You may remember this time last year we went to a birthday party (it was a little girl at the Kindergarten called 'Carolina', pronounced 'Caroleena', see the Previous Post). Well, we were all invited again this year and it proved as epic (if not more so) than last year! Start time 06:30, end time 23:00, phew ! although a bit long :-) , it was actually quite a magical evening for us all, kids and parents!

Entertainment/activities included:

Clowns on arrival,

a small donkey ride,

disco music from start to finish

,

doves again! (although Lara was in the thick of it this time, I was off at that moment buying new batteries for the camera),

a general Alice In Wonderland theme,

lots of food for parents and kids,

a magician,

a contortionist who got himself into a small box, very impressive,

big bubble blowing,

fun face painting and tattoos for the kids,

Pirates of the Caribbean sub-theme!

a treasure hunt,

me dressed as a big tomato alongside Carolina's Mum who was dressed as an orange, with kids stuffing balloons down the front of our costumes, we then had to dance to various types of songs,

one of those fun tube tunnel things that kids crawl through,

a game of manic sponge Bob "sponge tennis",

probably several other things that slipped my mind.

all the above filmed on several serious digital cameras and TV looking standard film cameras by a very professional looking media company

The finale was an impressive fireworks display that could have been fitting for a public holiday celebration followed by the giving of a big birthday cake in the shape of a ship!

we took several pictures of the evening and one or two short video clips. See May and June pictures (epic birthday party subalbum)

You may remember our friend's Phil and Natalie who came to see us in September last year, our first non-family British visitors! Well, Saturday 5th June they were getting married on a beach in the Gower Penninsula, Wales. We were disappointed not to be there to be honest, but our general circumstances made it very difficult to go in reality. Beach wedding certainly a very cool idea. They also did not ask for wedding gifts but instead asked everybody to do something slightly different or unique as a tribute to their wedding. I decided to sing a song for them. See my musical tribute on video (from this page you'll also notice I've discovered how to put streamed video online, meaning you can view it instantly on the web page without having to download it first!, a big milestone :-) )

When I saw the video of myself I realised how much me and Pip look alike from that Angle !

The idea for the song came from when I heard Irinna playing it at the weekend.

May 28th - 30th saw the visit of Irinna, our Kazakh friend currently living in Coventry with her English husband David. Irinna's Mum is also currently living in the U.K with them. She is a friend of Lara's from schooldays. They were staying in Almaty and came to Astana to see us as an excursion and it was nice to have some more people over to stay.

On Saturday I gave them a tour of the city, including the compulsory Baiterek tower. It was an extrememly windy day (although sunny) and the tower felt like it was rocking slightly when we were in the sphere at the top, although I understand this is perfectly normal! We also drove through the old town to show them the contrast between old and new, and saw the great Buddy bears (link). Saturday evening was very stormy and windy (as well as rainy) but being a hardened brit I decided (with Irinna) to brave the elements and we walked around Highvill and the pyramid in the dark, stormy weather (crazy but invigorating!!)

In the evening, Lara rustled up a tasty chicken dish at home and then, over some wine and beer, we had some great and varied conversation :-) . Topics included:

British Airways (and the state of airlines),

World History teaching and English History teaching,

Gumilev (a Russian author who wrote about the lifecycle of nations and civilizations amongst other

things),

Hitler

World War II,

Rolls Royce,

Wind Turbines and alternative energy,

Cleaning rivers (Irinna is part of a group in her area who volunteered to clear out the local river, finding lots of interesting items such as sofas and Tesco trolleys..),

making tea in a river (as I did as a cub scouts once),

the tourist industry,

Working in an airport (I still think Lara's ideal job would be as one of those people in the airport, running around an organising the day to day hectic running of an airline on the ground, dealing with passenger issues etc etc),

Oil and the oil industry,

Iran and Iraq,

Russia/Ukraine gas crisis,

Conspiracy theories,

J.F. Kennedy,

the Kazakh language,

Nepotism,

Airlines,

Volcanoes (and the recent Iceland eruption),

Profit Margins,

Brazil (and the 5 times increase in energy prices in the last couple of years),

Water turbines,

our ideas for global energy reduction: improving house insulation, apparently responsible for huge Tenergy losses, car sharing, shopping online, increased use of IT,

Henry VIII,

ElizabethI

,

Margaret Thatcher,

the new British Government, and David Cameron, phewwwwwww,

On Sunday we went to Norman Foster's pyramid, walked around the grounds and then went to the new Congress hall opposite where there is a museum/exhibition hall of lots of interesting Kazakh stuff (Mum, don't think it was open when you were here!!) including a full size Yurt (the traditional Kazakh tent house serving as a family home for the nomadic Kazakhs). There is also a 25 metre long 1:600 scale model of Astana as it is planned to look like in 2030, definitely the biggest model city I've ever seen. Sunday evening we played guitar and sang some songs, always nice to have a reason to pick up the guitar.

On Monday while I was working the guys walked around the Central Park (the one with all the kids rides) and then ate at the new(ish) TGI Fridays before heading back to Highvill and then on to the train station where they travelled back to Almaty. They are back in the U.K now!

A couple of pictures from Easter Sunday, here are the chicks' that Mum sent and a third picture of the girls creatively using the YoYos (from birthday presents) as fishing rods :-)

March 22nd sees the celebration of the Kazakh traditional new year (noticably, it marks the end of Winter and start of Spring). In the Zhuldyz Kindergarten all the kids dressed in costumes of different countries and performed a small dance. Dasha and Ksennia were in Korean costume and they both performed really well. I really like the single picture of Ksennia here. Photo on the right is Lara with a friend, another Larissa, one of the mothers at the Kindergarten.

Offering from February include:
1st, my 3 three girls on the sofa !
2nd, 3 in a bed and the little one said.... yep its a childs bed but stil just about big enough to fit 2 4 year olds and a -small- Mummy !
3rd, a nice Ksennia close up, at the moment they like to take beady braclet thingies and hang them from their ears as you can see, very alternative !

1st picture the girls in one of their warm winter jackets, very furry !
2nd picure D and K with Dora the Explorer, one of our favourites at the moment (we think Dora looks a bit like Dasha) 3rd picture was taken at 'Old Russian New Year' that is celebrated a lot here (I think the history behind it is that Russia still used the old Gregorian calender up till the end of the 19th century/ beginning of 20th (wheras Europe changed it several centuries ago). The Gregorian calender was a week behind the 'new calender', meaning that the Russian new year always occured about a week after Europe/other parts of the world and is still, bizzarely, celebrated still, anyway picture was taken at our regular 'vodolay' restaurant, owned by friends of Lara's family on the Russian new year in the first half of Jan, Ksennia bit scared of tiger at first !