to have as role models these excellent scholar athletes who dedicate themselves to a game that they love while continuing to have great success in the classroom and in life.

Victory Day Military Parade

Last week we had two federal holidays in a row. The first one was the Defender of the Fatherland Day (in other words Armed Forces Day). It is celebrated on February 23 in a lot of former Soviet Union Republics since 1919 except here in Kazakhstan where they celebrate it on May 7. I am not sure why. It is a big holiday here and can be compared to American Veteran’s Day and Father’s Day put together.

Two days later on May 9 we celebrate Victory Day which marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the end of WWII or the Great Patriotic War as it is often called here. The surrender document was signed late on the night of 8^th of May 1945 but in Moscow it was already 9^th of May and that is why Victory Day here is celebrated on the 9^th. It is one of the biggest holidays in a lot of former Soviet Union Republics and this year it was special because it has been 70 years since the war ended in which Soviet Union lost about 50 million people.

Usually there is a military parade on May 9 but this year it was held on May 7 (Defender of the Fatherland Day) because Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, was going to the Victory Day Parade in Moscow on the 9^th where he was one of the key guests.  For about 2 weeks before the parade we saw them practicing. On the way to church we would see some tanks and other heavy machinery. For a few days we saw fighter jets flying in different formations. It was great! We couldn't go see the actual parade because it was on the other side of the river and they cut off the traffic to the area of the parade, so we decided to go to one of the major squares where they put up big screens to watch the parade live.

Walking to Bayterek to watch the parade live on the screens

We invited our friends, the Petersons, to come with us. It was a very warm day, and the leaves on the trees just came out a few days earlier, so everything was dressed in that beautiful light green spring color. There were just a few people when we arrived at Bayterek square but soon more and more people started to show up. We found a nice spot to sit at the foot of the tower with a good view of the screens, the square, and the presidential palace where we could see the air show.

Spencer and the kids with the Peterson kids sitting at the foot of Bayterek watching the parade.

The stage with two screens on the sides at Bayerek.

The view of the Presidential Palace.

The parade was beautifully organized, and featured both historical (from the WWII era) and modern equipment. The largest military parade in Kazakhstan’s history gathered over 5 thousand military personnel, 200 pieces of military equipment and 70 helicopters and military airplanes.We really loved the air show when the military helicopters, fighter jets and other military planes flew in different formations with the last fighter jet formation being a number 70 for the 70^th anniversary since the ending of WWII. At the end they wrote a big “70” in the sky with the smoke.

Beginning of the Parade.

Tanks. 

Veterans of WWII, Just a few of them are still living.

Military helicopters

Jets escorting a transport plane (I think it is TU 134)

New Su-30 SM Flankers purchased from Russia. It is probably hard to see from this angle but they are flying as number 70

After it was over we walked to Keruen Mall for some ice cream where we also found some displays with the pictures of men and women who went to war from this area and with some pieces from their letters to home. It was really neat.

 

The square was full of people who came to watch the parade.

A display at Keruen Mall with the photographs of the people who went to WWII from this area.

I hope our kids will remember this day. All of their great grandfathers went to that war. One of their Russian grandfathers was killed at the very beginning; the other went all the way to Berlin and was there on the day the capitulation was signed. He made it home but died years later from a piece of shrapnel that was never removed from his body. Both of their American great grandparents answered the call and went to war even though they didn't see any action themselves because it was over before they got there. I hope they will remember their heritage and I hope they will remember the sacrifices that so many men, women, and even children paid so they can have the freedom.