Sum Sum Summertime

Summer is here and we are soaking it all in! I keep thinking that we need to slow down... but then we keep having another opportunity to do something awesome and we just can't resist the bike ride, playground romp, picnic, concert, parade, and/or evening at a friend's house. And as tired as I am, I can't imagine us any other way.

So here's the Morningstar late-May and early-June Summer photo review!

Kites in the park - we only lost one kite's spars in the process (apparently they don't do well when run over by cars) and drew blood once (apparently Kevlar line is stronger than Steve's thumb skin) so overall a very successful day of flying!

May brought garden planting and the little onions and lettuces in this picture are now ready for first harvests

We're all loving homemade strawberry shortcakes made with berries from our garden!

We've explored a few new parks in the area and have deemed every playground superb.

The girls have been attending Sundance Kids Camp while Steve works and are having a blast. Morning yoga in the mountains is a great way for them to start their days!

The Hogle Zoo just opened a new African Savannah area so, of course, we've needed to visit the zoo several times.

And no zoo trip is complete without a carousel ride!

Ben and I have enjoyed several bike rides to the 7-Eleven. He convinced me to spring for the mustache straw - I think it was a wise purchase.

Strawberry Days Rodeo was a good time for all - the kids even managed to stay awake for the fireworks.

And the Cash Cow at the rodeo was sheer hilarity - watching a sea of hundreds of kids chasing 3 calves with money taped to them kept us all entertained. Those calves are faster than you'd think!

And, of course, we've attended several great concerts this year - Mavis Staples and Robert Cray Band and also Emmilou Harris. And the concert year has only begun!

As you can see, we've had a full and fun summer so far - and it's only late June! Combine all of this with camping, bike riding in 2 centuries and a 140 (woah!), and a new job and you have one very happy family. Shew, I'm tired just writing about all of this!

Animal Kingdom

Our first big outing in Florida was to the Animal Kingdom with the Klippel family. I am forever indebted to Jennifer for keeping me sane in Kaz while Steve made a whirlwind trip back to the States to pick up the boys. I don't know if I could have survived 9 days alone with a two-year-old in Kazakhstan without our daily phone chats about the Turner Classic Movie and Hannah Montana episode of the day (the only English-language TV we got). I owe Jennifer big-time, and if you're ever in Hilton Head, make sure to check out Drifter Excursions and tip well.

It was a joy to finally hang out with Jennifer's son Ricky - he was still in the baby house when we left Kaz, so we didn't get the chance to get acquainted properly. Ricky and Sasha share a passion for rides that go "up and down" so while the big kids were riding the Everest roller coaster, Sasha, Ricky, and I rode the flying dinosaurs on three back-to-back rides. 95 degrees and 800% humidity feel a lot better when you've got the breeze in your hair on the back of a flying dinosaur.

Here are some photographic highlights of our day:

Ricky did agree to a character visit and was ok with the giant furry monsters as long as I was holding him close. He even gave Pooh a friendly, "hi!" but his courage didn't hold out for Eyore and Tigger - one was enough.

Sasha, on the other hand, stood with her back to the fence and screamed when I attempted to introduce her to Winnie the Pooh. Here's her recreation of her face of angry terror (the original version was much louder).
Sash loved the petting zoo and I think she would have brushed goats and sheep all day if we hadn't bribed her away with ice cream
How do you stay cool in Disney World in June? Attempt 1 - Fill your misting fan with ice. We all agreed that while the fan was good, the mist-and-evaporate cooling system works a lot better in Utah.
Attempt 2 - Water rides! This one worked well - we emerged soaked and happy. That explains the 90-minute wait lines... thank goodness for Fast Pass!
Attempt 3 - Consume massive quantities of $3.50 ice cream bars. I think we all agree that this is our preferred method of staying cool in Disney World.

Our first day at Disney was a stunning success. We survived the crowds, heat, repeated rides on the Yeti rollercoaster (although riding twice back-to-back was a huge queasy mistake), and even The Revenge of the Six-Foot Pooh Bear. That's what I call a vacation.

At the Zoo

(apologies in advance, it is simply impossible for me to blog about the zoo and not sing Simon and Garfunkel in my head. I don't know what effect this truly terrible song may have on the quality of this post. God help us all)

I had an impromptu day off Friday, which was super-cool and much-needed. On the way to pick up Grammy from the airport, the kids and I popped over to the Hogle Zoo for a very agreeable morning romp while Daddy was sick at home, cleaning up the guest room :(

The highlight of the visitwas definitely the tiger exhibit. They were cleaning the big enclosure, so all four tigers were in the smaller enclosure, which was awesome. The whole way to the zoo Sasha was chanting about tigers, "cute, sweet tigers," so seeing them up-close-and-personal was the fulfillment of all of her hopes for the day.

Sasha was not, however, so thrilled about the giant elephant sculpture. Whenever we passed it, she hid her face and hung on to me for dear life. To my untrained eyes he seems like a rather jolly, music-playing, sneezing (in the summer) elephant - clearly I am overlooking his more sinister qualities. The real elephants, BTW, were just fine in Sasha's book.

Ben took over as pathfinder this trip to the zoo and did a marvelous job reading the map and pointing us in the right direction, much to Sam's chagrin since he "already knew how to get there anyway." Sam did back off a little once I explained (with a little mommy-glare) that Ben was practicing his map-reading skills. And Ben did enjoy a moment of triumph when Sam chose the long way around instead of the shorter route he would have picked on the map had Sam not already been a quarter-mile down the path. Ah, siblings.

We ended our trip with the requisite ride on the train and then it was off to the airport to go see Grammy! A fabulous way to pass a spring morning - almost as good as a day at work :)

At the Zoo

Not just a marginal Paul Simon song - it's also how we spent our Monday evening!

We've been meaning to get to the zoo to see veritable (well, make that literal) menagerie of baby animals born this summer and on Monday we finally made it to the Hogle Zoo. And boy were they cute! We saw the baby lynx, baby elephant, baby tiger cubs, and baby giraffe. I think that the elephant, born in mid-August, probably got the biggest "awwwwww" factor, although unsurprisingly the wolf was Sasha's favorite exhibit. I think she's the only little girl in the history of the world who goes up to the wolf enclosure and says, "awwwww, so sweet!" The girl loves her dogs!

We tried to take the traditional photo at the lion drinking fountain, however, and Sasha would have none of it despite her normal passion for all things watery. The man-eating wolf is adorable, the cartoon lion with a drinking fountain in its mouth is terrifying. Whatever.

We finished off our rather rainy but still delightful evening at the zoo with a spin around the carousel. I was so proud of Sash - she actually consented to ride on an animal, although she wanted nothing to do with the zebra I suggested and instead went straight for the snow leopard. Now that I think about it, aren't snow leopards indigenous to Kazakhstan? Let me check... yep, the internet says yes! Go ethnic heritage!

Ben chose a gorilla carousel animal; so appropriate for our little monkey. Sam went with the elephant, which was so big that he had to climb onto it from the saddle of the cheetah next to it! And we all had a fantastic time. Boy do I love a good carousel.

We rounded out the evening with dinner at Buca di Beppo, a family favorite, where Sam successfully secured the kitchen table using his good looks and natural charm. As you may have guessed from the very clever name, the table is... in the kitchen. You get to see the chefs preparing the food and you get a lot of special attention from the servers, which is a total thrill for the kids.

And as if it could get any better, we spent the night in a hotel! Steve and I had a free night voucher at Salt Lake hotel that was about to expire and since I had to be in the city at 7 am Tuesday morning we figured that there was no time like the present to spend a free night in Salt Lake! We swam in the pool, lazed in the hot tub, watched some Disney Channel on TV - it was heaven :) Shew, we did manage to pack a lot into a single evening, but, then, would you expect anything less from us?

Day 56 - Almaty Zoo

Today was a simply beautiful Sunday - temps in the 50's or maybe even 60's, blue skies, and warm sunshine on our faces (something I haven't felt in a long time!). On such a lovely day, an outing to the park was definitely in order.

Our apartment building is situated between two of the city's largest parks, which is awesome. Here's a picture of the outside of our building. Today we walked to the Central Park, which isn't exactly central in the city... but I digress.

The park will be absolutely beautiful in a couple of weeks, but today it was obviously still in winter clean up mode as the last patches of snow melted away. We enjoyed watching the city workers sweeping up the winter's debris with their gigantic twig brooms. Ok, Mommy enjoyed watching the sweeping because she's obsessed with the brooms in Kazakhstan. I'm not sure that any other member of the Morningstar family really cared.

The fun fair and park vendors were just gearing up for the year and Ben was in heaven because a) it was allowance day and b) they were selling cotton candy, popcorn in Technicolor shades, and Coca Cola. Needless to say, he returned back to the apartment this afternoon with only 20 tengue remaining of his original 750.

Thankfully, we only stopped for one ride in the fun fair, the giant slide! It's amazing how much self control children can muster when they have to pay for rides themselves :) I think they chose very wisely, the slide was really cool, way taller than the one we usually have for Orem Summerfest, and only cost 70 tengue (less than 50 cents).

The next stop was the Almaty Zoo, conveniently located just on the far side of the Central Park. I had to snap a photo of the boys "mountain climbing" up the zoo's entrance - we saw ramps like these all over Karaganda and now in Almaty as well and Oxana confirmed our suspicions that they're wheelchair ramps! Wow, I pity the person who pushes a wheelchair up those ramps, and anybody going down is in for a wild ride!

We had a lovely afternoon at the zoo. The boys confirmed our suspicions that their favorite "exhibit" was the playground, which we had to visit both on our way in and before heading back to the apartment.

They were thrilled to find both a merry go round and a see saw, both of which are sadly hard to find in the States. After watching the boys play together on them, it was immediately apparent why - who knew whomping your brother to the ground over and over on the see saw could be such fun?!?

My favorite part of the zoo was Ben's llama ride! He is officially the only person I know who has ridden a llama and at the end of the ride he proudly proclaimed, "I rode one of those things in The Emperor's New Groove!"

Ben also took a ride on one of the biggest horses I have ever seen. The kid sure makes me proud of his adventurous spirit - as soon as he saw that horse, he just new that he had to ride it!

I'm pretty sure that Steve's favorite part was watching this kid poach a ride with his rollerblades. There were several kids rollerblading through the zoo and it seemed like a great way to get around... I kinda wished that I had blades on myself.

And Sasha's favorite part of the zoo? It had to be her apple juice box. She can't actually suck through the straw (it's one of the casualties of not having a dividing line between your mouth and nose, you can't create suction), but she was more than happy to chew on the straw while we squeezed the juice box. Between the juice and the box of biscuits we bought to snack on (which tasted oddly like those cookies at McDonald's), she was one happy girl.

Here are a few more fun photos from our day:
Papa takes a turn being Sasha's pack mule
We're pretty sure that these translate to "Warning - Tigers and Owls can kill! They are easily angered by tank tops and short shorts so arm yourself well"
Is it just me, or is something watching me?
Loving the Ergocarrier!

Day 50 - The Karaganda Zoo

Wow, can you believe that I've been in Kazakhstan for fifty days?!? That makes it sound like a really long time. Ok, it is a really long time... but it doesn't feel like 50 days. Time does fly when you're having fun becoming a family :)

We had two big events today: we finally broke out the bubbles and we visited the zoo! This is our last week in Karaganda, so we're really living it up.

The bubbles were a fantastic hit. We had intended to bring them on our original flights, but they were postponed because of the weight limits and Steve brought them out last week. I think the anticipation just made it all the more fun. The boys had a wonderful time blowing bubbles for their sister and as you can see, Sasha was enamored with the whole experience. Plus, we managed not to spill bubble solution on anything, which I believe is a record for our family!

And then there was the zoo. Wow. Big, big fun. Honestly, we came with low expectations. After all, this is a zoo in a city in Kazakhstan that is smaller than Salt Lake. Plus, Oxana said that it was "really sad," especially in winter because most of the animals were indoors.

I'll admit that there were a few sad looking enclosures, but all in all the zoo was far larger and much nicer than I had expected. And it was a bargain - the boys were free and Steve and I were only 200 Tengue each! Of course, we did have to pay 800 Tengue for the privilege of taking photos. Oh well, it was still $8 (total, including admission... well, $9.50 if you include the animal rides) very well spent!

Here's a run-down of everybody's favorite part of the zoo:

Mommy's favorite part, hands down, was Ben's camel ride. I mean, come on - how cool is this?!? I definitely look forward to saying, "remember your camel ride in Kazakhstan?" to him when he's 30 and watching him roll his eyes.

Daddy's favorite part was the hippo. I'm not really sure why, because this was one of the enclosures that I would put in the "sad" list (although it wasn't as bad as this picture makes it look - they were cleaning his normal enclosure so he was in this pen temporarily). I think Steve just loved seeing how ginormous the hippo's mouth was when the zookeeper squirted water into it. I'll admit, that part was really cool.

Ben liked the bears the best. He really liked it that the bears kept running around in their enclosures, which was the exact same part that made Mommy nervous (probably impacted a little by the sign above their pen - see the close-up). He actually said that next time he would like to ride a bear instead of a camel. Great.
Sam also said that he liked the bears the best (cop out!), so here's a picture of Sam and Ben on their horse-drawn sleigh ride. After they left, I couldn't help but think, "My sons are now out of my sight on a horse-drawn sled in Kazakhstan" but I did successfully choke down the panic.

Sasha's favorite part was the ducks. The kid loves ducks and makes a heck of a quacking noise whenever she sees something vaguely duck-like (her duck window cling, pigeons outside, and now peacocks and ducks and chickens at the zoo).

Jennifer was on our field trip as well and her favorite part was leaning over to me at the lion cage and telling me, "that lioness is totally planning to eat your boys," which was definitely true - just check out the look in her eyes!

But we all emerged from the Karaganda Zoo unscathed, one more adventure under our belts!