11/01/04-Anniversaries and milestones...

Today has been a day ofanniversaries and milestones. Today, Gracie turned 11 months. Today was also the second anniversary of Mary Jo and my first date. Wow, it has gone fast and man, are we catching up.

Also, for everyone’s information, we had our change on daylight savings time last night, so we are still 11 hours ahead of Pittsburgh. Of course, we didn’t realize it until tonight and we realized we were feeding them at 4 pm and they were looking at a 5 pm bedtime. They rallied a little and we were able to catch up some of the lost time. We did not relish the idea of a 5 am wake-up time for the kids.

We got our first real snowfall last night. I’ve included some pictures to show it to you. Back when I was at that small Catholic university with a mediocre football team, I used to say, “Notre Dame was built to have snow on it.” After my daily walk, I was beginning to think some of that is true of Karaganda. I don’t think my camera captured how pretty the parks were with all the trees covered with snow. Of course, you must also refer back to my discussion of yesterday to also understand that certain parts of Karaganda were not built to have snow on them – like the sidewalks. I consider it a victory that I did not fall once.

I have not shared one of our other daily activities. Each morning, Gma and I turn on the TV and watch “Morning Kazakhstan.” It started as a way to just have some background noise in the room, but it is odd to say that we enjoy it. It is very similar to the morning shows in the states. There appear to be two sets of hosts. One is a young girl and a very young boy we will call Tania and Sasha, since we have no idea what their names are. Also, there is another host we will call Rosie because of her similarity to a famous former talk show host in the States. They basically talk, interview guests, and introduce musical guests. There are a couple other women who appear to do the news. Our favorite time is when Sasha reads the newspaper to us. True, we have no idea what is going on, but it is fascinating watching.

The other interesting part of the show is that they mix it with music videos. As far as I can tell, the station we watch is MTV Russia or at least it is patched into it. There is the whole cornucopia of pop music types – singers of love songs, dance music, techno, boy bands, pop Britney/Christina types, etc. But, also included are obvious Kazakhstan based performers. There is the multicultural boy band duo made up of a boy of Russian decent and a boy of Kazakh decent. There are the two women in long white veils and high cone hats. Two of my favorites are the group I call the Three Kazakh Men because they wear traditional Kazakh clothing and they never give their names and the man who plays the dombra, a Kazakh instrument similar to mandolin with two strings. Many of the videos have medieval themes to them, telling some story from the nomadic, warrior times of the Kazakh people – lots of fur, horses, spears and yurts, a round tent. There is also a definite emphasis on family with a lot of children in them. The last performer I mentioned is all instrumental, but his video tells of a woman who disguises herself as a warrior and participates in a joust. Sadly, she is killed and her opponent (or is it her lover?) discovers she was a woman. She floats off for her burial. It is amazing how much you can eventually figure out when you see the same videos over and over. I have to say – the music is starting to grow on me.

Of course, one of our less exciting daily rituals is the electricity going out. It went out today for the third straight day. I am not sure what is happening, but I can’t really call the electric company to complain. Luckily, it has not been a big deal.

On the home front, we have now reach two developmental milestones for both kids. Both can now pull themselves up in their cribs and take their bottles all on their own. Grace can only hold about half the bottle, but once she reaches that, she takes it on her own. She enjoys herself so much, that she actually ends up drinking more. The standing up has led to one issue – the getting down. Sometimes they will climb up, but be afraid to get down, so they scream. Unfortunately, they have done this a few times at the beginning of a nap and it is hard to get them to settle down for their nap. Ah well, two steps forward, one step back.

We only have a few pictures today. Check them out.