More sites around Astana

I went for a walk/jog this evening to the park along the river. It is about a 10-15 minute walk from our apartment. Along the river is a carnival area with some rides and midway type games. There is also a beach area along the river. Yesterday afternoon I saw people swimming there.

Welcome to Kazakhstan- Home of the apple

These are photos I took on a walk this evening. I walked around the big block that our apartment building is in, so they are all taken within 20 minutes of our apartment. The big tent looking thing is a indoor recreation area. I've been told there is a swimming pool in there, and it only cost $50 dollars to swim.
The school is only a ten minute walk from our apartment. I'm starting to get a feel for the city; there is a great coffee shop/English language book store about a ten minute drive away. Thry te driving is a little crazy; there are no left turn lights so it is kinda of every driver for themselves while trying to turn.
Most of my time so far has been spent preparing the classrooms. The school is moving to a new building this year so there is a lot of small things to take care of like making sure each classroom has a clock and trash can. We have also been interviewing people for teaching aid jobs.
I'll be teaching a couple of 10 year old (5th grade) classes in the morning and the afternoon will be spent on my admin duties. Nina will be teaching the 7 year old class in the morning and HS/MS art in the afternoon. She has the biggest classroom in the entire school (she also has the biggest class).
I'll try to post here more regularly this year. If you are lucky I might even post some summer pictures/videos if I get around to it.

summer videos

This is a video of our last couple of weeks in China- June 2010



This is a video of Sadie at Granddad and Babi's house- June 2010



This is part two of Sadie's summer in Iowa




This is a video of Sadie in Arkansas

Video from Christmas Break

Here is a short video of photos from our Christmas break.

Things are good here. We are staying busying and booking all of our weekends with trips and activities that we want to do before leaving China.

Photos from Christmas break

Here are a smattering of photos from Christmas break back in the US. Some highlights include Sadie learning to walk, the first white Christmas in Arkansas in many years, Iowa's big Orange bowl win and accepting our new jobs in Astana Kazakhstan. We are back in China and looking at everything with a touch of nostalgia now that we know we are leaving.

Next Stop, Astana Kazakhstan!

Last weekend we accepted jobs at Astana International School in Astana, Kazakhstan. We'll be moving there in August. It is the second coldest capital city in the world. John will be admin and Nina will be teaching 2nd grade. We hope to post more along with pictures of Christmas in the US soon.

This sounds like where we will be spending a lot of our winter once it is completed.

Khan Shatyry ("Royal Marquee") is a giant transparent tent currently under construction in Astana, the capital city ofKazakhstan. The architectural project was unveiled by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on 9 December 2006.

The 150m-high (500 ft) tent has a 200m elliptical base covering 100,000 square meters.^[1] Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football stadiums, will be an urban-scale internal park, shopping and entertainment venue with squares and cobbled streets, a boating river, shopping centre, minigolf and indoor beach resort. The roof is constructed fromETFE suspended on a network of cables strung from a central spire. The transparent material allows sunlight through which, in conjunction with air heating and cooling systems is designed to maintain an internal temperature between 15-30°C in the main space and 19-24°C in the retail units, while outside the temperature varies between -35 to +35°C across the year.

We can finally blog from China again now that we have a proxy! Sadie is growing like an okra. She is crawling all over and even up the stairs. Her two top teeth finally busted through and she is sleeping through the night again. Thank God!!! It is finally getting cold here too. After a sweltering fall we're really ready to get out the sweaters and slippers. Sadie had her first Halloween. We borrowed a duckie costume that she wore (sort of) and I borrowed a wig and a clown hat and John had a scream mask. It was all a little too overwhelming for Sadie. She hated being a duck. The scream mask made her cry and I was unrecognizable to her in my wig and hat and she didn't want me to hold her. So we were mostly not in costume at our Halloween party.

The Chinese man holding her is Lao He, our school handy man and Sadie's nannies husband. He is baby crazy and Sadie is now comfortable enough with other people to let him hold her. The sleeping man in the last picture was in a park by our house, completely fast asleep on his rock. We feel just like that alot these days, but haven't found such comfortable rocks around yet.